Why do we do this job????

[Stephen Marsh]

If the job was plated then yes you can and should defend yourself. HOWEVER, I would take the high road just so you do not make enemies. And to defend management and even production, I know a lot of shops in which people are hustling to meet a deadline and when a problem on press is brought to pre-press it is not approached with a sense of urgency, often times because pre-press does not work under the same deadline driven schedule. Even if it is just lip service, say "I'm going to drop everything and jump on this so we can get it replated and back on press"...

This is opposite to my experience as in-house prepress at a printer. Traditionally printers did not have in-house prepress and some did not value the prepress role as much as the printers. Prepress was a necessary evil. When a job needed replating or corrections made, prepress had to drop everything - it was made very clear to prepress that press time was more profitable and more critical than our time.


Stephen Marsh

[rsands]

Pre-press is crucial in any business and one of the most important departments we have...without it running perfectly then press is stuffed from the outset. However, our press operators are trained on running plate makers, etc so if they desperately need a new plate due to one being damaged or something wrong when it was originally made then they can quickly grab that plate themselves. Saves telling joe blogs in prepress that they need a plate...then he goes and organises that, etc...precious time wasted.

[jetzerm]

I feel your pain. My prepress department is constantly told that the Front Office is our Customer and treat them as such. Then is the same breath the pressroom is our customer treat them as such. We slowly learned, that data wins. We use a workflow which tracks every action in the workflow, time date every proof, plate, imposition, log when job tickets come and go and broadcast to the company when we get incomplete or bad information. For awhile we were seen as the road block, but after a time the rest of the company realized that many of the ISSUES, where not the prepress departments doing.

[Tpyo]

@jetzerm - That, I've found is the only way to get management to 'see'. Like any good defense, meticulous documentation is a bacon saver. Documentation of a job gets to be a habit when done as an integral part of the process.

[printsnpaints]

So sorry to hear about that. I guess it is inevitable at any workplace. You can't really please everyone only most of them. Just unfortunate that that person happens to be the Director. You should probably try to confront him face to face in a closed-door meeting. Explain to him how it works. Maybe there's something in the process that he doesn't understand and needs to be educated. Who knows, you just might be able to find yourself in a more pleasant conversation and a more friendly relationship when you've straightened things out?