Half a bob off plumb

It’s been one of those weird weeks when the moon should have been full. But it wasn’t. Perhaps the 100 plus degree heat an 99.999997% humidity have steamed the brains of Middle Georgians.  Poor Richard doesn’t know exactly what it is, but things are slightly askew here . . . to paraphrase my buddy Bob Galloway, the curmudgeon, the entire town is about “half a bob off plumb.”

Item One

I didn’t get to meet her, but right hand man Brian said that she looked relatively normal when she walked through the doors of the printshop behind the red awnings on Poplar (name carefully concealed to avoid disrupting the peaceful sleep of the powers that be at the franchise . . . hint, sounds like Gralpharaphics).  She explained to Brian that she was opening a new business and needed letterhead, envelopes, business card, etc. This used to be a fairly common occurrence at printing companies, and Brian looked forward to serving a new customer.

It’s not uncommon that a new customer will ask the price of a product before they provide a description of it.  While it is possible to quote a price that will cover most contingencies, I’ve yet to find a customer who will accept an estimate of “probably somewhat less than $10,000,” without question.  Standard operating procedure is to try to narrow the description a bit and find a solution that is reasonably in line with the customer’s expectations and budget.

Brian attempted and ascertained that the customer would like to use paper for her letterhead and envelopes and would also like her symbol on it.  She specifically said “symbol,” not logo or wordmark or even image. She wanted her symbol on the letterhead . . . in color . . . and (as she glanced and pointed at a presentation folder on our display rack) “smashed into the paper like that.”

Skeptical that the cost of embossing a process color logo on a short run of letterhead would be practical for a new business, Brian started to suggest alternatives. The customer was adamant. What she wanted was her symbol smashed into the letterhead, business cards and envelopes. Ever helpful, Brian offered to run down prices and asked if the customer had her logo as a digital file that we could use . . . or at least something that we could look at to help us prepare the estimate.  The customer fumbled a bit, then reached in her purse, removed her billfold and then her drivers license.

“That’s it,” she exclaimed, pointing at the photo on the license. “That’s my symbol. That’s what I want!”

Brian, ever mindful of the endless time and patience available to the printshop owner, deferred to Poor Richard and told the customer that I would follow up with her.  I haven’t contacted her yet, but I do have an idea. Perhaps something like this might work?

Credit: http://www.freakingnews.com

Item Two

Three paragraphs, bullet points, and numbers. Poor Richard is probably going to get in big trouble with this one, because the customer is going to read this blog, identify himself, and get supremely ticked off!

Here’s the text of the email we received:

Whereas, from time to time revisions are made to documents created for Amalgamated Peanut Butter and Jelly Roll Company (APB&J Rollco), and said documents are printed and archived by Gralpharaphics of Macon, the aforesaid company (APB&J Rollco) wishes to indicate the occurrence of revisions to each document produced and to verify the currency of each revision prior to production of duplications, reprints, or new and unique iterations of each printed version or versions.

Because the temporality of the aforementioned documents is currently not indicated, this may currently counterindicate the currency of our current versions. In fact, our customers have occasionally called the currency of our current versions into question due to the lack of an evidential indicant that the version they received was indeed correct and produced contemporaneously with the latest APB&J Rollco product described within.

Our goals are thus:

• to accurately indicate the current version
• to convey this clearly to our customers
• to assure that the latest iteration of each document is indeed the current version
• (to confuse the pants off of the folks at Gralpharaphics)

To that end we require that your company immediately implement the following changes as pertain to the documents and versions of documents you currently produce, have produced in the past, or might conceivably produce in the future for APB&J Rollco:

1. Indicate the current version on the document
2. Do this in such a way that the temporality of the version is conveyed to each customer
3. Destroy, delete, or otherwise dispense with document versions that are untemporal or not current

Many thanks for the services you render for APB&J Rollco and for your prompt attention to this matter.

–Name withheld in the vain hope that Poor Richard will go undiscovered.

Admittedly, Poor Richard has elaborated a bit . . . but not a lot.  The actual email we received from our good, but very precise, customer was almost as complicated as the gobbledygook inserted above and did require a phone call to ascertain exactly what the customer wanted . . . a date entry at the bottom of each form we produce to indicate the latest revision.

