[5560] in APO Printshop
Re: Wedding invitations - late fees + accepting jobsy
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Leonard H Tower Jr.)
Wed Jan 28 19:34:13 2009
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 19:33:59 -0500 (EST)
From: "Leonard H Tower Jr." <tower@alum.MIT.EDU>
To: apo-printshop@MIT.EDU
cc: Mitchell E Berger <mitchb@MIT.EDU>, Jennifer Tu <jtu@MIT.EDU>,
Cat Thu Nguyen Huu <catthu@MIT.EDU>, Lori Tsuruda <lori@pmd.org>
In-Reply-To: <200901281649.n0SGnewL021498@byte-me.mit.edu>
i respectfully disagree with jtu and mitchb
though i'm happy to see cat fulfill her responsibilities
as print shop manager (psm) as she sees fit
the old practice works better for the client
why?
because if a press op takes the job right away,
the client only deals with one person.
and the psm has less to do
(delegation to either self-starters or assistants,
is good leadership)
it also encourages each press op to take more responsibility
(become responsible and a self starter),
which is leadership development
often the client will get faster response,
when a press op takes the job,
before the psm handles their email
it also provides more redundancy,
when a psm doesn't log in and handle all requests @ least once a day.
(the psm should make sure someone covers for them,
if they can't handle their email @ least once a day)
some psm's have "appointed" a co-psm to help them out
sometime a press-op steps forward,
if the psm appears to be absent
---
practice in the past has generally been:
the job request gets emailed to apo-printshop@mit.edu
if (a press op tells apo-printshop they take the job within a day or so)
then
press op talks with the client, and does the job
Cc:ing the psm on all relevant messages
(note Cc:ing apo-printshop includes the psm,
and there is not alot of traffic now)
else
if (the psm finds a press op)
then
press op talks with the client, and does the job
Cc:ing the psm on all messages
else
the psm tells the client, APOster can't do the job
endif
endif
the psm communicates with the client within a day or two of the
request, and as necessary after that about how the search is going
the psm decides how long to hold open a search,
depending on the client
the psm keeps an eye that the job is getting done
yiLFS -len
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 10:41:28 -0500 (EST)
From: Jennifer Tu <jtu@MIT.EDU>
> If it's not feasible or efficient for the PSM to act as a go-between among
> press ops and potential customers, then what's a more feasible and
> efficient way? How should a potential customer get in touch and communicate
> with a press operator?
I think it's really great that our new Press Shop Overlord is tackling this
problem :) If we do want to be serious about providing press shop services
as a service to the MIT community, we need to be able to say 'yes' or 'no' in
a reasonable period of time. Otherwise, efforts to publicize ourselves as a
service will be anti-effort, since word of mouth will just say "oh, they
never reply in a reasonable timeframe".
If we're not serious about providing this service, the Press Shop should
probably explicitly communicate to the chapter that it does not wish to be
advertised as a service to the MIT community.
--Jennifer
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:49:39 -0500
From: Mitchell E Berger <mitchb@MIT.EDU>
To: Jennifer Tu <jtu@mit.edu>
Cc: Cat Thu Nguyen Huu <catthu@mit.edu>, Lori Tsuruda <lori@pmd.org>,
apo-printshop@mit.edu
Subject: Re: Wedding invitations - late fees + accepting jobs
> > If it's not feasible or efficient for the PSM to act as a go-between among
> > press ops and potential customers, then what's a more feasible and efficient
> > way? How should a potential customer get in touch and communicate with a
> > press operator?
>
> I think it's really great that our new Press Shop Overlord is tackling
> this problem :) If we do want to be serious about providing press shop
> services as a service to the MIT community, we need to be able to say
> 'yes' or 'no' in a reasonable period of time. Otherwise, efforts to
> publicize ourselves as a service will be anti-effort, since word of mouth
> will just say "oh, they never reply in a reasonable timeframe".
>
> If we're not serious about providing this service, the Press Shop should
> probably explicitly communicate to the chapter that it does not wish to be
> advertised as a service to the MIT community.
What Jen said. The APO Printshop needs a reliable uniform external face
to people who approach us without knowing much about our internals (and
they shouldn't need to know much about our internals to hire us). I
think this is one of the most valuable and critical things that the
Printshop Manager can provide to help us actually be a respected service
that people make use of, and Cat is doing it well. We all know that
sending mail to a sizable list where there isn't someone clearly
designated as "in charge" and the people on the list have widely varying
degrees of hosage, lameness, and skills, results in inconsistent answers
or lack of replies because everyone figured it was someone else's problem.
Cat has accepted making us look responsive and responsible as her problem,
and she's tackling it successfully. I think we should be thanking her
for making us look good.
Mitch
