Five Things never to say to your printer

[bellatrys]

(and how not to make a business call for good measure)

1. When your printer/prepress person says "what program was the file made in?" you should answer:
a) Windows!
b) Mac!
c) Acrobat
d) Word
e) Publisher
f) Printmaster Gold
g) I dunno! (Bonus points for this one if it's already been established that you made the file yourself

Comments

[randwolf]

My sympathies. I've been on the other side of that counter this month.

Me: "Can your Chromira handle an HDR file?"

Printer: "A what file?"

They were actually very nice and competent, researched HDR, and I got a nice (and expensive) Duratrans print out of the process. (A Chromira doesn't really have enough bit depth, but you can fake it, sort of.) But that initial moment, oh, my.

(The other place I called determinedly tried to sell me on their services. I didn't call them back.)

oh yeah, been there/done that/got the headdesk scars

[bellatrys]

My most disheartening moment was when I called one of the largest commercial printers in the state after getting a message that they were having problems with the files we'd FTPd them, that it must be something we were doing wrong even tho' it was the exact same setup we sent them every issue - and asking "What kind of RIP are you using?" and getting a "How should *I* know?" in response! I felt like such a fool saying, "Well, what name is stamped on the outside of the machine?" but neither of the guys on that day had a clue how to go about answering that non-rehtorical question. ("Um, does 'Fiery' sound right?" did not inspire confidence, either

Re: oh yeah, been there/done that/got the headdesk scars

[randwolf]

"But the general inability of local businesses not to be able to make a professional call to a vendor - repeatedly!"

Adults these days just don't have any manners.

I know Sili Valley stories. One of the reasons Bill Gates cleaned the Valley's clock is that these people just weren't, for the most part, interested in being business people; they were interested in whatever they were doing. Or, worse, interested in sex and drugs; the Valley was said to be rotten with cocaine, though I personally never saw it. The real businesspeople are now running the surviving businesses: Google, Sun, and the like. Apple's a special case; Steve Jobs is a media impresario who started in the computer business. I think a lot of businesspeople don't really want to be doing "business"; they want to be doing whatever they do, and are in business because it's the way they can do do that. The ones who want to be doing real business are usually doing it in more businesslike places.

BTW, the tool to send the guys with busted plotters is PDFCreator,

I should add that

[bellatrys]

I would have said "what kind of file?" too, because that's *not* a standard format in mainstream printing, at least not of the commercial offset/digital quick-print/book production sorts. OTOH, if they had a specialized proofer designed to handle it, they should have taken the time to familiarize themselves with the specs and what kinds of outputs it can handle and thus should have at least heard the name. (Frex, I haven't handled SCT files in over ten years, and I've never gotten a Targa or LAB file - wait, I got one LAB file once ten years ago from someone who didn't know what he was doing but had a manual and had convinced himself that it was The Best™ Format For Professionals, causing me a whole lot of headaches as I converted it into something that our RIPs could handle - but I was aware of their existence due to reading the Photoshop manuals

[the_leewit]

YOU UNDERSTAND.

(Hugs monitor, weeping uncontrollably. Apparently, "that kind of night," is pandemic tonight...)

It feels like one's fallen thru the looking glass, doesn't it?

[bellatrys]

Like the questions don't make any sense, because you're in the wrong paradigm - I mean, here are these apparently sane, adult, successful businesspeople, who are evidently capable of *turning on* and *using* computers, and dealing with the public, and you get this bizarro-land dialogue from them, and a sense of outrage that you're asking them all these stupid questions (like "What's your name and what company are you calling from, please?")

This rant has been building for a long, long time, I'm afraid, but there's been a rash of it lately- I thought I'd heard every crazy thing working in the bookstore in the mall for 3 holiday seasons running ("It was on morning TV and it has a red cover!" "No, of course I don't read books myself, I have strange relatives who like them, what's a Good Book For A Kid Who Likes To Read?")

But the constant game of "guess my name! guess my reason for calling!" I have to play makes me wonder if this outfit just has unusually stupid customer base, or what?

[voxwoman]

Love the "quiz", and thanks for the link to that song.

As for your customers - I'm sure they are of the ilk that think you should recognize them simply by their voice because they called the place you work for 2 years ago with a 30 dollar order.

I am amazed, however, at the quality of my spouse's band t-shirts that were produced with the myspace jpeg logo. Whoever that prepress person was deserves an award (and no, they would not let me re-create their logo in, say a vector program like Illustrator so that it would be scalable).

My job is not really customer interfacing (for which I am constantly grateful), however, our latest batch of clients are from a foreign country where "fluent in English" means being able to order drinks on the plane, and our upper management recently fired the only bi-lingual person in the trenches who spoke the client's language (and knows enough of their culture to actually Get Things Accomplished).

Snerk - but The Rich Guys Are Always Right!

[bellatrys]

our upper management recently fired the only bi-lingual person in the trenches who spoke the client's language (and knows enough of their culture to actually Get Things Accomplished)

This must be some Sekrit Plan to Make Money™ by SooperSekrit Efficient Means comprehensible only to the loftier levels of society, because otherwise you'd have to say that the people on the top making the most money were doing stupid, boneheaded, counterproductive and moneywasting things - and we know the Invisible Hand's magisterium does not allow *that*!!!

As for your customers - I'm sure they are of the ilk that think you should recognize them simply by their voice because they called the place you work for 2 years ago with a 30 dollar order.Gee, you must have the same ones we do! They also like to say "This is Chris!" like I should know exactly *which* Chris they are, like it isn't one of the commonest names out there. (They also think that you should Drop Everything and *leap* to take care of their $30 order after not having heard from them for 2

You will also appreciate...

[bellatrys]

Not necessarily SFW, not drinks-safe either

Not as good as "Make The Logo Bigger" but still funny - "I Don't Know What I Want (Should have hired a Psychic"

And a true story, similar to one I did but in the opposite direction ("How come we can't cram 30 items on the page? That will give us DOUBLE the profit!" "Because they'll look like postage stamps!" "Do it anyway!" [sigh - catalog graphics dept complies] "Ack! They look like smudges! You can't see any details!" "Yeah...that's what we told you would happen!" [graphics dept hi-fives all around] 8D

*weeping and laughing at same time*

[deiseach]

I swear, those products "White Space Eliminator" and "Starburst"? My place of employment would buy a gross of those