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?

The Recurring Full Moon Phenomena

It’s been a while. I’ve been out of sorts with nothing good to say, so I’ve ignored the blog altogether. After a couple of good months at the end of 2009, Poor Richard fell back into panic mode as business disintegrated at the printshop behind the red awnings on Poplar Street. January 2010 was bleak. I had just begun a serious study of biblical eschatology when the last day of February rolled around and all of our customers woke up at the same time.

I’m thinking it’s the moon. I’ve written about this before (see Poor Richard’s post The Full Moon). Last time, I discussed the deleterious effects of  minute changes in the force of gravity on machines and those who operate them. This time, I’d like to consider the tidal effect on the minds of the folks who visit our Gralpharaphics “business center.” (The franchise, who shall nevermore be named in this blog, became disenchanted with printshops a year or two ago and decided that we would henceforth become “business centers.”)

The moon was full on February 28th and the orders came rolling in. All of the work that our customers had decided they didn’t need in January and the first 27 days of February, they now needed immediately on March 1st.  It’s not that the tight deadlines are all that unusual, but there were small oddities about several of the orders. Just for entertainment, Poor Richard is pleased to provide you with a few snippets from the past couple of days:

“I gave you my business card as a .jpg. What do you mean you can’t blow it up into a 24 x 36 poster?”

“My last printer closed down. I had been doing this business with him for a while and he wasn’t charging me much. I was hoping that you’d be less expensive.”

“No, the order for 10,000 rack cards went to another shop; but we need you to donate 1,000 posters. Is that a problem?”

“All of their salespeople quit. They decided not to do the mailout because there wouldn’t be anyone to respond to the leads.”

It’s not quite the Twilight Zone, but things are a little bizarre. I answered the phone at lunchtime on Friday. “Do you do raffle tickets?” queried the voice on the line.

“Yes, ma’am, we’ve been known to,” I responded.

“Well, how much do they cost?” said the voice. Even with the sure knowledge that I could not be seen through the telephone, Poor Richard made a conscious effort not to roll my eyes and began to launch into his memorized series of questions regarding quantity, size, paper, numbering, perforations, etc.; only to be interrupted in mid sentence:

“My baby’s in a pageant, and I just need some raffle tickets.”

What kind of person raffles off their baby in a pageant?

We delivered 5000 sets of a stapled document to a customer on Friday – 4 sheets, 2 sides, stapled. This morning they called and said that they had counted the order and were 25 sets short. Poor Richard found it peculiar that anyone would actually take the time to count 5000 sets of copies and also a little dubious that they were short. The job is simple and familiar. We send the file to the big black and white machine manufactured by the nearly palindromatic company that begins and ends with X. The quantity is specified in the print job. The machine prints and staples, the documents are boxed and delivered. The machine log indicates that 5005 copies were produced. Poor Richard is certain that the missing 30 copies were transported into a parallel universe.

About the poster sized business card . . .  we printed it. When we explained that it would not print clearly at 24 x 36, we were instructed to repeat it as many times as possible on a 24 x 36 board. We printed it 90 times with a pretty blue background on a nice piece of foamcore for the customer to put on an easel.

It may be the full moon, or  perhaps terrorists have injected hallucinogenic drugs into the water supply in Macon. Poor Richard isn’t sure, but he’s happy to be busy even if the orders are a little odd.

Isn’t life grand?

OK, Let’s see if we can get this straight

“My sorority is sponsoring a beauty pageant,” says the well spoken young lady at the counter, “we’d like you to do the program for us.”

“And we’d love to do the program,” says Poor Richard, because this is exactly the kind of job that the printshop behind the red awnings (Gralpharaphics . . . use of real name discouraged by the franchise) does really well.

“Can you give me an idea of how much it will cost?” asks the young lady.

It’s a very reasonable question. We discuss paper, whether the booklet will be in color or in black and white, and who will be doing the layout. Everything’s coming together smoothly until Poor Richard asks the devastating question, “and approximately how many pages will it have?”

