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I don't know if anyone has asked this but I just had too.
I called my metal man's shop for something today and one of his fellow workers tells me that he is on his way up to my shop with a black sign. Hump!!! Thats strange for him to come up without calling first. So I wait and he calls me from home to tell me that he'll be over ina little while and will be ready to install the sign in the next couple of days. I ask him if he is bringing the panel(lexan)to me first to do the vinyl. He laughs and replies something about panels and laughs again.
I told him that it was supposed to be illuminated. I don't know who went silent the longest when we both realized that we had a problem. Well I don't want to go over all the conversation but we both came to the same conclusion-we had a serious, serious mistake. My customer is expecting a double-sided illuminated ground sign and what we have just a plain double-sided aluminum ground sign.
I called my customer, told him what happened, told him we if he wanted it that we could give him a price break, told him because the face was black with red and white copy, that we could do the copy in reflective and it would probably be better anyway (its going to be close to the road on the industrial drive). That was ok with him.
My guy shows up with the sign and brings it in and I noticed that we have another, even bigger mistake.
I had taken their logo, put a huge outline on it representing the shape of the sign-to-be. I didn't think about it not being able to be reversed and put on the opposite side of the sign. So now I have this 3 x 8 sign with a little bubble on the top to the left that goes up and over the dot in the "i" in their logo that looks great on one side but on the other side its flat over the "i" and has a bubble to the right that has no purpose.
After my guy leaves, I sit with my head in my hands trying to muster the courage to call my customer AGAIN. I do, but ask him if he could come down and look and we can discuss the problem. He was real good about it but said that he would have to come in the morning as he had a bigger problem than his sign. He had a 70 million dollar problem that needed his immediate attention.
Glad I'm not in his shoes.
[ August 27, 2003, 05:22 PM: Message edited by: Laura Butler ]
-------------------- Laura Butler Vision Graphics & Sign 4479 Welch Rd Attica, Mi 48412 Posts: 2855 | From: Attica, Mi, USA | Registered: Nov 2000
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I've always been able to fix the mistakes that I make with my hands. I'm not as fortunate with the mistakes I make with my mouth.
I had a shop across the road from the most popular restaurant in the community. The business lunch crowd was abundant and I almost never left there without new work or leads.
One day I saw some guys from a sign shop in the next county putting up a sign not fifty feet from my shop for this restaurant. I went wild in my thinking and called the building inspector to inquire if they had a permit. When told no, I insisted that the inspector come down immediately and do something and that I wanted to remain anonymous.
Inspector Jim arrived, stopped the show, sold Tom a permit, and Tom came over to my place and got his face real close to mine and asked "what did I ever do to hurt you?" I really felt awful and saw this as a suicide move in the business world for me. I wanted to lie and say I didn't do anything. I wanted to sell my house and move far away. I apologized and explained my hurt seeing someone else doing the sign. Tom said he forgave me, but I've never done more work for him since then.
-------------------- The SignShop Mendocino, California
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. — Charles Mingus Posts: 6725 | From: Mendocino, CA. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Anybody mind if I answer a question with a question?
Have any of you tried sandcarving tempered glass? If so, have you ever tried it on two large pieces, with custom designed handcut intricate floral designs?
OK...IF you've done that, another question. Have you ever poured yourself a tall glass of Jack Daniels at 10am before calling a customer to inform them their stuff would be a tad bit late?
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Don, I'd say your most costly mistake must have been drinking jack daniels.. Ya had to have been drinkin that stuff to agree to do sandcarving on tempered glass!
-------------------- "If I share all my wisdom I won't have any left for myself."
