Okay, I think I have a winner here..................................................................................

[Stacey K]

I had a guy come in last month who ordered snowmobile sign decals for his club. He was a real jerk when he ordered them, but I'm friends with the president of the club so I suffered through it. He came to pick them up and I said I had already given them to the president, who also paid for them. He began yelling at me that now he has to deal with "his a$$" and pointing his finger at me, and all this drama why he hates the president. I calmly told him I don't care about this drama, they were paid and picked up by the club president, as far as I'm concerned the order is complete. He yelled at me and pointed his finger in my face more. I told him to get the F out of my shop and don't come back.

The president apologized up and down and I told him I will NOT deal with that guy again.

If this happened when I first started in business, I would have probably started crying and felt like I did something wrong to deserve getting yelled at. Now, I don't care, if you can't be reasonably nice to me, then get out and don't come back.

 

[Geneva Olson]

I had a guy come in last month who ordered snowmobile sign decals for his club. He was a real jerk when he ordered them, but I'm friends with the president of the club so I suffered through it. He came to pick them up and I said I had already given them to the president, who also paid for them. He began yelling at me that now he has to deal with "his a$$" and pointing his finger at me, and all this drama why he hates the president. I calmly told him I don't care about this drama, they were paid and picked up by the club president, as far as I'm concerned the order is complete. He yelled at me and pointed his finger in my face more. I told him to get the F out of my shop and don't come back.

The president apologized up and down and I told him I will NOT deal with that guy again.

If this happened when I first started in business, I would have probably started crying and felt like I did something wrong to deserve getting yelled at. Now, I don't care, if you can't be reasonably nice to me, then get out and don't come back.

I had a customer recently that he and his employee were ordering different items from me. The bossman was pretty "cheap" (for lack of a better word) and I assisted him in getting something fairly inexpensive for an upcoming boat show event. He originally wanted a trade show display and when he found out the price, he came back at me and said he only wanted something small that would show off that he had a new location. I told him that his employee had just ordered the sandwich boards and the coroplast inserts were single sided, I could print his graphic on the other side and he would just take a sandwich board to the boat show. He agreed and paid the bill. When he came in and picked them up, he appeared confused and irritated that I hadn't done what he wanted. Right after that, the employee ordered decals and paid for them. About an hour later the employee called and asked me to reverse the order and return the money. He also told me that if I had questions to call the boss (the confused irritated guy). Well, I have no questions because I had to move on to the next customer. But for some reason he's mad at me and wants me to call him. I'm not the one with the problem. But I get the feeling he was trying to create a situation to make me call.

 

[Stacey K]

I had a customer recently that he and his employee were ordering different items from me. The bossman was pretty "cheap" (for lack of a better word) and I assisted him in getting something fairly inexpensive for an upcoming boat show event. He originally wanted a trade show display and when he found out the price, he came back at me and said he only wanted something small that would show off that he had a new location. I told him that his employee had just ordered the sandwich boards and the coroplast inserts were single sided, I could print his graphic on the other side and he would just take a sandwich board to the boat show. He agreed and paid the bill. When he came in and picked them up, he appeared confused and irritated that I hadn't done what he wanted. Right after that, the employee ordered decals and paid for them. About an hour later the employee called and asked me to reverse the order and return the money. He also told me that if I had questions to call the boss (the confused irritated guy). Well, I have no questions because I had to move on to the next customer. But for some reason he's mad at me and wants me to call him. I'm not the one with the problem. But I get the feeling he was trying to create a situation to make me call.

Yes, it sounds that way! It's so difficult dealing with multiple people from one location unless they are all on the same page! I wouldn't get involved if I was you either!

 

[petepaz]

some of the customers are clueless. i think what drives me nuts anymore is the deadlines. we do a lot of work for different events. everything from bat mitzvahs to the NBA all-star game and all of these events they know about months in advance but we are getting the job and art like a week before it's due and sometimes they make changes putting us under an even tighter deadline. why do they wait till the last minute to order these items? it's not even a money issue, we can almost charge them whatever we want, it's more of a time issue. there are only 24hrs in the day. craziness

 

[Boudica]

Part of our lucrative year is contributed to an increase in customers having to pay for things twice because they wanted to change something after I had it printed.

 

[damonCA21]

My favourites are the ones who order a custom made item, with unusual specifics, get it and then say 'oh it's not how I expected ( despite being exactly what the ordered ) can I return it?'
Yes of course, I will put it on the shelf as I'm sure someone else will want a bright pink sign with teddies on it saying Happy Vasectomy Day Enrico !