The sorority president opens her mouth and all of a sudden she’s speaking Chinese and Poor Richard is speaking Latin! Neither of us understand the other. Finally in exasperation, she holds up her fingers. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven . . . counts Poor Richard.

“Es tut mir leid, aber Bücher mit sieben Seiten kommen nicht,” exclaims Poor Richard. Booklets don’t come with seven pages (or if they do, p. 8 is blank).

“Jeg er redd JEG ikke gjør det oppfatte i det hele tatt,” responds the young lady in Norwegian. She doesn’t understand at all.

“Animal, vegetable, or mineral?” I ask with a smile on my face.

It happens all the time. A customer is counting sheets and I’m counting pages. I get 16 and she gets 4. Let’s see if we can get this straight.  We’re going to look at a quickly designed sheet with four pages on it.

Single Page

So, here’s Page 1. We’re going to assume that the finished size of our little folding document is the size of a standard sheet of paper, 8 1/2 x 11 inches.  That means that a page measures 8 1/2 x 11 inches.

A page is printed on one side and in many (but not all) publications is assigned a number.  Page numbers are very convenient if you wish to use a table of contents or list topics in an index at the back of a book.  They’re also extremely helpful to the folks who operate the bindery equipment that puts booklets together. It’s their responsibility to make sure that Page 5 follows Page 4 and is succeeded by Page 6.

Our illustration uses only one sheet, but the same principles follow in a larger booklet, which by definition has more 8 pages/2 sheets or more. Typically, a booklet is stapled or saddle stitched in the center. Because there are four pages to a sheet and all of the sheets collate (nest) together and are folded to make a booklet, this means that arranging the pages on the sheets is an art unto itself. This arrangement is called imposition. The sheet size for an 8 page booklet with a finished size of 8 1/2 x 11 is 11 x 17. Two pages are positioned side by side on each side of each sheet. 4 pages are positioned on each sheet (2 to a side). In an 8 page booklet, page 1 and page 8 would be positioned on the same side of the same sheet. Page 1 is the front page and page 8 is the last. On the inside of the sheet would be pages 2 and 7. This arrangement is called a printer’s spread and is probably a little further on up the road than we want to go in this post.

Inside Spread/Reader's Spread

So, back to our illustration. Here are pages 2 and 3, which take up the inside of the sheet.  In a booklet, these would be the center spread and because the pages are in order, the spread is called a reader’s spread. In a booklet with more than one sheet, the pages in a reader’s spread would actually lie on different sheets. The center spread always contains two sequential pages on the same side of one sheet. This is a good thing to know for designers, because it’s always safe to place an image across the pages on the center spread.  It might not work so well on other pages where the alignment of the sheets may not be exact. Confused yet?

OK, two pages on one side of a sheet. Now let’s look at the other side of the sheet.

Outside Pages/Printers Spread

You’ve seen Page one earlier in this post. In our example, page one is backed by Page 2 and Page 4 is backed by Page 3. Four pages to a sheet.  In a booklet, fronts and backs will always be sequential, but left and right facing pages (on the same side of the sheet) will only be sequential on the center spread. Now you understand why the sorority president was speaking Norwegian.

Here’s the good news . . . you don’t have to worry about imposition. Deliver your booklet to your printer in page order (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) and let them worry about setting it up for print.  We’ve done it before and we’ll usually get it right.

Here’s what you should remember from all of this . . .

• A page is what you read. One side finished size. One half of one side of a sheet.
• 4 pages to a sheet in a booklet
• Tell your printer how many pages, not how many sheets.
• Use your fingers and get an interpreter if necessary.

Finally, page numbers are good. When you’re thoroughly confused you can just check the page numbers to find out if everything is in order. Verstanden?

Isn’t life grand?

Insincere apologies to Brian, Todd and the memory of Alfalfa.

Expose’

The phrase that kept coming to mind was “showin’ tail,” which can be defined as either the southern pronunciation of that age old and established grammar school activity where every student brings a frog or a doll or a younger sibling to talk about; or the presumably accidental revelation of the anterior part of the anatomy.

