[5547] in APO Printshop
Re: Wedding invitations - late fees + accepting jobs
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Cat Thu Nguyen Huu)
Tue Jan 20 00:08:20 2009
Cc: apo-printshop@mit.edu
From: Cat Thu Nguyen Huu <catthu@MIT.EDU>
To: "Leonard H Tower Jr." <tower@alum.MIT.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64L.0901181814170.32496@w20-575-82.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:07:59 -0500
Short version: if we want to progress in our goal of making the
printshop service more well-known at MIT, I'd be more concerned about
how we look from the outside than whether other people understand the
printshop operation or not.
Long version: (+ paragraphs about the current jobs at the end)
> it is more important, that potential customers understand that
> letterpress printing is very labor intensive.
> that is is NOT like using a word processor and a computer printer.
> that every character is on a physical piece of metal, that needs to
> be hand assembled, and dis-assembled.
> that every piece of paper needs to be feed and taken out of the
> press by hand
> and that there are other steps that take a lot of time
While most customers who actively want their print jobs to be done
this way are likely to know some differences between the press and a
laser printer, I don't think we should assume that everyone
understands the labor-intensiveness, nor should we try to give them
some insights on our internal operations. "It takes 10 hours or more
to do this job" is a reasonable thing to say, but beyond that I'll
just let them arrive at their own conclusions. I think compassion is
not to be expected in a money-involved business, even when the
business is charged at-cost, because it doesn't matter whether the
money part is profitable or not, if there's monetary payment there
will be expectations . For examples, pretend that we don't charge the
operating cost:
1/ The customer supplies cardstocks and ink, we print for them for free
2/ The customer doesn't supply anything, and we charge them for the
materials
Although 1/ and 2/ are the same thing for us, it doesn't have the same
psychological effect on the other party.
> * it has always been the policy of the press shop that
>
> ONLY QUALIFIED PRESS OPERATORS CAN ACCEPT JOBS
>
> not the press shop manager
> not the service vice president
> not a chapter officer
> not God ; - }
Talking about psychological effects, if one of our goals is to put the
printshop back on regular operation within the extent where we can
afford, telling the customer "I can't accept jobs because I'm just the
manager, not an operator, and I can't tell you whether we'll accept
this job or not until an operator decides to accept it" doesn't look
very good either. I believe most customers will value a clear "No"
much more than that ambiguity; and from our side, a clear "No" also
looks much better than letting the answer hanging there. In the
former, if I were a customer, at least the next time when I wanted to
print something, I would try again because it wouldn't hurt to do. But
if the latter were the case, trying would cost me time that I wouldn't
have to waste if I used other more reliable services. The best thing I
think I can do about this is to send an email to apo-printshop to ask
if anyone can get the job done within the time the customer give us,
and assume that APO brothers are responsible enough to not to say yes
and suddenly decide that they don't have time. In case no one thinks
they can, then either I will do it or it will be a no.
> * late fees have never been good in getting customers to give us
> enough notice.
> they create an expectation, that the APOster letterpress shop can
> get work done on short notice, if the customer is willing to pay
> more.
> when the reality is:
> getting a job printed depends on a qualified press op having the
> time to do the job
So, just like having a fee doesn't guarantee that the job will be
taken, having a late fee doesn't guarantee that a lately-noticed job
will be taken, it means that in case it is there will be a late fee
associated due to the inconvenience for the operator. If late fees are
just not good in general and make us look more like a profiting
business than a self-maintaining service, then I suggest we eliminate
them altogether.
</ long version>
I understand Len's concerns about giving high-quality jobs to
trainees, although I'd like to note that as a trainee I'd prefer
something difficult and useful to something easy but relatively
unnecessary. A reasonable compromise is to give the job to qualifying
runs only, which will allows the trainee to get enough practice
before. Or vice versa, give the job to the training runs only, because
in the training run the trainer is likely to do the majority of the
job anyways. I'm not sure which approach is better.
Talking about which, I'd like to kindly note that currently we're
having two people wanting to be trained/qualified, which fits nicely
with the two jobs we have (and no, I did ask and Anne doesn't want the
envelopes printed).
Cat
On Jan 18, 2009, at 6:36 PM, Leonard H Tower Jr. wrote:
> * it has always been the policy of the press shop that
>
> ONLY QUALIFIED PRESS OPERATORS CAN ACCEPT JOBS
>
> not the press shop manager
> not the service vice president
> not a chapter officer
> not God ; - }
>
> * the press shop manager has to try and find press ops to do jobs,
> NOT ACCEPT JOBS
>
> * if a press shop manager (psm) who is a press operator accepts a job,
> then he/she should be sure they have the time to do it for the
> customer by the time the customer needs it
>
> it's ok for the psm to try to get another press operator to do the
> job, even trying to get a journeyman and a wantabe press op together
> to get a training or qualifying run completed
>
> * late fees have never been good in getting customers to give us
> enough notice.
> they create an expectation, that the APOster letterpress shop can
> get work done on short notice, if the customer is willing to pay
> more.
> when the reality is:
> getting a job printed depends on a qualified press op having the
> time to do the job
>
> when we had many press ops who could print, it was a way to earn a
> little more money for the press fund.
> but we haven't had this many press ops in a long time
>
> it is more important, that potential customers understand that
> letterpress printing is very labor intensive.
> that is is NOT like using a word processor and a computer printer.
> that every character is on a physical piece of metal, that needs to
> be hand assembled, and dis-assembled.
> that every piece of paper needs to be feed and taken out of the
> press by hand
> and that there are other steps that take a lot of time
>
> a short way of saying this, is to tell the customer it could take a
> volunteer ten hours or more to do their print job
>
> * btw, i dislike training or qualifying on jobs that need high
> quality.
> though i do do it.
> it's hard for a novice to do a high quality job the first or second
> time out.
> which means, i do more of the real work, and they have less of a
> learning experience
>
> yiLFS -len
>
> ps: i suspect that the time frame Anne has for her wedding invitations
> will allow Cat to get me or Lori to use Anne's jobs for training or
> qualification runs, but maybe not ...