Item Three

The customer was absolutely serious. So serious in fact that he noted a specific instruction on the proof copy that he faxed back to us and on his email approval of the final proof.  We’ve produced shells similar to the one the customer wanted many times. A shell is  boilerplate language (and sometimes a form image) that can be fed through a laser printer to overprint the specifics of a contract, invoice, etc.

In this case, we were asked to print 5000 copies on one side. Presumably the specifics would be printed on the other. There was no specific paper requirement . . . we printed on 60# offset text (no watermarks).

The instruction:  Please make sure that this information is printed on the back of the paper.

I think we did OK. We stacked all 5000 copies printed side down in the boxes and delivered them to the customer.  He thought we were wonderful!

Times are still rough in the printing business, but it laughter is a great diversion. Isn’t life grand?

A Modest Proposal

Way back in the early 1700s, Jonathan Swift wrote a clever essay entitled “A Modest Proposal.” If my recollection serves me well, it was directed at the concurrent problems of poverty and population growth in Ireland. Swift’s hyperbolically satirical solution was simple . . . sell the children as foodstuff.

Swift maintained that the market for the delicacy was adequate, though the price might be somewhat steep:

“I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.”

Could it be that our paternalistic leaders in Washington D.C., tiring of the practice of insignificant populist one-upmanship, have finally come upon the holy grail of dissipation? It seems that they’re now willingly selling our children to finance their own political (and assuredly financial) well-being.

Meager billion dollar pork-barrel projects (a la Senator Byrd) have become passe. I mean, what’s an FBI crime lab or two in comparison to a $600 billion dollar distribution of political largess?

And there’s really no need to face up to the problems we’re creating right now, is there? Surely very few of the respected Senators or Representatives hope to live long enough to even see a small dent made in the Federal debt. It’s our children they’re selling anyway . . . why should they care?

The market for children has changed a bit, too. Rather than selling our kids as delicacy for persnickety aristocrats, instead they’ve been sold piecemeal to China, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. But we don’t have to deal with that uncomfortable fact right now, do we? So, let’s just mint a little more money, increase the debt another trillion or so and leave the problem of how to pay it back to the next generation.

Let’s do the math. As I figure it, $600 billion divided by the population of the U.S. (roughly 300 million), comes to only roughly nearly precisely $2,000 per capita. For a small family like mine, with nine (including grandparents) in the household, we’ll only have to cough up $18,000 to pay off this bit of Congressional generosity. That’s really only chicken feed compared to the total obligation owed by our country. According to the The National Debt Clock , the per capita debt at 6:47 EST this evening (November 22, 2008) stood at $34,946.20. For my family, that’s a note of only $314,515.79.

In all fairness, the debt is owned by all kinds of different entities. 22% is owned by foreign and international investors. Roughly 4% is owned by some of the same domestic banks that are currently being bailed out. If you have Savings Bonds, you actually have bought up some of the very debt that you owe . . . take a minute and think that one over.

Here’s the point. It’s not just that we’re electing the wrong people to Congress. We are. But we’ve developed a political system that virtually guarantees that the last thing an ethical, responsible and honest human being will do is run for public office. Take the current Senate campaign in Georgia as an example . . . but I digress.

Back to the proposal. Let’s cut to the chase . . . let’s have an end to our politicians and their Lilliputian attempts to solve our country’s difficulties. Poor Richard proposes a sheerly Brobdingnagian solution . . . let’s sell the children outright! It’s reasonable, even if it does involve a little slavery or indentured servitude. We’ve incurred a debt for them, why not offer them up on the open market and turn some of the debt they owe into cold, hard cash? After all, what’s the likelihood that a 10 year old will ever be able to pay off the debt that our leaders are obligating them to? Sell them to the rich.

We should take this action sooner, rather that later; while the value of a small child still exceeds the $34,000 in debt that they owe.

Acknowledging my obligation to Swift, I’ll end with his words:

I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the
least personal interest in endeavouring to promote this necessary
work, having no other motive than the publick good of my country,
by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the
poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children,
by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being
nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing.*

*With tongue firmly in cheek, my youngest is 12 and far too contrary to make a good servant and while my lovely bride is still of childbearing age, a crafty surgeon precluded this option for us several years ago.