Mike Pipes stickerpimp.com Lake Havasu, AZ mike@stickerpimp.com Posts: 8746 | From: Lake Havasu, AZ USA | Registered: Jun 2000
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Last weekend I did what might be my most costly mistake. I went to finish this guy's 2004 Peterbilt truck. He was on vacation at the time, so I was at his place alone. I needed to lift the hood so I could do a little striping on it. He did not have one of those little hood things at the top of the hood so I could lift it down. So, I went around and lifted it up by the side fender. I did my little job, and then I went back to put the hood back down. Being that I had to do it from the side, it was quite difficult, then the whole damm thing went down,,,,crooked. It went in wrong and made a scratch on the side. I had to relift it and set it down correctly. But then, there was that 7 inch long scratch on the rear of then fender. Boy oh boy, did I cuss and call myself of bunch of stupid names. Now the owner of the truck is still on vacation, when he gets back, I'm gonna call him and let him know what happened. Then I will pay for the damages. Until then I will drink heavyly and bite my nails.
-------------------- Signs by Alicia Jennings (Mudflap Girl) Tacoma, WA Since 1987 Have Lipstick, will travel. Posts: 3825 | From: Tacoma, WA. U.S.A. | Registered: Dec 1999
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I let a beginner tie down the load and did not inspect the rigging before leaving the shop. Two signfaces flew off the truck not only destroying the signfaces but doing damage to a following vehicle. I was fortunate in that the signfaces could have gone through the windshield and caused some truly serious damage. That's a mistake that never happened again. Vic G
-------------------- Victor Georgiou Danville, CA , USA Posts: 1746 | From: Danville, CA , USA | Registered: Dec 1998
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Willy Creel (one of Denvers all time best wall dogs) and I had a wall to do over the top of a set of 20,000 volt power lines in an alley. The wall was 40' to the bottom and the exact size escapes me now but it was long enough to make 3 "sets" and the entire job took us 4 days.
We couldn't get up past the power lines from the ground so we had to haul everything to the roof and drop over from the top.
Working about 3 feet over the top of the powerline kept us on our toes for all four days and we sure breathed a sigh of relief when it was thru...we're standing under the newly painted wall cleaning brushes when I hear Willy cussing up a storm...I go to the back of the truck to see what he's fussing about..."look at that" he says I look up and there's an oval right in the middle of the job that is supposed to read "Since 1921"...only the oval is blank...the shop had us scheduled somewhere else the next day but we weren't about to tell them about the screw up...so we agreed to meet at the site the next morning at day break...throw a sky hook on the firewall and drop a bosons chair over the side with my skinny ass (hey I was young then) in the seat...Willy worked the ground and swung me everywhere I needed to be with the fall line.It took a couple of hours of our own time to correct the mistake but it was worth it, we even made it to the next wall and no one was ever the wiser.
It didn't cost anyone anything just our own time...but it sure seemed like a "major major" that day.
Working in production shops made you really aware of time spent on jobs and more than once mistakes were corrected on your own time. It wasn't necessarily expected but was done out of respect and good employers apreciated your efforts and made it up to you in other ways...by the same token bad employers took advantage of you (once).
One of Willy's favorite sayings was "One sure way you can tell a journeyman is...he's the guy that can fix his own screw-ups". (I cleaned that up a little).
I miss Willy he's been dead some 15 or so years now..."Whats it all about Wilbur"?
-------------------- "Werks fer me...it'll werk fer you"
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I designed a large ground sign with 2 brick columns and a wrought iron structure between them on which the sign would be attached. After getting the customer's approval, I took the working drawings to City Hall to get a sign permit and was told the design would be approved after filling out the necessary forms. Since I didn't have all the info needed, I took the forms with me to fill out and return later. In the meantime, acting on the verbal OK of the city official, I told my steel fabricator to go ahead and get started. A few days later, I went back with all the forms and sketches and was told the wrought iron was not allowed. In spite of many protests, I ended up re-designing the sign, and eating the difference in cost as well as the wrought iron piece. Anybody need a 6' x 12' ornamental iron structure?
-------------------- www.signcreations.net Sonny Franks Lilburn, GA 770-923-9933 Posts: 4116 | From: Lilburn, GA USA | Registered: Feb 1999
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Back in 1980, I printed a 500 piece t-shirt order for the Scott Bailey memorial road race near the Boston area. Despite a three man spelling check system, we ate the whole run and had test shirts for a year from it. The art department left the "e" out of Bailey. The typeset was corrected and the shirt rinted correctly. The following year, as I passed by the art department, I noticed the design had changed and gone to a 3 color. I also noticeed that the name on the top of the design said "Scot Bailey". After arguing with the art and camera department for a while, I finally dug out one of the many original flubbed shirts still kicking around and proved my case.