This one’s liable to get Poor Richard into big trouble. It’s not just that I’m making fun of a customer (again), but this time it’s a church. Worse, it’s my church.  I’ve resisted writing this short entry for a couple of weeks now and I guess I could resist some more. Or, I could use Flip Wilson’s excuse, “The devil made me do it!”

The church that beautiful wife and I attend is a small town congregation. It is a friendly, loving group of folks for the most part, with the occasional unpresentable member Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 12. Like many small congregations, there are many folks there who “do church” on Sunday, a few who are really into church work, and some who really want to find out where God is working and join in.  It’s the last group that I’m probably going to be in the biggest trouble with, because what I’m writing about is their undertaking.

The undertaking is undeniably good.  It is Celebrate Recovery, which started as a ministry for those suffering with addictions at Saddleback Church. There has been a Celebrate Recovery program in Warner Robins, a larger city to the north of Perry where I live, but nothing in south Houston County, despite the fact that Perry is indeed the center of both the known and unknown universe.

Enough rambling . . . after all, it should have been a simple enough task.  Poor Richard was asked to print and mail a postcard advertising the new ministry.  All well and good . . . at least until the art came in.  The photo of an obviously distressed woman weeping in front of a closed door was effective. It conveyed a message of desperation and would perhaps lead someone in that state to search for an answer beyond themselves.

But one aspect of the photo was just a bit distracting. The woman pictured is wearing a nightshirt and is sitting with her legs propped at an angle.  Technically speaking, she isn’t actually “showin’ tail,” but to continue in Southern vernacular, “she purty near is.”

I actually don’t know where the photo and concept came from. It’s possible that it could have been supplied by Saddleback Church as part of the promotional package for Celebrate Recovery.  If so, maybe the definition of “nearly nekkid” is different in Rancho Chimichanga, California or wherever it is that the megachurch is located. It is also possible that one of the ladies at our church found the photo and thought it appropriate.  Not having a depraved male mind, I suppose they could have missed the distracting part.

It really doesn’t matter much . . . Poor Richard’s never been much on printing photos of scantily clad women.  Not that we haven’t been asked. I’ve turned down a calendar job or two over the years and an exotic dancer once threatened to sue me for not printing postcards featuring her topless image.  (She really got angry when I told her that she looked better with her clothes on).  But I digress . . . this one just didn’t pass the propriety test, especially coming from my church.

I emailed the lady who had sent the art. “Approved by the pastor,” came the response.  Unfortunately, the pastor was out of town for a week and the postcard needed to hit the USPS before his return. I emailed a couple of respected leaders in the church. They agreed with me, but didn’t offer much in the way of suggestions.

Many of Poor Richard’s readers will understand that the way decisions are made in churches is unpredictable and occasionally unfathomable. Frequently, the cardinal rule of ecclesiastical decision-making is not to decide at all. So, after much prayer, some good advice and with godly wisdom and great courage; Poor Richard decided to sit on the project until the pastor returned.

What Poor Richard lacked  was only a bit of common sense. Fortuitously, the pastor brought some of that back with him from vacation.

“Put the church logo over her bottom,” was the essence of his short email response.

“Duh . . .” thought Poor Richard.

We did and the postcard was in the mail and not “showin’ tail.”

Let’s Talk

8:30 AM

“Need Pricing! Please Respond Quickly!” reads the subject line of the email.  Thinking that this might just be the order I’ve been waiting for all week, Poor Richard quickly opens the email in Thunderbird.

“My boss wants to do some postcards. How much will 1,000 be?”

“No clue,” responds Poor Richard’s brain as his eyes scan the rest of the post for more information, or at least a phone number to call.  Phone number found, fingers are dialing.

“Hi, you’ve reached the voicemail of (let’s call her Nancy Jean . . . don’t think I have any real customers called Nancy Jean) Nancy Jean, I’m not able to come to the phone right now, but if you’ll leave a message, I’ll get back with you just as quickly as possible.”

