Turnaround - Rush - Share your best most rediculous horror stories!

[tngcas]

@gordo , we need a cartoon for people who send in an order at midnight and put in the notes that they want us to rush the order and have it ready for pickup at 9am.

 

[YourCastle]

people who send in an order at midnight and put in the notes that they want us to rush the order and have it ready for pickup at 9am.

this!

 

[SoggyWinter]

@gordo , we need a cartoon for people who send in an order at midnight and put in the notes that they want us to rush the order and have it ready for pickup at 9am.

Crazy rush requests = bonus cashflow. Unless the equipment breaks down....

 

[YourCastle]

Crazy rush requests = bonus cashflow. Unless the equipment breaks down....

but how do you get paid for a RUSH request that you do not know about because it came in after hours and is due before you open?

 

[Duncan Hyde]

I can't wait to see what Gordo comes up with for this scenario.

 

[SoggyWinter]

but how do you get paid for a RUSH request that you do not know about because it came in after hours and is due before you open?

OCD email alert checking all hours on my phone, and select customers with big budgets can text me 24/7.

 

[tngcas]

Crazy rush requests = bonus cashflow. Unless the equipment breaks down....

I have one lady who about 2x's a year sends me a 100 page book on a Thursday afternoon and then wants 5 copies shipped to 10 different addresses (50 total) to arrive by Saturday. This last time when I emailed her about the additional shipping/rush costs tells me she only budgeted an extra $100 for the shipping.
That doesn't even cover the rush cost let alone overnight shipping to 10 places. Hard reality check.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

I have one lady who about 2x's a year sends me a 100 page book on a Thursday afternoon and then wants 5 copies shipped to 10 different addresses (50 total) to arrive by Saturday. This last time when I emailed her about the additional shipping/rush costs tells me she only budgeted an extra $100 for the shipping.
That doesn't even cover the rush cost let alone overnight shipping to 10 places. Hard reality check.

Diversity hire vibes.

 

[chriscozi]

@gordo , we need a cartoon for people who send in an order at midnight and put in the notes that they want us to rush the order and have it ready for pickup at 9am.

We do that, regularly. Upfront rush charge.

 

[keith1]

Many customers lie about their 'absolutely must have this' by a day or more depending on the size of the order. I reached the point that I just assumed all but a select few were fudging the time when they actually required the order. Especially the 'must have Friday PM' crowd, when you knew damn well the order would sit untouched on the floor in an office all weekend (& likely longer).
Special mention to those that returned a month or so later to point out some error or whatever that they'd just uncovered. I suppose they'd thought I'd forgotten that they 'had to get this on a plane' one month prior.

 

[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.

 

[tngcas]

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.

This kind of thing makes me mental.
They’re just begging for Murphy to throw a wrench into this. People who do this for events that have hard deadlines are the crazy to me. I have one person who does this semi-regularly and someday it’s the time is going to run out on them and they’re not going to have what they need for their event.

 

[namelessentity]

The biggest gripe I have is that it's entirely their fault for not planning, but it's somehow our fault if we don't make their impossible deadlines. I honestly don't have much sympathy for them. We have some pretty regular clients and it's always amazing when a marketing employee moves on and suddenly their new hire is getting me files on time with reasonable deadlines.

 

[MacTwidget]

I often say that we need to install a drive-thru.
Would you like fries with your 32-pg booklet?

Common scenarios that I've experienced calendats and Christmas cards.
Come on people!!! You know exactly what these days are.
Great, a new calendar and you want to send the files to me December 29th?

 

[tngcas]

I often say that we need to install a drive-thru.
Would you like fries with your 32-pg booklet?

Common scenarios that I've experienced calendars and Christmas cards.
Come on people!!! You know exactly what these days are.
Great, a new calendar and you want to send the files to me December 29th?

My internal joke is for the Easter/Christmas rushes. I am certainly guilty of last minute projects but... It's been 2000 years people. We all know this is happening again this year and when.

The biggest gripe I have is that it's entirely their fault for not planning, but it's somehow our fault if we don't make their impossible deadlines. I honestly don't have much sympathy for them. We have some pretty regular clients and it's always amazing when a marketing employee moves on and suddenly their new hire is getting me files on time with reasonable deadlines.

I had this happen recently. Old marketing person ordered every single file incorrectly. New person suddenly is doing everything correctly.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

My internal joke is for the Easter/Christmas rushes. I am certainly guilty of last minute projects but... It's been 2000 years people. We all know this is happening again this year and when.

If you don't figure out how to adapt to the *way life is now*, you will start to lose more and more over time. Every single process in your company needs to perfectly accommodate what the average job is *trending towards*. Of course people know when things are, but it's quite easy to forget some of the details given how chaotic life is becoming.

 

[chriscozi]

There are no excuses. Only different priorities.
We had a 'rush' customer that always sent late, needed immediately, etc.
One time the shipment got burned up in the shippers truck - of course we did not have any idea.
A whole week went by - suddenly the customer called and asked us to reprint the job.
We were confused. Didn't this miss the deadline?
Well, they said, since you mention it we ALWAYS ORDER A MINIMUM THREE WEEKS IN ADVANCE.
Sigh. I kid you not.

 

[narseman]

We have a sales guy who pulls this crap. Rush rush, hurry up.. 2 day turn.. It'll take a week to get xxx material.. OK fine. order it.. What happened to 2 days?

 

[MailGuru]

I used to have a customer call me on Wednesday to print and mail 10,000 pieces, but, they absolutely MUST be in the mail by Friday.

I used to take the job and run my guys overtime to make it happen, only because I feared we would lose the job, and, possibly the client if we couldn't.

On one particular week, we were slammed. I had allocated pretty much every minute of every piece of equipment for the next 48 hours to get our current workload out including running 24 hour shifts.

I was already sweating bullets hoping that all equipment stayed up and running when he called. My mind was saying "Negative Ghost Rider, The Pattern is Full", but, timidly I just said "We just can't have it ready by Friday, There's just no room in the production schedule. But, I can have it in the mail on Monday".

Then, braced myself for the inevitable blow up and loss of the account. The Reply? "Monday will be fine, thanks".

WTF?

 

[tngcas]

Then, braced myself for the inevitable blow up and loss of the account. The Reply? "Monday will be fine, thanks".

WTF?

Been there! With the exact same feeling and response to finding out that their version of rush isn't.