From the Editor Ten Years of Comments
Brace yourselves for a shock: I have now been the editor of this magazine for a solid decade. It was 10 years ago this month that I edited my first issue.
To read some of the past editor's columns mentioned here, scroll down.
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This job was a little intimidating at first, I'll admit. (I didn't even know what an in-plant was.) My early editor's columns were splattered with printing lingo, dropped in so I'd appear smart. At my first few conferences I was rather stiff and serious, trying to look "professional." (None of those tactics worked. But I do know what an in-plant is now!)
With 120 issues behind me, I've written about that many of these columns so far. I'll admit it has not always been easy to come up with interesting topics. Sometimes I really had to scrounge. (Like when I tried to find the country's coldest in-plant during the sweltering heat of one summer. Or when I reviewed the funny comments people jotted in the margins of a survey.) When I could, I looked for the humorous side of things. (Like my wry observation of how hard it is to unload those bulky, unwanted graphic arts cameras. Or my tongue-in-cheek look at the many name changes this magazine has endured—six, in case you wondered.)
But usually more serious topics got my attention. With sadness I detailed the unwarranted closing of some in-plants, and other times remarked on the opening (or re-opening) of new ones. Facilities management companies got blasted on this page, even as other magazines—and a popular industry conference—were foolishly endorsing the FM concept. The column honoring a Boeing manager who died hours before receiving the Best of Show award still brings tears.
This job has brought me to places like Alaska, Australia and Israel. My editor's card has gained me admission to in-plants in restricted areas like a Nevada prison, a Hollywood studio and even CIA headquarters.
Though I've enjoyed the traveling, meeting in-plant managers has been the most rewarding part of the job. And after 10 years, I've met quite a few of you. I consider many of you personal friends.
That said, I'd like to share with you news of another milestone in my life. On October 16 my wife gave birth to our first child, Michael Tristan. We're very proud of the little fellow and looking forward to parenthood.
So as I reflect on the past decade and begin this new chapter in my life, I sincerely hope my comments in this column over the years have given you some ideas and helped make your in-plants a little better. Because, in the end, knowing that I was able to help folks like you is really the only reward I want.
A Look Back
January 1996
A Short History of Change
Crafting a new name for a seasoned magazine requires a lot of careful thought and analysis. Publisher Jeff OKon and I spent many hours hashing out the possibilities, consulting our advisory board and searching for a name that accurately reflects the changes that have altered the way in-plants operate. As stated in the cover letter, today's in-plant is no longer merely a reproduction center, and we feel that In-Plant Graphics better depicts the new responsibilities that in-plants have taken on.
And what better time to kick off a new name than on our 45th birthday? Yes, despite our "rebirth" as In-Plant Graphics, the magazine is 45 years old this month.
For those of you who might be stunned and disoriented at our name change, I must point out that this is not the first time the magazine has altered its ID. Let me take you back the beginning, January 1951, when a little 30-page digest called Offset Duplicator Review came into this world, featuring stories on halftones, inks and the evils of having too much paper to deal with in the office. (Sound familiar?)
The magazine carried that monicker for almost nine years until, in October 1959, it was changed to Reproductions Review to acknowledge "the progressively greater breadth of services now offered by in-plant reproduction departments." Technology was advancing.
The next big change came in January 1966—about the time I was being potty trained—when the book grew to standard magazine size. In September 1971, after a merger with Reproductions Methods, the name was again altered. The rather uninspired result was REPRODUCTIONS Review and Methods. Perhaps sensing the wordiness of this title, Editor William B. Leonard Jr. shrunk the size of the last three words in May 1977 so you could barely see them on the cover and simply referred to the book as Reproductions in his editorials.
In January 1979 Editor Robert Rapp tried an experiment and rechristened the magazine Reproductions '79. When December rolled around, though, it apparently dawned on his successor Tom Bluesteen that he couldn't keep using that name in the '80s, so he did a little thinking and came up with IN-PLANT Reproductions.
There were variations after that; for several years in the mid-'80s it was called In-Plant Reproductions & Electronic Publishing. Always, though, the word "reproductions" clung to life. Until now.