“Nancy Jean, it’s Richard at AlphaGraphics.  I received your inquiry by email.  I’ll be happy to get you some numbers on the postcards, but I’ll need some details.  Specifically, if you’ll let me know the size you’d like, whether they will be in color or black and white, coated or uncoated paper, who will be providing the art, and whether you’d like us to mail them.  Let me know and I’ll get back with you as quickly as possible.”

On to other things.

9:45 AM

“Need Pricing! Please Respond Quickly!”

“Haven’t I seen this before?” says Richard’s brain.

“Got your voicemail. Let’s do regular postcard size in color. Thanks, Nancy Jean.”

“Just quote something,” says Poor Richard’s brain, “maybe it’ll turn into an order. We need an order.”

The fingers follow instructions and produce an estimate for 1000 4.25 x 6 postcards on gloss cover. Still hoping beyond hope for something like a real job, the fingers include pricing for mail services. Because Poor Richard’s brain still has no clue about the design of the postcard, the fingers include the standard AlphaGraphics caveat:

Prices are for production only.  Additional charges will apply for layout, design, or file modifications required before printing.

“Nancy Jean,” says Poor Richard’s brain,” what that means is that I still don’t know what you want to do or what will be required to do it.”

It’s 10:00 am when Poor Richard clicks the send button.

12:15 pm – lunchtime. Check the email.

“RE: FWD: Need Pricing! Please Respond Quickly!”

“Richard, can you help with this?” writes Nancy Jean, responding to her boss’ terse notation:

“Nancy Jean, you’ve got to do better than this!”

Poor Richard’s fingers dial once again.

“Hi, you’ve reached the voicemail of  Nancy Jean, I’m not able to come to the phone right now, but if you’ll leave a message, I’ll get back with you just as quickly as possible.”

“Right,” thinks Poor Richard’s brain. “Nancy Jean, I’ll send you a couple of alternatives that can reduce the cost a little. If you’ll please call me to discuss, I’d really appreciate it.”

Poor Richard’s fingers add color one side and black ink two sides to the estimate and press the send button. It’s 12:30.

3:00 PM – done with bindery work downstairs. Let’s check the email.

“RE: FWD: RE: RE: FWD: Need Pricing! Please Respond Quickly!”

“Can we do something bigger?” writes Nancy Jean.

“Isn’t 4.25 x 6 a little small for a postcard?” writes her boss. “How much would a bigger card cost?”

“Bummer,” says Poor Richard’s brain, now beginning to realize that this is likely to turn into nothing.  Poor Richard’s fingers revise the entire estimate for 5.5 x 8.5 cards. The postage estimate is revised to reflect the cost of mailing a larger card.

“Nancy Jean,” types Poor Richard’s fingers, ” here are revised estimates for larger cards. If you could please call me to discuss, I’d really, really appreciate it. We’d certainly like to help with your project and if you could call to discuss the project, I’m sure that we can find a way to make this work for you.” The fingers click send.  It’s 3:15 PM.

5:30 – Poor Richard is thinking about going home. Last check of the email. Sure enough . . .

“RE: RE: RE: FWD: RE: RE: FWD: Need Pricing! Please Respond Quickly!”

“Richard, we really need to get these postcards in the mail. Can you call me in the morning?”

8:15 AM the next morning. Poor Richard’s fingers are dialing.

“Nancy Jean, may I help you?” comes through the receiver. Poor Richard’s brain becomes momentarily hopeful again.

“Hi, Nancy Jean, this is Richard at AlphaGraphics. I’m calling about the postcards we corresponded about yesterday.”

“Oh, Richard,” says Nancy Jean, “we really needed to get those postcards in the mail yesterday. When we couldn’t get all the information we needed, the boss decided not to send them. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks for thinking of us,” says Poor Richard’s mouth.  Poor Richard’s brain isn’t working at all. “Please let me know if you decide to try again. And if you’ll let me know the budget, we’ll try our best to find a solution that will work for you.”

“Richard, you know my boss doesn’t work like that,” replies Nancy Jean. “Hope you have a good day today!”

“Nuff said,” says Poor Richard’s brain.

“Bye,” says Poor Richard.

Poor Richard’s fingers hang up the phone. Time to check email.  Maybe there will be an order there . . . we could really use a good order.