 

[DL Signs]

I was a middle school math teacher in a lower economic school. I fought continuously with my administration and math coaches (yes, we had math coaches) about teaching children math facts. I spent each day with flash cards making students answer a math fact prior to entering my room. I did this because many of my students were illegal and moved around a lot and I wanted to make sure they had a good foundation. The head of the math department for the district told me I was wasting my time because they all had calculators on their phones... She was observing me and telling me I was the problem and I had the highest math scores in the entire department for my school (3 grade levels). But, I had to stop doing the math facts because I was "wasting time".

The way they run schools is one of the biggest problems today. It's a pet peeve of mine.

Back when I went to school, in jr high alone we had wood shop, metal shop, and basic mechanics. I did drawings in 7th grade that went to national competitions, I had an advantage growing up in a body shop, but even the art courses were great. By the time kids started high school they could read rulers, design and build stuff out of wood, paint or stain, do basic metal fab and welding, they could turn wrenches, draw stuff... High school offered more advanced courses in all. All this had a big impact on math too, applying it was way more fun than just learning it to learn it. Every kid had the opportunity to come out of public school employable.

They do none of that today, at least not around here anymore. To get what we had coming out of public schools today would take several years of tech or trade school, multiple majors, plus all the associated debt to have the same knowledge and skills. You also got to learn what you were good at, and enjoyed doing to help you decide a career path. Today they offer little to nothing to help kids choose a career, and they have to pay for it all later. And we wonder why there's so much student debt, and idiots who can't so something as simple as measure things, make change, or anything else. They tout tech jobs as the future, and they don't even teach anything related to that either. Every generation is just getting dumber.

Rant over...

 

[Notarealsignguy]

The way they run schools is one of the biggest problems today. It's a pet peeve of mine.

Back when I went to school, in jr high alone we had wood shop, metal shop, and basic mechanics. I did drawings in 7th grade that went to national competitions, I had an advantage growing up in a body shop, but even the art courses were great. By the time kids started high school they could read rulers, design and build stuff out of wood, paint or stain, do basic metal fab and welding, they could turn wrenches, draw stuff... High school offered more advanced courses in all. All this had a big impact on math too, applying it was way more fun than just learning it to learn it. Every kid had the opportunity to come out of public school employable.

They do none of that today, at least not around here anymore. To get what we had coming out of public schools today would take several years of tech or trade school, multiple majors, plus all the associated debt to have the same knowledge and skills. You also got to learn what you were good at, and enjoyed doing to help you decide a career path. Today they offer little to nothing to help kids choose a career, and they have to pay for it all later. And we wonder why there's so much student debt, and idiots who can't so something as simple as measure things, make change, or anything else. They tout tech jobs as the future, and they don't even teach anything related to that either. Every generation is just getting dumber.

Rant over...

How about kids and parents take initiative and learn the things they want rather than expecting the school system to train kids on stuff that is typically learned after K-12 or learned on the job? Schools aren't much different today and I'd venture to say that kids have more resources and opportunities with school today than when I went. Auto shop was a joke, shop was a joke, art was a joke, these were all the screw off classes. You didn't learn how to be a cabinet maker, you learned how to sneak off to the back 9, get stoned and build a half assed bird house or change the muffler on some old beater. I remember it clear as day. The real problem is people thinking it is someone else responsibility to lead them to success.

 

[DL Signs]

How about kids and parents take initiative and learn the things they want rather than expecting the school system to train kids on stuff that is typically learned after K-12 or learned on the job? Schools aren't much different today and I'd venture to say that kids have more resources and opportunities with school today than when I went. Auto shop was a joke, shop was a joke, art was a joke, these were all the screw off classes. You didn't learn how to be a cabinet maker, you learned how to sneak off to the back 9, get stoned and build a half assed bird house or change the muffler on some old beater. I remember it clear as day. The real problem is people thinking it is someone else responsibility to lead them to success.

Too many parents don't take the time or effort for much today. I pulled the last two out of high school and did the home schooling and worked with them on finding careers. One is in construction, and should have his own shingle out within the next year, the other does metal fabrication, both love it, and both earn more than the friends they still have that they would have graduated with. I know too many parents that have kids in their 30's still living at home with zero life goals.

Ours weren't screw off classes, you actually had to apply yourself. Even where they weren't taken as serious, at least kids had the opportunity to experience different things, get a taste for more than just sitting in a classroom, and maybe get some skills. Maybe some of these customers could give us measurements. How do you know what you want to do, or would be happy doing without getting your feet wet?

Our tech school has a crazy high drop-out rate, people jump into courses, then they can't cut it, realize it's not easy, or that they'll never be suited in the fields they thought they'd like doing, and drop out after taking out a bunch of loans.