Typos are almost always the most expensive since they happen frequently.
Rapid
-------------------- Ray Rheaume Rapidfire Design 543 Brushwood Road North Haverhill, NH 03774 rapidfiredesign@hotmail.com 603-787-6803
I like my paint shaken, not stirred. Posts: 5648 | From: North Haverhill, New Hampshire | Registered: Apr 2003
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(1) On 12/16/1997 I fell 13 feet onto pavement from a ladder that was not rated for my weight. I spent six months in a hospital bed in my livingroom with a broken back. I had plenty of time to rehash my stupidity.
(2) A few years back before I bought the correct tools for vinyl removal, I used a razor blade and a heat gun to remove my competitors truck lettering that the clikent absolutely hated. I did, however, pay for repainting the driver door of his truck because I gouged it with the removal device. I have since done more work for them, and purchased the correct tools, so, I guess he was satisfied even though I was stupid.
The bad thing is that I couldn't blame either of these blunders on anybody but me!
[ August 26, 2003, 07:37 AM: Message edited by: Rick Beisiegel ]
""Good judgment comes from experience; and a lot of that comes from bad judgment" - Will Rogers Posts: 3489 | From: Beautiful Newaygo, Michigan | Registered: Mar 2003
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Ray, I recently changed insurance companies and was surprised to see that Farm Bureau offers insurance for things like this. For 75.00 a year, I could get printing mistake insurance.
-------------------- Laura Butler Vision Graphics & Sign 4479 Welch Rd Attica, Mi 48412 Posts: 2855 | From: Attica, Mi, USA | Registered: Nov 2000
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bonjour ! mistakes give us experience and hopefully help our business with positive or negative beliefs. My shop's WSTD, worst seen to date, $ mistake was a job doing 14" Gemini type 3-d letters on a building-"gettysburg address, no one word copy job. The owner "left" me no choice when he "postponed" ( that's polite lingo 4 he was screwing out of my $$ , right ?) payment for 1/2 year. Free advertising, ahhhh sorry i'm established in a "tight" business community here, i can't let the word on the street, and the darn principle let stand, so i removed ALL the copy , except a few letters @ night ! To this day i not only have the letters, but the "story" to tell potential pirate clients. The principal was more valuable than the $$$. bon chance to all ! mark Z
-------------------- mark zilliox mark z signs 8425 pushaw station rd. owings md. 20736 301-855-5407 thezs@earthlink.net http://www.markzsigns.com Posts: 348 | From: maryland | Registered: May 2003
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1. as above, giving credit to five customers who left with more or less the statement "I'll pay you as soon as I get home, I don't want to ruin a freindship....." or "that's OK, no firm quote is necessary, just do it..." or " I don't care what it costs, I just want it to look good..." leaving me out of pocket approx. $9000 over the years. ( and I wasted more time going to court and got the case but not the money...)
2. A small slight sag on the paintwork of a carriage that hadn't actually become a run in the paint, and was only visible because as an honest person, I wanted to point it out to the owner who wanted the vehicle finished by a set day, had me offering to fix the problem after the weather warmed up later in the year and the paint had hardened. (I'm convinced the paint was a bad batch, but you get nowhere complaining here). It took me 240 hours to fix the problem properly. However, my reputation, and my word remained intact, but we lived on porridge and bread for a while with all other work on the backburner and no income while this job dominated the place.
3. In reality, though, I suppose they're not all that bad, just 'expensive experience', and who was it who said "experience is what enables you to recognise a mistake when you make it a second time"! Best wishes
-------------------- "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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Doing about $3,500.00+ worth of work for a local Jazz Festival with the promise of getting paid after the event. Unfortunately, the customer came in the Monday morning after the festival and claimed he lost $75,000 on the event and couldn't pay me. He showed me pix of the main stage with the entire audience...it was SAD! Looked to be about 100 people max in front of this huge stage. So I told him to send me some sweatshirts at the very least. Never even got those.