It’d be a lot funnier if it wasn’t true.

Of Boors and Business Cards

I was behind the counter when he walked in. He had a serious look on his face and was carrying on an animated conversation. At first, I actually thought he was talking to me. Then I saw the headset . . . just like Lieutenant Uhura from Star Trek. He made brief eye contact, then continued his conversation while impatiently circumnavigating our lobby. This went on for several minutes. He obviously wanted something and expected me to wait patiently for him to end his conversation. As time ticked on, I decided to write him a note.

“I’ll be in the back when you’re finished,” I wrote in bright red crayon on a sheet of paper, and left for the production area.

Mr. Webster defines a boor as a “rude and insensitive person.” I can think of no better example today of boorish behavior than the choice of the cell phone over the human being in front of you, especially when it comes to those damnable Bluetooth headsets. I’d like to propose some anti-rudeness legislation that would require every user of a cell phone to also affix a flashing red light to his skull. When a cell phone connection is established, the light will automatically begin to flash; signaling others around the user that he is preoccupied and can legitimately be ignored until the light quits flashing.

What I have in mind is something like this . . .

Back to the story. The important businessman finished his conversation, but continued his pacing. It was obvious that a visit to the printshop was beneath his dignity. He needed business cards. He had left the project up to his executive assistant, but she had been unable to accomplish it to his satisfaction; so he supposed he’d just have to take care of it himself.

My internal alarm bells were beginning to ring loudly as the businessman paused in mid tirade, reaching behind his ear. For a moment I thought that he had an itch, or maybe an intelligent thought. Perhaps he’d actually paid attention to the way he sounded and decided to temper his tone. Then I realized that it was the cell phone again. Our one-sided conversation was preempted once again.

Business cards are a bucket with a hole in the bottom of it. You pour time and energy in the top and watch the money run out of the hole at the bottom. Most printing companies view business cards as a necessary evil; at best a service for a good customer who depends on you for lots of different printing needs. Yet large accounts can be won and lost over the ridiculous little 2″ x 3.5″ strips of paper. We once gained a good account because the previous printer had messed up the president’s cards . . . but that’s yet another story.

The alarms started ringing when the important executive stated that his assistant couldn’t get his cards printed correctly. That’s what he said. What he meant was, “she couldn’t read my mind.” And neither could I.

I saw the imaginary red light atop his expensive haircut quit flashing. He reached in his coat  pocket, pulling out the information he wanted on his card and placing the scrap of paper on the counter. “Here’s what goes on the card,” he snipped. “The website’s listed right there . . . you can download our logo. How much will it cost and when can I have them?”

He almost began pacing again as I slowed him down to discuss colors, paper, quantity, and to try unsuccessfully to pin down how he wanted his cards to look.

“Make them look professional,” he snipped.

I explained that he would be sent a proof via email and that he would have to issue approval for the layout before the cards were printed. I gave him a price for a set of color business cards and explained the file format and size that we would need for the logo. I explained that the price included layout through the first proof and that additional charges would apply if changes or additional proofs were required.

“That won’t be necessary,” was the blunt answer, “I’m very decisive.” He reached behind his ear and walked out the door as the imaginary red light on his head began flashing once again.

That was 3 weeks and 4 proofs ago. The businessman’s color card is now reflex blue and has been rearranged to such an extent that I’m not even sure of his first name anymore. His poor executive assistant has been handling proofs and changes because he is too busy to attend to the details and she can’t get the man to make a decision. There is no way that we will ever recoup the time we have in layout.

The worst part is that the finished product is going to be anything but professional looking.

In my dreams, I have been picturing the busy executive on a trip to Japan, where they take business cards very seriously. Exchanging cards with a Japanese contact, our boorish executive bows and mutters the appropriate comment regarding the fine texture of the paper upon which the Japanese card is printed. The Japanese executive smiles and looks down at the card he has been given. He inhales sharply, trying to find the words that will allow him to complete the polite exchange. He is at a loss, but is luckily saved from embarrassment as the red light attached to our businessman’s skull begins flashing in his face.