Along with our updated name, we intend to continue providing a modern, state-of-the-art focus, concentrating on issues crucial to today's in-plant manager—just as we have been for 45 years. At least that hasn't changed.
July 1997
One Of The Best
Our cover story on Boeing, the winner of the In-Print 97 Best of Show award, comes as a bittersweet triumph for the aerospace company. Sadly, the manager of Boeing's offset department, Chuck Okerlund, passed away at the recent International Publishing Management Association conference in Reno, just hours before he was to receive the award. Because In-Plant Graphics and IPMA always keep the identity of the Best of Show winner a secret until the award is presented, Chuck never even know his department was this year's winner.
I interviewed Chuck for the cover story on page 22 a few weeks before the conference, never telling him that his in-plant had won. He was extremely cooperative nonetheless and even organized a photo shoot so that we could publish the accompanying photos of his shop and his coworkers.
I ran into Chuck at the IPMA conference and we chatted for a few minutes between sessions. Typical of his conscientious nature, he was concerned about whether I had received the photos and if I thought the quality was good enough. I was really looking forward to shaking his hand up on stage during the awards ceremony and congratulating him on winning Boeing's fourth Best of Show in eight years. It was a sad ceremony for many of us there in Reno.
Chuck had been in charge of Boeing's Precision Printing department for about six years. I saw the operation when I toured Boeing's facility last year to write the cover story for our May 1996 issue. Chuck had worked at Boeing for 32 of his 56 years. He was a dedicated, generous man—a true asset to the in-plant printing world. His professionalism and kindness will truly be missed.
I know if Chuck was reading this, though, he'd insist that I stop talking about him and give his employees the credit for winning yet another Best of Show award for Boeing. Their hard work, he told me during our interview, is what makes Boeing's in-plant so strong.
So from all of us at IPG, IPMA and the entire in-plant industry, hats off to the employees of Boeing's Precision Printing department for a job well done. And thanks again Chuck for helping to make the in-plant community a little stronger.
May 1998
Good Beer
I can't hide the truth. I did taste some mighty fine beer during my recent speaking engagement in Australia—and not merely the weak stuff they export to the U.S. either. I also saw a few kangaroos and drove around on the left side of the road, gripping the wheel in mortal fear for the first hour.
But those aren't the things I want to talk about right now. I traveled Down Under to attend Pacific Print Congress 98, a four-day conference geared toward both in-plants and quick printers. I had been invited to represent the U.S. in-plant industry and to speak at the event, spreading some of the knowledge I've gathered over the years from in-plant managers like yourselves.
While there I learned a few things about our Australian comrades. A survey done by the National Print Managers Association (similar to our International Publishing Management Association) revealed a number of concerns that they have, including pressure to cut costs, the constant threat of staff cuts and keeping up with technology. About 70 percent reported that their organizations have been restructured in the last two or three years, mostly by cutting staff, but also by merging departments and turning operations into cost recovery or commercial operations.
The emergence of the Internet as an alternative to printing is seen as a threat by 42 percent of print managers, and 5 percent reported that it has already happened. Another concern is that in-office printing (on a desktop printer or a copier) is stealing work from the in-plant.
The lack of a pool of available skilled workers was not noted as a problem, but managers are worried about having their staffs cut by their parent organizations. Also, managers are concerned about being able to train staff in digital printing, the Internet and other computer technology.
Outsourcing of printing by the parent organization is a big threat in Australia, and 44 percent of managers felt it was likely to happen to their operation. Interestingly, only 30 percent feared that the in-plant would be taken over by a facilities management organization.
Several in-plants reported that they have successfully turned themselves into "commercial" operations by securing new customers—both internal and external—and becoming profit centers. One such shop is College Printing and Graphic Design at Box Hill Institute in Melbourne. I visited this 18-employee in-plant with General Manager Martin Booth, who told me that 15 percent of his work is done for clients outside of the university. Some of this business comes from taking in finishing work from other printers. He uses a salesperson to call on outside clients.
Both this in-plant and the one I visited at Melbourne University have equipment similar to what I've seen in U.S. in-plants, including digital printing capabilities. Most of the managers I talked to at the conference seemed very interested in the data I presented about equipment in U.S. in-plants, and I suspect they planned to use it as a benchmark at their own operations.
