Maybe it's me. Maybe it's New Zealand, or Nelson. But things are never as straight forward as one might expect, and that's why I was so elated when my tags came out so beautifully.
On Monday I started folding, punching holes and putting twisted yellow cotton through them so I can visit the galleries in town and swap the old ones with these beautiful new ones. I didn't notice this while working with the tags, but afterwards when I was counting, I noticed that some had uneven edges.
Of the 40 I prepared, (I only needed 15 but it was so fun I kept going,) about 10 were perfectly shaped, about 10 had the front cover with the logo were a little wider than the back cover. But the rest had front covers approximately 2 mm than the back.
I took the whole lot to the print shop, and after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, and after I offered, a staff and I folded all of 450 tags on the shop counter and sorted them into good, not good, and unacceptable piles. They're going to cut the edge off the unacceptable ones, (the logo is not centered so they figured they can gut the edge and keep the integrity of the tags; we'll see how the care instructions on the inside looks.) They'll see what they can do with the not good pile as some of the edges are too skinny to slice off.
The problem was caused, from what I understood, because they cut too many cards at once, and as they progress, the pile becomes ever so slightly skewed, ergo the discrepancy. The staff who did the work, who did not speak to me directly, said he compensated for it by changing the angle of the pile or some of the sheets. I didn't ask why they didn't cut fewer sheets at the time.
So I came home with the good ones and some of the not good ones. They have the unacceptable ones and some of the not good ones. And they'll see what they can do.
The good part is, the staff are always very nice, and Tina, who helped me with the folding, had, I believe, the same level of expectations for what is acceptable and what is not. The bad part is, I have this horrible foreboding that some are going to come out looking really bad and I'll have to negotiate reprint of them. And all the tags now feel much too much "handled" and soiled and I can't stop overthinking this.
It is still a very good business; they are popular, inexpensive, and most of all, very reliable. So I'm hoping they'll do the right thing. But it still makes me frustrated, and adds to my feeling of having been defeated once again.
Even though life is hardly all bad news for me. The strange thing is, I can't really think about the good things this morning. Maybe this afternoon, yes?
5 comments:
I just counted the tags on hand, and it appears they got "right" just under one-third of my order, which doesn't look great at this point.
I'm thinking of asking for cartridge paper slightly smaller than my tags in pale yellow, lavender or pale gray, so I can insert them in the tags to make booklets to disguise the problem where the difference is too small for them to slice off...
Oh, make no mistake, I'm extremely happy about the look of the tags, and the 75 or so that are cut and folded nicely.
And I'm very glad I went for the thick card, because if I had gone one thinner, the whole lot would have been ruined with all the handling by now.
So, I'm counting the small and not-so-small blessings.
Gosh, that's a challenge all right. I am planning to get new cards from Moo shortly, having previously failed to find anywhere locally* that was helpful or affordable. That was a very depressing discovery I must say. If Tina & co are helpful in putting your order right then they are definitely worth encouraging.
*Mind you, Moo may not be "local" to me but they are in the UK so I can feel good about supporting them too!
They should reprint the whole lot and cut them correctly...and not charge you anything for the whole print job.
Cally, yes, Moo is "local" to you, and they are great. They deserve to be successful.
Holly, that is what I expected, but it seems not to be the NZ way - everybody tries to remedy the situation until I am so exasperated I give up. You'd think it would have been much easier for them, too.
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