Isn’t life grand?

Wedding Dreams (or Bridal Bête Noir)

It’s April. The weddings are in June. It’s time for the invitations to go out. The brides head for the printshop. Somehow they think that their invitations will come from there. I have news for them . . . we’re not part of their wedding dreams.

The books were large. They were part of the stuff that came with the franchise oh so many years ago. Someone in a tall ivory tower with only one very small window must have thought that it was a good idea. As a novice printshop owner, I didn’t know any different. The big books were put on display right out in front, near a small round table where the prospective bride (and her mom) could look at them.

There must have been at least a few exclamations of “Oh! you have wedding books!” to warn me before the first bride came in. I sat with her for about 3/4 hour, essentially answering the same questions over and over, before I had the good sense to let her take the monstrous book home to discuss with her mother. She then came back the next day to ask my opinion.

“Which do you think is more fashionable? The embossed invitation with the gold foil envelopes or this lovely lace border with the little pink bouquet? And do you think we should buy the napkins to match?”

That was just way beyond me. I have as much interest in wedding napkins as I have in Feng Shui. In fact, I think I have more interest in Feng Shui because it’s kind of fun to say. Feng Shui! I turned the whole process over to beautiful wife, who quickly decided that she was only going to work in the printshop one day per week and that she wasn’t going to tell me which day that would be.

The same bride and her mom came back repeatedly over the next couple of years. I became convinced that aliens had taken over their bodies, because they never looked the same and they used aliases each time they came through the door. But they were the same bride and mom. I know it for certain.

It was deja vu all over again until the day that a Party City store opened up in a new shopping center down the road. The alien bride and mom came through the door, oohed and sighed over the big invitation book, didn’t make up their mind and walked out the door with the 150 lb. wedding compendium in hand. When they came back the next day, though, they didn’t ask my opinion about the monogrammed swizzle sticks. Instead, they told me that Party City had the same book and that all of the invitations would be 30% off of the book price.

I kissed them both, trying to ignore the greenish alien scales that were showing through their possessed bodies. When they left, I praised God for his goodness and threw the massive books into the dumpster behind the shop.

We still get the requests. A lot of times they begin with the phrase, “I want to do something really special . . .” What that means is “I want you to do something really impossible that will tie up your entire staff for nine hours producing 75 of these things, then you’ll have to do it all over again because I’ll want to invite some more people to the wedding and I’ll need more.” Machine operators don’t tie bows with little fragments of pink ribbon. Their thumbs are too big. I found that out the hard way.

And we still do an occasional invitation, usually for someone we really like, who is really reasonable, who is not possessed by creatures from another planet, and who knows what they want. We run the rest of the aliens out of the shop with a hearty Feng Shui! and send them off to Party City.

Surviving Black Tuesday

When it gets so bad that you have to laugh, it’s pretty bad. I can write about it now. It’s a day later and it all looks different.

There are 8 of us at Alphagraphics. That’s a pretty small staff considering all of the stuff that goes through the shop. When one person is out, we can usually handle it; but when more than one are out it gets downright painful.

Rickie, our lead pressman, had told me about a funeral he needed to attend. An old friend in North Carolina had passed away, and he had been asked to speak at the services. He needed to leave at noon. Joe, who runs bindery, had to leave at 10:30 for another funeral. Our other pressman is Jamaal. At around 10:30, his neighbor called to inform him that a tree had landed on his house. (It’s true, I promise).

Sharon’s out making sales calls. That leaves me, Brian, Robert, and Chris. Robert’s got to do deliveries. Chris is getting married. His brain is already on honeymoon in the Caribbean. The phone starts ringing and doesn’t stop. Neither Brian nor I can do anything for talking with people about doing something. Deadlines are looming.

I almost forgot about Rose. Rose is retired, but likes to help out part time when we have extra stuff. She’s working on one of those big copy projects that we hate to do. The customer has brought in a pile of loose sheets, books, manuals, instructions, etc. and needs five copies of each of them. It’s about 10 hours work stapling, unstapling, putting stuff on the copier glass, pushing the green button and putting it all back together again. Rose is confused about it all and has lots of questions. I’m equally confused and am making up the answers as we go.

