Print’s Past: Customers from hell

I asked: “How do you know?” 

“Well the delivery boy didn’t have much on and I thought one of the boxes was a bit light so I got him to count them.” 

“How much do you pay him?” 

“That’s my affair.” 

“Yes, but if there are 70 short that’s about $2.50 worth and if you calculate the time he took to count them… Anyway, there are two issues. One is that there’s always going to be some spoilage, and if I have to order another box of 500 envelopes to cover the spoilages, the cost to you is going to go up. Second, I trust the counter on my printer more than your delivery boy.” 

“I’ll get him to count them again.” 

Next time I saw Stephen, the delivery boy, he said: “He made me count them again!” 

“Well it’s your own fault, you should have told him the number was right.” 

In the end, I printed another box of 500 and took them down to him and said: “This will more than cover any future spoilages so you’ll always owe us.”

Another time I had to print 100 cards for this posh woman who wanted them with envelopes. When they were delivered, she complained there were 10 envelopes short. Since I’d supplied four unopened packets of 25, I didn’t believe her. I went into Basil Fawlty mode. The envelopes were in packets of 25, so they were right. I counted the cards and there were 110. So I took the extra 10 and ripped them up.

“What did you do that for?” 

“Madam, you complained there were 10 envelopes too few. We have just established that the envelopes were right, therefore the problem was that there were too many cards. I’ve just solved that problem.”

Paul McMahon

Print’s Past excepts are drawn from interviews held by Benjamin Thorn, curator of the Armidale Museum of Printing, and are due to be published in a forthcoming book.

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