Dealing with a pandemic

jdr999

Well-known member
How is everyone handling the pandemic?

Have you been open to the public?
Have your hours changed?
Shift changed?

How do you handle cleaning, disinfecting, and both employee and customer safety? What about social distancing?

Are you accepting customer documents to copy or fax? Any policies in place about things coming into the shop?

We currently have cut back our hours and closed the doors to the public. We are only doing digital printing, and have not been accepting customer materials for copy or fax. We have taken in some materials to sit overnight and handle the next day. We're cleaning as much as we can each night, and masks/face coverings are mandatory here in NJ.

Honestly, curbside has been working pretty well for us. It's much easier to get work done without all the constant interruptions. In NJ, non-essential retail will open up next week so things are about to change again. I'm still not sure when we will open the doors, but I'm sure it's inevitable.

Thoughts?
 
At our print/mailhouse here in Portland, we are still basically on a full shift. From the beginning we have been considered essential because we handle prescription drugs and medical devices in the course of processing mail. We are masked up and keeping our distance and certain employees have gone remote. The lobby is open, but traffic has been very light. Customer service is done over the phone and online. No real person-to-client contact here onsite. We have a fleet of vans that have continuously done pick-up and delivery.

My role here is prepress tech, digital press operator plus the wearing of assorted other hats. Yes, there has been an obvious slowdown in what I print. However, invoices and other statements keep getting mailed -- no change there. I am sensing an impetus for business to begin to reopen and that can only be good news for us in the printing business.
 
Split shifts to limit number of staff in small space, remote workers, switched to using a sliding window for customer pickup/dropoff of little stuff like faxes. April was busy, but May has been slow. We're going to work on learning to sublimate fabric and sew it into masks.
 
Handling the situation is really difficult, but we have to manage all situations and do our business
 

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