I'll draw no enlightening conclusions from my brief look at the Australian in-plant industry, but hopefully this glimpse I've given you has satisfied some of your curiosity. As for other differences between the U.S. and Australia: there's no tipping in restaurants or bars, fried tomatoes are served with eggs at breakfast and water flushes counterclockwise.
Oh, and the beer's a bit stronger.
June 1998
Close Your In-plant
Are in-plants obsolete? The folks in charge of the recent On Demand Digital Printing & Publishing Strategy Conference seem to want the world to think so.
I attended this five-year-old event last month and was upset to hear a not-so-subtle message being repeatedly stressed to attendees: outsource your printing.
Right from the opening keynote session, outsourcing was glorified. If you listened to speakers Frank Casale, of The Outsourcing Institute, and John Stuart, CEO of IKON Office Solutions, you would have thought that sending all printing to an outsourcing firm was the only viable path for a company to take. And that's exactly what these organizations want gullible business leaders (who know nothing about printing) to think: "Close your shop. Send it all to us." The question is why CAP Ventures, the conference organizers, would want these leaders to be so mislead.
At various tutorial sessions and regular conference sessions throughout the show outsourcing continued to be glorified ad nauseam. The biggest slap in the face came at the end of a session entitled Building a Print Services Center for the 21st Century, which featured three in-plant managers (West Barton, Jeffrey Dance and Debra Gagne) describing their excellent efforts to keep their in-plants successful and up to date. Then came the fourth speaker, John Jones of Xerox Business Services. Rather than sticking to the topic and providing attendees with useful information, Jones had the audacity to tell the audience not to bother preparing for the 21st century, but to shut their shops and outsource all their printing to his outfit.
"But why?" you ask. "Why would CAP Ventures, the conference organizer, which claims to be dedicated only to furthering print on demand, be so interested in closing in-plants?" Could it be because of the money that outsourcing firms like Ikon Office Solutions had paid to exhibit at the show?
CAP Ventures says no. It focused on outsourcing because its data showed outsourcing firms were performing strongly and it was one solution for companies to consider. Does CAP Ventures feel in-plants aren't competent enough to do the work? No again, says Charlie Corr, senior consultant. But in-plants must provide a number of services; if they can't do them in-house, they should partner with an external provider. CAP Ventures merely wanted to show outsourcing as an option; the speakers themselves controlled the pro-outsourcing content of their talks.
What the outsourcing proponents failed to mention, though, were the missed deadlines and loss of close customer contact that result from outsourcing. They blathered on about cost savings, but ignored the fact that outsourcing firms need to make a profit, while in-plants don't. A well-run in-plant will always be cheaper.
Outsourcing firms count on executives making knee-jerk reactions and jumping on the bandwagon without studying the effects it will have on their organizations. Even a model in-plant that can prove its savings will get closed down once a CEO gets the notion that outsourcing is the answer. And that was the nearly unchallenged message CEOs were getting at On Demand. Not a single session was devoted to glorifying the benefits of in-house printing. Sure, some sessions covered in-plant issues, such as integrating with the data center, but in-plants were not given to microphone and allowed to stress their benefits, as outsourcing firms did.
By focusing so strongly on outsourcing, conferences like On Demand merely propagate this outsourcing fever, giving CEOs a way to "make their marks" and give the appearance of cost cutting without really looking into the issue. And sadly, once the in-plant is gone, it's frequently only the outsourcing firm that wins.
September 1998
Camera Blues
What's the biggest space-waster in your shop? Chances are its your camera—especially if it's one of those floor-hogging horizontal models. But what can you do about it? Getting rid of those behemoths takes a lot of work—and cash. As a result most shops don't. Their cameras sit around like big trophies—monuments to the past.
"It's our albatross," laments Tom Fox of Vanderbilt University, in Nashville.
Vanderbilt's camera is just 10 years old, Fox says—and it's a top-of-the-line model. But it only gets used a couple of times a month. And who's going to buy it?
