crazy requests

[YourCastle]

I just had one that i've never had before. I'm happy to work late or come in early, but never have I had a request sent after hours asking for the job to be done the next morning BEFORE work started.

Care to share a crazy request by your clients?

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

Yeah. We get crazy stuff like this all the time. Here's the most recent one I had:

Customer called me at 1:30 pm and needed 50 booklets, 275 pages each on 20# white, full color, 1-side, with cardstock covers and spiral bound. Needed to pick them up by 5:30 pm that night. Ended up completing it right on time, but wow. Literally took 2+ hours just to print the job.

Actually, I'd like to hear what you guys would charge for something like that, and if you could even get it done.

 

[ReproElectroProspero]

We would charge a commensurate rush fee based on the income we're kicking off to accomodate their rush.

For something like that it would be an extra $250 or so in rush charges. We could do it print those 50 books and bind them no problem. Helps we have an integrated spiral hole punching mechanism.

 

[prepressdork]

I once had a customer that 4 times a year would have us print a 4-pager (1500 quantity) but they would wait until the last possible minute to release art to us because of all the text changes they loved to make (and then make more after we proofed it!). So, about 11pm on a SATURDAY NIGHT, they would upload the artwork to our FTP site. We would prep the artwork, PDF proof it via email. It had to be approved no later than 4 AM so we could image the film (this was back in 2000), strip and plate it, get it on press by 7AM SUNDAY MORNING, print, cut, fold, box, and ship by 3PM SUNDAY AFTERNOON for arrival in San Francisco by 8AM MONDAY MORNING.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

I once had a customer that 4 times a year would have us print a 4-pager (1500 quantity) but they would wait until the last possible minute to release art to us because of all the text changes they loved to make (and then make more after we proofed it!). So, about 11pm on a SATURDAY NIGHT, they would upload the artwork to our FTP site. We would prep the artwork, PDF proof it via email. It had to be approved no later than 4 AM so we could image the film (this was back in 2000), strip and plate it, get it on press by 7AM SUNDAY MORNING, print, cut, fold, box, and ship by 3PM SUNDAY AFTERNOON for arrival in San Francisco by 8AM MONDAY MORNING.

Wow. 1,500 quantity I hope you got your money for that one.

 

[Mike the Print Man]

At one point we printed the weekend sales ad for Fry's Electronics in the Bay Area. We would receive the final ad PDF at about 9:00am in the morning and had to deliver to about 7 different stores in the Easy/South Bay by no later than 4:00pm. They were 20 page 8.5" x 14" ads, printed b/w, duplex on 20# paper. Each store needed like 350 copies of each and we didn't have the fastest of printers at the time. Always had one or two issues with the PDF dropping an image out as well, so that had to be fixed. Every week we would end up getting done around 2:30 or 3:00 and would barely have time to drop them at the 7 locations. Needless to say, as an operator, I was actually happy when Fry's went out of business.

 

[BigSi]

Is it all really worth the stress?. Yes I know we all like to go the extra mile for our best customers but it should just be a oncer to get them out of a fix. I regularly get these sort of ridiculous requests from punters that I have never done work for before and I just say sorry no!

 

[aqazi81]

As a digital flexo plate bureau, we often get requests to deliver the plates within an hour of receiving the job.

 

[jwheeler]

My 'favorites' are when they ask for a rush to have it ready by a specific date/time, and then they don't show up to pick it up until days later.

At a shop I worked at many moons ago, I had a customer rush an order of flyers that they need for a trade show, then they NEVER came to pickup. When we called them to remind them we still had their flyers, they say the event passed and they no longer need them!

 

[tngcas]

My 'favorites' are when they ask for a rush to have it ready by a specific date/time, and then they don't show up to pick it up until days later.

At a shop I worked at many moons ago, I had a customer rush an order of flyers that they need for a trade show, then they NEVER came to pickup. When we called them to remind them we still had their flyers, they say the event passed and they no longer need them!

This is why I absolutely REFUSE to rush a job unless they pay for the rush service charge and order ahead of time. If you aren't in a rush to pay, we aren't in a rush to do them. That way if it sits on the shelf for a week, no problem. I delivered and I'm not mad about it because it's their problem at that point, my team got paid for our time and hassle either way. If the customer is too rushed to take the time then I don't trust that next week they aren't going to also be too rushed (on some other problem) to pay us.

Urgency requires urgent payment.

 

[oxburger]

We had a sales rep who had a client that had an image of their book on a book shelf. You could clearly read the spine, but the client requested that we move the book next to it so they could see the cover too.

 

[YourCastle]

We had a sales rep who had a client that had an image of their book on a book shelf. You could clearly read the spine, but the client requested that we move the book next to it so they could see the cover too.

umm, did they forget how reality worked? Or maybe they've seen "zoom in and enhance!" too much in movies?

But I had to read your post THREE times before I began to understand the request.

PS: Love the movie "Stripes"!

 

[ReproElectroProspero]

We had a sales rep who had a client that had an image of their book on a book shelf. You could clearly read the spine, but the client requested that we move the book next to it so they could see the cover too.

With the new Adobe Stardust tool they recently promo'd...this request may not be so crazy in the future.