posted
My neighbor, who has self-proclaimed himself a sufferer of adult ADD, has allowed me, up to this point, to manage all of his marketing, logo & promotional items for his two companies, as he cannot concentrate on anything for more than an hour or two.
However, after he made a mistake of buying a $50,000 used boat this summer, he has come into a bit of a $$ crunch. His wife will not sell the boat, so his businesses must tighten the belt, including signs etc.
He had asked me earlier in the autumn to "design him a sign" for his newest business, a trailer sales company. Since I had done his logo and business cards, I just kept everything in the same scheme, adding a decorative outside shape to the layout.
His wife, a CPA and one of my good friends, decided that a "square sign" would be best. O.K. i can compromise with that...
So I was ready to proceed to make the sign out of a sheet of alumalite with a laminated digital print and trimcap when he decided that he had "this great idea!"
He wanted to make his own sign out of plywood to look like a gooseneck trailer. Horrified, I pushed him to use a good grade of outdoor plywood and prime and sand well and coat with a latex 25 year house paint.
3 days later, he dropped it off in my shop. Treated plywood, cut with a circular saw, rough edges, painted on one side only with marine paint, screw heads everywhere, not filled. With a big beige square on top of the flatbed part....supposed to be a crate.
O.K. what do I do with this???? Vinyl won't stick. Crap. Now I have to hand letter it. NO biggie I guess, but since he wants it TOMORROW, that isn't going to happen. SO I get out the 1-shot, and start lettering it after wiping it down, and guess what??? 1-shot won't stick to it!!! I have lettered lots of things form semis to caskets and have not had this happen.
No choice now but to wipe the brilliant blue and black off the "crate". Now I have a nasty smear situation that decides will take the marine paint off the plywood!
So I call him up to tell him the story. His options are to sand it , fill it and paint it the way I told him to or put a panel over the top of the crate.
"No way am I spending all that time to do that!!" he replies. "Just put a sheet of that cheap plastic stuff over the top. I don't want to spend more than $50 on this."
Hmmm... 3 weeks have gone by and I am still diggin my heels in on getting this done. Tonite, I suppose I'll do it.
The worst parts of this is that (1)it has been sitting in my shop lookin like a piece of you-know-what and I have to put a disclaimer on it that it was a customer supplied piece of %^#&*#&. and (2) his trailer lot is right next to my sign shop. WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT ME?? a. I do crappy work-BTW, my name is not going on it anywhere b. I am "too expensive" if my friend and neighbor can't even get a deal from me. (I was going to give him the sign at cost of materials!!!)-no labor.
PS His wife thinks it is great and showcases his creativity!
How do you not get ticked at having to look at this crap every day, knowing that even if you gave it to him for free he still wouldn't take it???
I'll post pics next week when he puts it up. ARRRGHGHHGHGHG!!!!
-------------------- Nikki Goral Image Advantage Signs 4050 Champeau Road New Franken, WI 54229 920-465-4500 "Finish every day and be done with it. Tomorrow is a new day."-Ralph Waldo Emerson Posts: 928 | From: New Franken, WI (East Green Bay) | Registered: Jun 2007
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-------------------- Nikki Goral Image Advantage Signs 4050 Champeau Road New Franken, WI 54229 920-465-4500 "Finish every day and be done with it. Tomorrow is a new day."-Ralph Waldo Emerson Posts: 928 | From: New Franken, WI (East Green Bay) | Registered: Jun 2007
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"Finish the day" and drive the 1000 feet back to my house. Get up the next day and see the beast right next to my shop! It's like Groundhog Day, but I'm no Bill Murray!
Didn't see anything on your site that looks anything near what I will be showing you. (actually it all looks fabulous!)
Wait...you'll see my point soon!
-------------------- Nikki Goral Image Advantage Signs 4050 Champeau Road New Franken, WI 54229 920-465-4500 "Finish every day and be done with it. Tomorrow is a new day."-Ralph Waldo Emerson Posts: 928 | From: New Franken, WI (East Green Bay) | Registered: Jun 2007
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You have more patience than I would. I would have told him it's fine to for him to try to save money, but if it's going to take a lot of my time, it's going to cost him a lot of his money.
My mind wanders. And that's not a good thing, 'cause it's too small to be out there alone. Posts: 3129 | From: Tooele, UT | Registered: Mar 2005
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My husband says the same thing, and if it were any other client, I would. But this is the guy who has seen me kiss his dog, tell her I love her and then excuse myself to the bathroom. Which you can figure out what happened next...After I return, everyone busts out laughing, since they knew what I did in the bathroom.
Preface that by the evening's prior events; the Home-School Charity Auction for our church;dinner, drinks, drinks, drinks, auction, drinks etc etc, margaritas, margaritas, pizza, THEN the dog kissing incident.