A customer calls with a problem . . . and it’s one of those that I’m really having a difficult time understanding. But the timing was perfect. There was no way to really make the day any worse.

The phone rings again. It’s a potential customer who has been recommended by a designer friend of ours. She wants us to design some letterhead and envelopes and she’s got lots of ideas. She’s going to send some of them over by email and could we put together a few designs for her? She’s being referred by a designer who doesn’t want to do the designs for her . . . smells like trouble to me.

In the middle of all of it, I’ve scheduled an interview. We’ve been looking for another outside salesperson for about 3 months and I’ve finally got what looks like a good candidate. Of course, I didn’t know that disaster would strike when I scheduled the meeting.

Don’t know how we got through it, but we did. And we actually got a few things accomplished and out the door. And I hired the interviewee (is that a word?). She was great in the interview. I was incoherent and she still wanted to work at Alphagraphics.

I love this job.

What about the good customers?

One of my favorite customers strolled in this afternoon with her monthly project. As is usual, she was smiling, happy and just charming to talk with.

“I read your website . . . you know, the poorrichard thing.” she said. “It’s interesting . . .”

“Uh Oh, I’m in big trouble now,” I’m thinking.

“What do you think that customer is going to think . . . you know, the one who called so many times . . . what’s she going to think if she reads that website?”

“Um, maybe she won’t see it?” I replied lamely.

“Or maybe she won’t know it was about her,” suggested my nice customer. “It might actually help her out.”

“Or maybe she won’t see it?” I replied lamely (again).

It got me thinking. Perhaps I was too quick to write about the problem children when the vast majority of our customers are a real pleasure to deal with. We do lots of jobs on a regular basis that just run like clockwork. And there are some customers that are just plain fun.

The one I’m writing about tonight will definitely recognize herself. Her name begins with a B and she works with a distributor based in Macon. B was actually one of the first people I called on before the shop even opened. She was interested, said that her company did a good bit of printing (they do) and that she would give us a try (she did).

B is amazingly organized. She keeps samples of everything. When she reorders a product, she even knows the invoice number and date from the last run. She is meticulous, very clear in her communications, and (thankfully) very forgiving when we screw up. And she laughs. She has a giggle that is infectious and a sense of humor that makes working with her a great joy.

As I recall, we did a couple of small jobs and then there was a business card order. I don’t know what happened with the ink, but it didn’t dry correctly. With a little effort, B was able to smear it with her fingers. I halfheartedly tried a half a dozen excuses: the oil on her hands, she was rubbing them too hard, the relative humidity was high, just leave ’em a couple of days and they’ll dry.

Finally, I took Oscar, my pressman at the time, over to see about the cards. I introduced him as Herr Doktor Oskar von Heidelberg. B played along. Oscar took the cards, rubbed them between his fingers, and came up with Pantone 300 blue ink.

“So, ve’ll have to do zem again.” he said in a horrible South Georgia German accent. We stuck the old cards in a cabinet . . . the ink never did dry.

You don’t have to worry about where you stand with B. If it’s not right, she’ll tell you. A couple of years ago, our pressman was out with surgery and I was left with the presswork. I ran some letterhead for B late one evening and the press was not being cooperative. I thought that I had gone through the job and removed the sheets that were misprinted, but I forgot B’s eye for color. She can spot shade differences that most human beings never notice and has the best eye for layout and balance of any of my customers. In fact, she’s really better than most of the design folks I’ve met.

The next afternoon the phone rang.

“Richard, this letterhead looks like “*/$$%??!!,” said the voice on the other end. “Who printed it?”

I recognized the giggle. “Um, me I guess,” I replied. I’m sure that she could see my face turning red through the phone.

“Think you better try again,” was the response.

She’s never forgotten either. Last year, we were discussing the timetable for a project and I mentioned that Rickie, our lead pressman, was going to be off for a day or two. “You’re not going to try to run the press again.” was blunt statement.

I shook my head sheepishly. “Um, no.”