 

[rydods]

Currently working on but should be finished with school record boards in a local gymnasium. All the sports, 32 - 10 ft tall x 8 ft wide ACP panels in total. These are all recreations of older record boards but updated and nicer looking.

The athletic coordinator sent me photos of the old record boards and we setup and designed the new ones which he approved rather quickly for this many records, names and dates and I thought, dang, that was easy!

So we took photos of the walls and, roughly to scale, I placed each record in the photo to where each section would fit best and work around the electrical conduit which was recently placed and made this process extremely difficult. Sent him this draft and again, no changes, looks great.

He then tells me he has a few updated records that need to get added or in some cases records that were broken and he'll get with the coaches on this. I make these changes and we're good to go.

I rent the lift and we start installing/mounting the record boards to the concrete block walls and things are going great. By the end of the day and after multiple views I find that 1 name was spelled wrong. Ok...No big deal...easy fix I'll get this fixed by tomorrow. But by the end of the day, I notice a few people flipping through some of the boards against the wall and talking amongst themselves and others. I think they're just excited.

The next day we come back to continue and finish the install the athletic coordinator comes up to me right away, "The boards may have been mixed up when I took the photos of the old records and provided them to you because a couple of them are mixed up and have the wrong names and dates and also, here is a handful of other incorrect dates as well as some other records that need to be added"

I'm back to the drawing board but mentioned that here will be additional costs for the new updates and changes. I'll also need you and the coach for this sport to sign off on the layout before we produce.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Had a call yesterday, guy said "Do you fabricate signs?". Depends on the kind of sign, what are you looking for? "I asked you do you fabricate signs". No, not for you and hung up. Thanks for letting me know your an asshole within the first 5 seconds.

 

[Eforcer]

I got burned last week too on a small order for a walk in, just two vehicle decals for a race car so I told him I'd squeeze it in with a bigger job and he could just pay when he picks them up. He calls the next day and asks if it's not too late to make them bigger, almost twice as large. I said sure, and the issue of cost didn't even cross my mind. I figured it was self explanatory, but I was wrong. When I called to tell him the decals were ready and gave him the total, he went off on me, saying they were too expensive and that he didn't want them. I ended up hanging up on him, what a wanker. That's what I get for letting my prepaid policy slide.

Would ya go order a small pizza and then call back and say make it a medium, and expect it to cost the same?

Customers just don't understand that we are manufacturers. We do not take something on a shelve and hand it to them. They minimize our services and cry boo hoo to others that we did them wrong. Unfortunately, a mind is a terrible thing to waste!

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Too many parents don't take the time or effort for much today.

That was my point. So why is this a problem that the schools need to solve? All I hear ad nauseam is this drumbeat of less government, parental rights, personal responsibility etc etc. Then in the next breath I hear the schools aren't doing enough. People make my head spin with this crap. You can't say the schools need to do what some parents don't and turn around and say to leave the parenting up to the parents. It doesn't make a bit of difference to me but the flip flopping is annoying as F.

 

[Gino]

Many times, the parent or parents have no clue, as they don't know themselves. The system is broken and has been for a long time. Ever since Johnson first tried to beef up the school scores. It's been back & forth over the decades, but the kids don't get 'jack' out of it. Only the teachers and profs gain something...... money, so they can teach better, but it's still a joke. A kid will learn if it is instilled into them either by someone around them or competition. Otherwise, they'll most likely turn to the streets.

 

[citysignshop]

We sold our used Latex printer to a sign shop - The guy shut his doors down during covid, and bought the printer a year and a half ago to get back into it, since all his printers (5 of them..) are solvent, and were put away into storage without proper draining... We still have the printer in our warehouse after a year and a half.... He pays us to run his stuff, and pays a storage fee on the printer because when he went to rent a new shop, he saw they were 4-5K a month now... real estate has gone up. Just a little back story to show how the guy is...

So he tells me this big company wants a bunch of their windows wrapped, and he wants me to print it all for him and go install it with him since he cant install it by himself...so I said fine. That was 2 months ago - he sends me this 1 MB JPG artwork.... And says its for the windows. I open it up and it's like 10" x 20". I didn't reply or anything.... a week goes by, and he calls me when I'm in a restaurant and can barely hear him... Asking if I printed it yet. I was confused...and asked if it was the 10" x 20" file... And asked how big the windows were... he said there was 10 of them and they were roughly 3 FT wide and he doesn't know how tall... so I said I cant print them based on that information...and I needed measurements of every window, as well as the mullions inbetween so I can setup the print and do the artwork. He calls back after going to the site... And says the window is 36" and something and 48" and something tall roughly" So I tell him "roughly" doesn't work.. That its a big image spanning across 10 windows, and I need to know exact size...and mullion...and he says he'll call the customer and get him to measure. Then without getting me new dimensions... he calls yesterday and asks if I printed it yet....