Yeah...I am Catholic!!!!
-------------------- Nikki Goral Image Advantage Signs 4050 Champeau Road New Franken, WI 54229 920-465-4500 "Finish every day and be done with it. Tomorrow is a new day."-Ralph Waldo Emerson Posts: 928 | From: New Franken, WI (East Green Bay) | Registered: Jun 2007
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Looks like he gets to return the favor and you get a new trailer cheap or his supportive CPA wife does your business taxes in exchange.
[ December 19, 2007, 10:50 PM: Message edited by: Dana Blair ]
-------------------- Dana Blair Blair Signs Wooster, OH www.blairsigns.com
If sign makers go on strike, is there anything written on their picket signs? Posts: 835 | From: Wooster, OH, USA | Registered: Jul 1999
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I vote for Dana or Russ' replies- Nikki, you need to say "What's in it for me?"- if there is not some significant value of some kind, for you, in doing this now difficult, ugly, time-consuming job, then why do it at all?
Don't consider it to be 'marketing', and you have no need to tolerate 'sufferance'. If there is not some value in it for you to be tortured so, then pass, or offer him this great deal and sell him a brush and a can of paint for $50 since he obviously has such talent, and you would not wish to spoil this great display he has already begun.
-------------------- "Stewey" on chat
"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull Posts: 7014 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002
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Any time somebody says "just" when descibing a job, you KNOW you are in trouble. I think I would have explained nicely that we don't "JUST" do anything. We try to always do our best work and there is just no way we can do our best on a job like this...
-------------------- Jane Diaz Diaz Sign Art 628 W. Lincoln Ave. Pontiac, Il. 61764 815-844-7024 www.diazsignart.com Posts: 4102 | From: Pontiac, IL USA | Registered: Feb 1999
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The marine paint he used contains Teflon, that's why 1-shot won't stick. Gawd, I hate getting stuck with these nightmare jobs for friends....
-------------------- "A wise man concerns himself with the truth, not with what people believe." - Aristotle
Cam Bortz Finest Kind Signs Pondside Iron works 256 S. Broad St. Pawcatuck, Ct. 06379 "Award winning Signs since 1988" Posts: 3051 | From: Pawcatuck,Connecticut USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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So here it is again! I finished my neighbor's "cheap" sign panel for him. (Orajet removable digitally printed on 10mm PVC-no lam) Gave him the keys to the shop to pick it up...he uses the shop to repair his trucks and borrow tools etc, so it's not like I am handing over the crown jewels or anything... Comes over later that nite to drop off the keys and says that he picked up a set of mags I had for him on the door and the sign panel with his "home made work of art." Didn't say anything about the panel...hmmmm o.k. he forgets things...a lot. Good bad???? hmmm Offers to let our dogs out while we are going on vacation...we let theirs out all summer while they are on their boat..cool. We have someone house sitting-thanks. Vacation canceled due to no planes getting anywhere in the Midwest this week. Going next week... Now, will he put the sign up this week and tick us off BEFORE we leave or will he put it up while we are gone and we come home to a beautiful heap AFTER we come home? Thinking we are gone...
PICTURES WILL FOLLOW....
TO BE CONTINUED....
-------------------- Nikki Goral Image Advantage Signs 4050 Champeau Road New Franken, WI 54229 920-465-4500 "Finish every day and be done with it. Tomorrow is a new day."-Ralph Waldo Emerson Posts: 928 | From: New Franken, WI (East Green Bay) | Registered: Jun 2007
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I know I am making total exceptions here, and if I didn't have to look at the thing every day,(having my shop 50 ft from it) I probably wouldn't have done it, but I was trying to save myself from having to look at something totally hideous every day. Partially hideous will work for awhile! If he went to some "garage guy" it would be red letters on his beige square, in "something nice" like Brush Script! Then I would be the one who looks like a hack...
-------------------- Nikki Goral Image Advantage Signs 4050 Champeau Road New Franken, WI 54229 920-465-4500 "Finish every day and be done with it. Tomorrow is a new day."-Ralph Waldo Emerson Posts: 928 | From: New Franken, WI (East Green Bay) | Registered: Jun 2007
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Here are the crummy ones from my shop. The "sign" doesn't stand up by itself because the "tires" are just nailed to the bottom and the gooseneck is just nailed to the side, and I shoved it in the corner so I didn't kick it every time I walked by it...
Texture Edge cutting
I didn't put my panel on it or have a pic of it yet...
More to come after installation...