I HOPE he comes in next year, but I imagine he'll try a different shop so he can pull the same stunt.
-------------------- Mark Rogan The Great Barrington Sign Company 2 Stilwell Street, Great Barrington, MA 01230 mark@gbsignco.com
"Sometimes I think my head is so big because it is so full of fonts" Posts: 332 | From: Great Barrington, MA | Registered: Mar 2003
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I'm glad you mentoned the Inssurance thing I had almost forgot (unlikely when you hear this)...we were paying out about 700 a month for health insurance when along comes this insurance guy with a rate at half the cost with much the same coverage...couldn't refuse...we did it a year later when their committment expired the raised it 100 then in another 3 months they doubled that ...we were right back where we started from...then they came back and told us coverage would no longer be available in our state and our coverage is cancelled...since I have type two diabetes it rendered me uninsurable...oh and on the way out they they raised our premium again and we had to pay it just to hang on.
So here we set 58 years old and no health insurance after spending thousands of dollars to have it while we did and never collected once.
Hows's that for a BIG mistake@ If you'd like the name of these crooks e-mail me and maybe I can save you the heartache.
-------------------- "Werks fer me...it'll werk fer you"
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A few years ago, I used to do a couple of days a week prepping artwork and doing some production runs for a laser engraving company. We had a brief to engrave a limited edition of ten thousand, sequentially numbered, pens. They were to be a perfect reproduction of a classic fountain pen and would retail for around £300 each ($600 to $700?).
After weeks of planning, jig making, prototype and poof-runs, (in which I played a very minor role) everything was agreed and I started the run. Months later, and well into the eight-thousands, having exhausted the entire British Library of fresh reading matter while waiting for the lasers to do their work, I casually picked up the brief for the job (for the thousandth time) and saw the fell message “wording to be centralised on pen barrel”. Well of course, it would be wouldn’t it? I looked at the pens being engraved – the wording was not central! I looked at pens from the start and middle of the run – the wording was not central! I’m sure I actually fainted, but if not I was certainly numb from head to toe and very giddy.
How could it be that I’d not noticed, how could it be nobody else noticed, how could they have been proofed and okayed by the client? How much is £300 multiplied by eight thousand-seven hundred? Who’s got a gun? Who’s got an overdose? Why are factory floors always at ground level – would I die if I jumped out of a ground floor window?
No wimp, me. I girded myself and headed for the manager’s office. “Err, Simon, we have a bit of a problem here”. Clearly, he thought my pallor called for emergency action. A man of lightening reactions and swift decisions, he headed for the window, but before jumping he remembered we were still on the ground floor. Defeated, he turned to face the worst. As I explained the problem, a beatific smile came to his face. Post my brief, it had been agreed the wording should be centralised on the barrel when the cap was unscrewed and lodged at the other end (i.e. in writing mode).
I went to work that day aged twenty and came home aged ninety. Okay, I got away with it, but the fact remains, I’d trusted the jigs without question, I should have noticed the anomaly before starting the run. It was only pure luck that saved us from ruin.
-------------------- Arthur Vanson Bucks Signs Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England arthur@buckssigns.co.uk -------------------- Posts: 805 | From: Chesham, Bucks, England | Registered: Mar 2002
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A word of caution here for Alicia. Like you, I work on a lot of big rigs. The hoods on just about all the major brands have two latches or catches in the back of the cowl that hold the hood in place. As you know they don't hold it down, that's what the rubber straps are for. The latches center the hood and hold it at the proper height. When new, these latches are really tight, Peterbilt's are especially bad. If you try to raise the hood from the rear in one of these situations by grabbing the fender you can buckle the hood side. as the other side latch will stick. It's best done with two people. How do I know? That was my most expensive screw up
-------------------- George Perkins Millington,TN. goatwell@bigriver.net
"I started out with nothing and still have most of it left"
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buyin stolen property!!!!!! 23 days in jail and $2000 later.......now when i buy stuff i think is hot....i get the guys name who is sellin it off his drivers license......and tell him that if i get nailed for hot stuff....I WILL SEND THE POLICE HIS WAY!!!!
