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| Posted on 5/12/08 at 03:39 AM | |
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I just did an order for the school where my wife works, and I do quite a bit of business with them so I don't want to sour things. To begin with, I shaved the price on the job to help out a little. After delivery, the sponsor said the shirts were great, more kids may want to order. I said I still had the job on the press, but I'd have to have an order of at least 30 in hand in 4 days to get the same price. She says she doubts she can get 30. Almost 2 weeks later, she emails me and say a girl said she never got her shirt, and that she (the sponsor) didn't count the shirts when she got them. Then dangles the prospect of the reorder if she can get the quantities up. Right off the bat I smell BS. I email her back and tell her I DID count them, when I received the blanks, and as I folded them to deliver, but I'd double-check everthing just to make sure. All shirts ordered (including extras) accounted for, no misprints, so the job delivered as ordered. I emailed her back and said everything was accounted for, but that perhaps while the student put in a request for a shirt, it never made it to the list I got. I figured this would give them a graceful way out. I also told her that had this come up LAST WEEK while the job was still on press while I held it open in case she came up with another 30 shirts, I'd have printed the disputed shirt AS A GOODWILL GESTURE. I think the whole "missing shirt" thing was BS (as did my wife). The job was 2-colors over an underbase, 2 sides. That's six screens, plus set-up, plus reclaim to print one shirt that suddenly was "missing" almost 2 weeks after delivery. Now, if I had found that I'd mis-counted what I delivered, I'd have set the job up and printed the damn thing, but I wasn't about to do it when I know I was being bullsh!tted. That was the end of the story. I think the sponsor (who is sort of a sap, according to my wife) figured out that the student was full of it and just wanted a shirt that was no longer available. I have an order in hand from the same sponsor for an offset print job, so apparently I didn't piss her off. Anyway, I'll bust my hump to make sure my stuff is correct, but I'm not gonna cave everytime someone says, "I got shorted". They think it's no big deal to print a shirt. I'd be more sympathetic if they'd just admit they didn't order enough, or ask what it would take to order one more. Hell, I set up and printed a 2-color on white job for a teacher who simply requested a new shirt in a different size because she ordered the wrong size for herself. She said let her know how much. I GAVE IT TO HER. It was an easy job and she was honest. As others have said, bend over backwards, just don't bend over. | |
  
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