Such is the lament of many an in-plant manager. They don't know whether to shoot film with their cameras or just shoot them.
"A boat anchor is probably the best solution," quips Fox.
For those without boats, Don Harty has another solution.
"Maybe we need to bronze these things and put them out front: 'This is the way we used to do it,' " jokes the manager of Printing Services for Georgia Perimeter College, in Clarkston, Ga. Harty got rid of his vertical camera two years ago when his in-plant moved—but he doesn't know where it ended up. The college surplused it for him.
Other managers are similarly uncertain about the fates of their old cameras. When Philadelphia's Rohm & Haas decided to give its camera the heave-ho, it sent it to a division within the company that finds homes for old gear. Kathy Kane thinks it ended up at a school.
John Rogers of the New England Journal of Medicine knows his camera went to a school. He donated it to one about three years ago.
The University of Missouri in Columbia actually managed to sell its 34x34˝ camera to a small printer down south about 4 years ago, says Ron Ott—though at a drastically reduced price. The buyers drove up in the middle of a snowstorm and loaded it into a flatbed trailer, which subsequently went off the road, Ott recalls.
Schools, mom-and-pop shops, prisons, even Mexico: These are all the places where printers envision their cameras ending up. Sometimes, though, they don't meet such useful deaths. Take Brigham Young University's old camera. After trying repeatedly to sell it, West Barton came up with a unique solution. He took a torch to it, cutting it clean in half. Then he sold it as scrap metal—for $37.50. The cash didn't go to waste either.
"We had a party," Barton laughs. "We went to the BYU dairy and had ice cream."
Knowing there's not much profit in an old camera, most in-plants simply learn to put up with their metal monsters. Paul Wolanyk of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago says his staff only fires up the camera "once in a blue moon," but he still wants to keep it to avoid outsourcing and to provide better customer service.
Similarly, Joe Goss of Indiana University is keeping his 25-year-old camera only because he doesn't currently need the space. If he did, then good-bye camera.
At the Alabama Department of Finance, however, Lynn Poe says that the camera is being used for 50 to 60 jobs a week. Poe says customers would rather output camera-ready art on their printers than prepare disks. The variety of PCs in use in this government agency, he adds, make it hard to train everyone to output PostScript files.
So there's your answer. Send your old cameras to Lynn Poe's in-plant.
Just call first. And please don't mention my name.
May 2000
Two Hours In A Van
Part of my job as editor is to get out and mingle with in-plant managers to find out what issues they're facing. So when Tom FitzSimons, of INTELSAT, invited me to speak at a joint meeting of the Washington and Philadelphia chapters of the International Publishing Management Association, I eagerly accepted. The meeting was to take place in Baltimore, at the Preview Graphics 2000 trade show.
Baltimore is 90 minutes or so from Philadelphia, so when I learned that Jim Leake, from the National Board of Medical Examiners in-plant, was organizing a van pool, I signed up. With Debbie Leone, of St. Joseph's University, at the wheel, we took off on our road trip.
I quickly discovered that I was not going to just kick back and relax on this ride. There was too much networking going on. As we bounced along I-95, I learned about some of the often undiscussed difficulties of running an in-plant. For instance, Jim Whitmore, of Certainteed Corp., told us that he had lost a press operator a year ago. His quest to find the perfect replacement has dragged on a while, and during that time he and his staff have worked a lot of overtime to get the work finished. The new press he added last year has made things even busier, and the need to fill the opening is now greater than ever.
The company, unfortunately, seeing that the work is getting done without the missing operator, wants to keep the status quo. Now Jim has to justify his need to fill this position. Fortunately, Jim has data. He can document the overtime work. He can show how the new press increased volume. And most importantly, he's gotten testimonials from his marketing folks saying they would send even more work to the shop if it had the manpower to handle it.
At Villanova University, new equipment has also generated new work. The installation of a DocuTech, said manager Michael George, increased volume so much that he requested an additional position be added. He made his case, got the approval, and now his in-plant is about to expand. This news prompted Jim Whitmore to comment that he knew someone who might be interested in the opening.