“Good,” she replied, “that wasn’t a good idea.”

I wish we could clone her. Hope she reads this so she know’s she’s appreciated. Thank you B and K and the rest of our great customers!

How to make sure there’s something wrong with your print job – Part 2

The voice on the other end of the phone had become so very familiar to all of us over the past few days.

“I’m just calling to check on you,” she said.

“No, you’re not.” I thought. “Well, I’m doing just fine.” I said. I was going to make her ask.

“How’s my job coming?” she asked.

Looking at my watch, I thought, “Not too much differently than two hours ago, the last time you called.”

“We still haven’t seen the proof we talked about this morning,” I said. “Have you made the final revisions?”

“No, I had to show it to my supervisor so he could go over it. He hasn’t gotten it back to you yet?”

Trouble, right here in River City. The project had actually started well. We had plenty of notice. In fact, we knew the event was coming over a month ahead of time. We had discussed timetables, options for preparing the materials, deadlines. The customer had listened and nodded her head. We thought she understood. In retrospect, I now think she was sleeping.

The first sign of trouble was a missed deadline. The event was Tuesday. We had asked for all of the program materials, bios, and photos one week ahead of the event. On Monday, she called.

“I don’t have everything ready,” she said breathlessly. “You just can’t believe how busy it’s been here. If I get it to you by Wednesday afternoon, can we still have everything on Tuesday morning?”

I expect this call. Unless the customer has proved that they can actually stick to a schedule, we assume that they can’t and add a day. This also allows for mechanical problems, computer glitches, and the host of unknown gremlins that can and do attack without any forewarning.

“Wednesday afternoon will be OK, but we really will have to have everything in,” my standard answer. “It needs to be ready to go and we’ll have to turn the proof around really quickly to get it all done.”

I’m talking reality here. The customer made an affirming noise on the phone. I could picture her nodding. I still didn’t realize that she was asleep.

When Wednesday afternoon was nearly over, I called. She arrived at 12:45 pm Thursday with a sack full of folders. I listened patiently as she explained what she had done, making a list of what would have to be straightened out. I really hadn’t wanted to work over the weekend, and was seeing my Saturday morning vanish into a pile of paper. We had been discussing the job and the schedule at our daily meetings, so everything went right into prepress with a bright red “HOT” sticker on it.

It took her 20 minutes to drive back to her office, 5 minutes to get settled at her desk, and 30 seconds to dial the number. “How’s my job coming? Is the proof ready yet?”

Poor Richard’s law says that the more you call, the longer it takes. The customer’s calls continued on an almost hourly basis for the next 2 days. Everybody talked to her. It was difficult to work on her job (or anyone else’s) for answering the phone to tell her the current status. The revision count mounted throughout the day on Friday. We thought we were finished at the end of the day on Friday, but then she left work early without returning the proof. Monday morning early we had a promise that there were “just a few more little changes.” Then a two hour lull in telephone activity was followed by her surprise that her supervisor hadn’t returned the proof yet.

“When you get the proof, how long will it take you to run it? Can you deliver it to me this afternoon still?”

I’m incredulous. The project will take 7 hours run time plus 3 hours in bindery to assemble. At least it will run digitally and there’s no worry about ink drying. I explain that there is no possible way that the materials will deliver today. If the proof isn’t returned quickly with a signature, the job won’t deliver at all. We’re going to be working late and we’ll deliver in the morning before the meeting begins.

If I could receive color over the fax machine, the proof would have been bleeding red. Apparently, the supervisor didn’t like the changes our customer had made to his writing. He reverted most of it back to the version we had originally received.

The job got done. My right hand man, Brian, stayed late. Joe came in early. I put together books. The materials were delivered before the meeting began. I hope it was all OK. I can’t say with certainty that it was.

The phone’s been less insistent since the job was delivered, but I’m waiting for a call. One of the changes in one of the revisions was missed; or it wasn’t changed back. Why were we charged so much for layout and proofs?

I’m also waiting for a check. Poor Richard’s law says the bigger the rush, the slower the payment.

Ain’t life grand?