-------------------- Nikki Goral Image Advantage Signs 4050 Champeau Road New Franken, WI 54229 920-465-4500 "Finish every day and be done with it. Tomorrow is a new day."-Ralph Waldo Emerson Posts: 928 | From: New Franken, WI (East Green Bay) | Registered: Jun 2007
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He put up the posts before we left on our second try on vacation. How exactly are they staying square? And here it is installed and COMPLETED!!!! Does anyone notice anything a little bit OFF????? He did this part while we were gone...
Here is the back side...
In retrospect, having been looking at it for the past few weeks now I guess I can tolerate it, but could he cut the tops off and paint the back please? (I can see the back from the side of my shop...)
I still had to charge him a "decent" price for it, even though it was only a $75 bucks less than my original proposal and letting me do the whole thing. His family is proud of him for sticking with a project and finishing it...(sort of).
OK! COMMENTS!!!
-------------------- Nikki Goral Image Advantage Signs 4050 Champeau Road New Franken, WI 54229 920-465-4500 "Finish every day and be done with it. Tomorrow is a new day."-Ralph Waldo Emerson Posts: 928 | From: New Franken, WI (East Green Bay) | Registered: Jun 2007
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That's the funny part about the wheels...he is cutting out ice cream pail lids and painting rims on them then screwing them in...
-------------------- Nikki Goral Image Advantage Signs 4050 Champeau Road New Franken, WI 54229 920-465-4500 "Finish every day and be done with it. Tomorrow is a new day."-Ralph Waldo Emerson Posts: 928 | From: New Franken, WI (East Green Bay) | Registered: Jun 2007
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-------------------- Leaper of Tall buildings.. If you find my posts divisive or otherwise snarky please ignore them. If you do not know how then PM me about it and I will demonstrate. Posts: 5273 | From: Im a nowhere man | Registered: Jul 2001
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Yes they do! But one of them (the nicely trimmed on is ours) which you can't see in the picture.... his has dead limbs all hanging down all over.
Both lots were wooded but we cleared our several years ago to build the shop. He "cleared" his this past spring and then raised his grade 3' above ours and created a "dropoff" between the two.
That's what sent us over the deep edge in the first place. We shot grade on ours and tapered it and added fill and gravel and he came along and filled his with whatever crap he could find...literally, the trucking company brought in old mound system fill...pipes and all.
So back to the tree thing, both lots were wooded and when he cleared his, he left his dead tree in the front...to aggravate us, he said. (We are considered to be a bit anal in our neighborhood and he is quite a bit "up nort".) The problem with removing the trees is that the high pressure gas line that feeds our area runs right under the tree, so to remove the stump is virtually impossible. My FIL & BIL both work for the utility, so maybe they can get someone to remove it. We are removing it because we now have to raise the grade in the front part of the lot otherwise he will swamp us out. Ditches are not allowed in our new Town Plan, so bring on the fill and gravel!
-------------------- Nikki Goral Image Advantage Signs 4050 Champeau Road New Franken, WI 54229 920-465-4500 "Finish every day and be done with it. Tomorrow is a new day."-Ralph Waldo Emerson Posts: 928 | From: New Franken, WI (East Green Bay) | Registered: Jun 2007
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It is illegal just about anywhere to grade your property so it runs off onto neighboring proprty. I would have been beefing to the zoning compliance office. That's just B.S.
Oh, the sign? The panel is nice, though.
-------------------- Bruce Bowers
DrCAS Custom Lettering and Design Saint Cloud, Minnesota
"Things work out best for the people who make the best of the way things work out." - Art Linkletter Posts: 6451 | From: Saint Cloud, Minnesota | Registered: Jun 1999
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Yeah, Bruce....small town politics...I am on the zoning board of appeals, actually the Chairman. And unless someone files a complaint, and even as such, in our town it doesn't matter much.
My BIL has the same problem with a developer who built 4 spec houses across the road from him. Their houses don't drain, well, except into their own basements, so they want to trench across the road and into my BIL's property to drain theirs into his. He graded his perfectly as he is at the crest of a hill, so the rest of the neighborhood would flow, which it does on his side of the road. The builder didn't want to bring in any fill, so now the homes are in a basin between the top and bottom of the hill...
If it were anyone else doing that next to us, we'd be raising hell. But I am waiting until spring to see what happens.
See, he filled the lot with TOPSOIL. So come spring, it will all just go POOF! and run off everywhere and then he'll get the hammer form the Town.
Besides, he has to do "final grade" for his grass, and my BIL is going to "help" him with it, so it tapers better into our lot. We will still have to bring in gravel for our parking area and fill in the front.