I told him, I needed real measurements... I wasn't going to print a file, drive an hour and hope it works for a multi million dollar company.

I got an E-mail today, with this image - No measurements, nothing - It's not 10 windows, it looks like 2 windows... The kicker is that there's a measuring tape right in the corner. So I text him asking if he got measurements.... And he calls me again and asks me what measurements I need and why i cant just print it based on this photo....


This is a sign guy thats been in the industry for 20+ years. I don't know how he ran his company, I don't know how he has these big clients, and why they haven't just dropped him... He's polish, and has a very thick accent and is hard to understand, so I try to only communicate through text and E-mail... But he follows it up with a call everytime, even when I say I'm out, please just text or E-mail me the dimensions so I have record of it since I dont have a pen... He'll just call back and give me these random dimensions that make no sense.


I can see why some customers are idiots, or dont understand things... so I just wanted to post a sign maker being one!

View attachment 167581

so......have you printed 'em yet?????

hahahaaaaaaaaaaaa.....by the way, he is NOT a Sign Maker of any kind, please don't even use those words...he's a SALESMAN!
that's how he has these big clients...and somehow for 20 years he has found suck....ummm.....qualified sign makers to hold his hand, and make him money. Go figure!

 

[Johnny Best]

Wisdom is knowing a tomato is a fruit.
Intelligence is not putting it in a fruit salad.

I would have liked to have gone and gotten stoned during shop class with Notarealsignguy.

 

[gnubler]

Had a call yesterday, guy said "Do you fabricate signs?". Depends on the kind of sign, what are you looking for? "I asked you do you fabricate signs". No, not for you and hung up. Thanks for letting me know your an asshole within the first 5 seconds.

I love this.

 

[DL Signs]

That was my point. So why is this a problem that the schools need to solve? All I hear ad nauseam is this drumbeat of less government, parental rights, personal responsibility etc etc. Then in the next breath I hear the schools aren't doing enough. People make my head spin with this crap. You can't say the schools need to do what some parents don't and turn around and say to leave the parenting up to the parents. It doesn't make a bit of difference to me but the flip flopping is annoying as F.

I don't know what the solution is, but something has to change. When we have no people left with basic skills anymore, where are we going?

Pretty bad when worn out, burned out, retired old reprobates like me have to go back to work to make up for no qualified people.

I would have liked to have gone and gotten stoned during shop class with Notarealsignguy.

Me too Johnny...

 

[Signarama Jockey]

That was my point. So why is this a problem that the schools need to solve? All I hear ad nauseam is this drumbeat of less government, parental rights, personal responsibility etc etc. Then in the next breath I hear the schools aren't doing enough. People make my head spin with this crap. You can't say the schools need to do what some parents don't and turn around and say to leave the parenting up to the parents. It doesn't make a bit of difference to me but the flip flopping is annoying as F.

Most schools are total failures. They are glorified daycare centers that masquerade as educators. The illiteracy rates of high school graduates is all the proof I'll ever need to make that point; there are people who graduate high school who can't read above a fifth grade level. These graduates will have a really hard time in their lives, and all the while the people whose responsibility it was to teach them have months of time off, a pension, healthcare, snow days off, and on and on and on. I have zero sympathy for teachers who say their job is so hard - if it's that hard, I hear Jiffy Lube is hiring.

As far as solutions go, I say the first step would be to let parents who want to pull their kids (ant their tax dollars) out of a school do it. Let the free market start coming up with better and cheaper solutions for educating kids. This would make schools have some accountability to their customers (the parents and students), as opposed to the current model of no accountability whatsoever under any circumstances. You either teach my kid or I take back my money - it could be just that simple.

Remember, the concept of school was initially put in place to make good little obedient soldiers who would follow orders. It hasn't ever been about teaching kids life lessons or about teaching them morality; it's always been about obedience and pledging allegiance to the flag and fitting into little rows and columns. Force feeding kids the narrative. Curating the historical record so that they churn out little patriotic workers. State run education is indoctrination, and it should end.

 

[Gino]

^^ Sad way to look at things. Never heard that theory. Care to share where you got this information ??

Today's school system is a far cry from the old Prussian format, but it still requires reading, math and history so you can get along anywhere in life, besides reading artillery coordinates for a howitzer.