-------------------- 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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Try "Measure twice, order 2200 screened coros from the screener the right size once...."
Ordered a bunch of 4 colour screen on Coro at 39" x 77.5" to go into an existing frame system for a large national account here in Canada.
Existing frames were 39" x 79.5".
Couldn't have made the error going too big, allowing us to lop 1" off each end----oh no, that would have worked out too well.
Let's just say that was many years ago, and I've made very few measuring errors since...
We were able to re-run the job at the correct size to satisfy the contract, as well as sell them the 'incorrect' size ones for some temporary use over the course of the year, minimizing our loss on the job----but sweat, whooo!
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My most costly mistake was attempting to sell an unknown dessert product (that was unbelievably tasty and unique) at a new festival. I later found out the same guys running the festival had screwed up in a lot of other places before and I also didn't think to check that there were not one, not two, but three other major long-time festivals running in the region the same Labor day weekend.
Lost $2000 I couldn't afford at the time, but learned a lot about due dilligence. And I got to see Kenny Rogers (yes, they did have Kenny Rogers and a crowd of about 200-300 people, and he played a half dozen songs before leaving in disgust, but he was nice to us ).
I have heard of a LOT of costly mistakes from folks entering the printing business. My favorite has to be the ex-software guy who photographed as a hobby who thought he could buy a WF printer, go to Sturgis the same week he bought it and print biker posters with pictures he took on site of people. He didn't know anything about wide format printing or color management and working out of the back of a truck is not the best environment to learn about it... $25K and everything he printed had a green tint to it. Ouch. The worst part was he blamed the printer and the manufacturer for his own stupidity, never realizing how naive he was.
-------------------- Kenneth Sandlin Author of "Wide Format Printing: An Introduction and Buyer's Guide" PO Box 1295 St. Augustine, FL 32085 kennethsandlin@msn.com http://wfprinting.tripod.com Posts: 116 | From: Jacksonville, FL | Registered: May 2002
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I have a pretty good one. The customer wanted a set of channel letters. Wanted them 24in and wanted it to read INSTANT OIL LUBE. 3 weeks later we put up his sign. Next day he calls to let me know the sign is great but it says INSTANT OIL CHANGE. What was I thinking or was I not. Gets better. We fixed our screw up. I invoiced the man. Being somewhat dis-lectick or however you spell it, I invoiced him for 4,500.00. 6 months later the accountant wants to know what happened. I have a contract for 5,400.00 and I invoiced for 4,500.00. Ha now I now why the customer paid it so quickly.
-------------------- Mike Lindsey Blue Grass Neon, Inc. 725 Michigan Ave. Jeffersonville, In. 47130 bluegrassneon@aol.com Posts: 13 | From: Indiana | Registered: Aug 2003
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I am glad to say that everything worked out with my customer and his problem worked out to his satisfaction too. They build military tanks and some bolts broke after shipping at a cost of $50,000 to someone. Turns out it wasn't his fault but some other engineer somewhere.
-------------------- Laura Butler Vision Graphics & Sign 4479 Welch Rd Attica, Mi 48412 Posts: 2855 | From: Attica, Mi, USA | Registered: Nov 2000
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I engraved 60 plastic signs for a friend at a low price, then he returned them all for a spelling error after 6 mo. It was his error, they were spelled exactly as he orderd, he signed off on the first piece. But I made them a second time for the cost of materials.
Another time I broke a new $46,000 laser tube while installing it. My boss was very understanding.
ernie
-------------------- Ernie Balch Balch Signs 1045 Raymond Rd Malta, NY 518-885-9899 Posts: 405 | From: Malta, NY | Registered: Jan 2003
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