Doesn't the panel look odd? Really, is a crate going to be that big and the gooseneck that tall and the bed that short and the wheels so small...yada yada yada
-------------------- Nikki Goral Image Advantage Signs 4050 Champeau Road New Franken, WI 54229 920-465-4500 "Finish every day and be done with it. Tomorrow is a new day."-Ralph Waldo Emerson Posts: 928 | From: New Franken, WI (East Green Bay) | Registered: Jun 2007
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nikki, all i go to say is....YOU LET THIS HAPPEN...you, as a sign maker....SHOULDA STOPPED HIM.....or flat out told him you the truth about his design.....ian one of those freinds, that WILL TELL my freinds the truth......even if it aint what they want to hear. i got couple here, have tryed this stuff on me... rather then make a bad situation escalate into the story you just gave,i flat out tell him what i will and wont do!!!!!!!! save a lot of agrivation....i have a very good cleint NOW...who tryed this on me when we 1st started workin together. calls me a tells me he got some plywood already painted....and needed letterin...told him i need to look at it and then i will make a descession. it gets here, its CDX grade, painted with FLAT LATEX....i told em WONT WORK....shut the doors on the truck and they left. called me later to ask what they needed to do so they could get signs... explained to them that NO PLYWOOD will work, but since they got the plywood it would make a great backing for some .040 aluminum, that i can letter up and they can attach the alum to the painted plywood. i even told them where to go to get the alum, and i meet the man with the checkbook there to pick up the sheets of alum. since then......all he does is call me tells me what he wants......and i do it. YOU GOT TO TRAIN YOURE CLEINTS....and be honest with youre freinds......
-------------------- joe pribish-A SIGN MINT 2811 longleaf Dr. pensacola, fl 32526 850-637-1519 BEWARE THE TRUTH.....YOU MAY NOT LIKE WHAT YOU FIND Posts: 11582 | From: pensacola, fl. usa | Registered: Nov 1998
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You know what Nikki? I wouldn't worry about HIS part in the building of the sign. To me it is very obvious that your panel is professionally done, & that someone else did the rest!
Your part looks REALLY nice!
-------------------- The Word in Signs Bobbie Rochow Jamestown, PA 16134
724-927-6471
thewordinsigns@alltel.net Posts: 3485 | From: Jamestown, PA 16134 | Registered: Oct 2002
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You know, old paint, I agree with you and told him in the beginning that it wouldn't work out, and just let me do it. The problem is that he could have had someone else do it (maybe?) and it would have been crappy vinyl letters on his beige box, and I would still have to look at it. (Next to my shop). The part that irks me the most was he had me sketch up some stuff and then showed up one day with this thing. Had he really wanted to build it himself, I would have taken a digital picture, gave him a pattern so everything is proportionate and let him go. Even the craftsmanship of it, I could have overlooked, but the thing is so out of scale it isn't funny.
Ya know, after all these posts I think that is it...the proportions are so bad! THAT IS WHY I HATE IT!
Bobbie, I am too close to the project...does it really appear that (2) different people worked on it? I hope so...
Thanks everyone for your input...
Now I have to go letter some painted wood panels a client dropped off!
Haha (not kidding) .....extended family work...showed up with panels already painted to be lettered. Hopefully it's not marine paint!
-------------------- Nikki Goral Image Advantage Signs 4050 Champeau Road New Franken, WI 54229 920-465-4500 "Finish every day and be done with it. Tomorrow is a new day."-Ralph Waldo Emerson Posts: 928 | From: New Franken, WI (East Green Bay) | Registered: Jun 2007
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I think you did a great job on the crate part. Just imagine if you had refused the job, then he'd probably have painted the lettering on himself....can you see it? Tell him it would look so much better if he'd planted a big bush behind it, that way you won't have to look at it from your shop.
posted
Hahah! Lotti! I fear that too! Let's just say Steve isn't much for cutting his grass at home, let alone over at the trailer lot! Shrubbery..oh no!
Maybe I can donate a tree from my parents tree farm to his "sign landscape."
I think we may have a breakout of Atrazine in our neighborhood!
Thanks!
-------------------- Nikki Goral Image Advantage Signs 4050 Champeau Road New Franken, WI 54229 920-465-4500 "Finish every day and be done with it. Tomorrow is a new day."-Ralph Waldo Emerson Posts: 928 | From: New Franken, WI (East Green Bay) | Registered: Jun 2007
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-------------------- Nikki Goral Image Advantage Signs 4050 Champeau Road New Franken, WI 54229 920-465-4500 "Finish every day and be done with it. Tomorrow is a new day."-Ralph Waldo Emerson Posts: 928 | From: New Franken, WI (East Green Bay) | Registered: Jun 2007
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Gawd, I hate getting stuck with these nightmare jobs for friends.... ![[I Don t Know]](graemlins/dunno.gif)
![[Rolling On The Floor]](graemlins/rolf.gif)
The panel is nice, though.
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