Other shops, I learned, were also getting more volume. As she steered carefully around the Mack trucks, Debbie Leone noted that her in-plant had added a new four-color press last year because, after looking at the amount of four-color work being sent to outside printers, she saw that she could justify the cost.
So why am I telling you about our in-plant road trip? Because it shows how much information managers can get from each other when they sit down and talk—whether they're at a conference, at a chapter meeting or bouncing down the highway in a van.
Many managers don't take advantage of the networking opportunities at in-plant conferences like IPMA (taking place June 4-7 in San Antonio), ACUP (going on this month in Dayton, Ohio), or NSPA (scheduled September 17-20 in Reno, Nevada). Those managers are simply on their own—isolated and without support.
Don't be one of them. Talk to other in-plant managers in your area. Put some budget money aside and get out to one of the national in-plant conferences. You'll learn things that will help you make your operation even better.
March 2001
Surveying The Surveys
I look at your surveys. Every single one. Perhaps I'm too meticulous, but after doing dozens of surveys over the years, I've learned that people don't always fill them out correctly. Since I want the results to be accurate, I examine each form, weeding out the bad data. It's a noble goal, but for the most part it's about as thrilling as that summer in college when I worked in a factory, turning out the same plastic part, over and over.
No, that's too harsh. The surveys are actually much more interesting—especially the ones with mistakes: The ones with little notes on the sides; the ones filled out by people who have no business filling them out; the ones that make me shake my head and say "What was this moron…er, valued reader thinking?" Those are the ones that make things interesting.
For example, we got responses to our recent salary survey from consultants, salon owners, even a car salesman. The instructions clearly say (three times) that the survey is for "in-plant managers." I can't imagine why these non-printers wasted their time. I guess they just like filling out surveys. Needless to say, I was more than happy to weed them out.
My scrutiny also allows me to read all the little comments people scrawl in on the forms. Some of them are quite amusing:
One man noted, sadly, that because of his school's pay increase policies, he could get a higher salary by simply quitting and reapplying for his job.
Another person reported that instead of raises his company gave out colas. After I got finished laughing, I realized COLA was an acronym for Cost of Living Adjustment—essentially the same thing as a soft drink.
Then there was the person who checked the "Other" category under primary job function and wrote in "Worker Bee." (I'll add that category next time.)
The manager of a one-man shop informed me: "I am my employees." Deep.
One poor ex-manager used the form to write me a long, sad note about her in-plant's demise last year and the fate of her and her two coworkers.
I'm chagrined to mention that a number of people chastised us—deservedly—for designing a "confidential" salary survey on which, after folding the form to mail it, the salary information was clearly visible. Thankfully, many people removed the mailing label, used separate envelopes or folded the form differently.
Somewhat perplexing were the 11 surveys that came back to us with everything filled in except for the salary information. How exactly did these managers think we were going to conduct a salary survey without getting any salary information? One person helpfully wrote NOYB in the salary line. I suppose he was right, but then, why did he bother filling in everything else?
Some people, rather unhelpfully, included a range of salaries, as if to say some years they made $38K, other years $51K, depending on which way the wind was blowing.
Both amusing and disturbing were the five or so people who filled in both the male and female boxes, leaving me with serious questions. If they weren't sure, they could have at least checked before filling out the survey. One person initially selected female, but then apparently did some investigating and scribbled it out to check off male. I hadn't expected that question to be quite so tough.
So as you can see, if you were one of the folks who jotted down a little note on your form, it did get read. And be assured, only the surveys that passed my close inspection were used to calculate the data in this issue.
September 2001
Dreaming Of A Colder Place
Philadelphia is just plain hot in the summer—a sticky, muggy heat that creeps inside your shirt and plasters it uncomfortably against your back, making you fidget as you walk down Broad Street, yearning for the next bit of shade.
Needless to say, I'm less than eager to venture outside for lunch.
So as I brooded in my fifth floor office one recent August day, gazing out with pity at the pedestrians trudging through the sweltering 100-degree heat, and silently thanking for the overhead air vent, I couldn't help dreaming of places I'd rather be.
Cold places. Places far north of here. Places in...Alaska.
That got me wondering, "Where is the coolest in-plant in the country?" My first thought was Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost town in the U.S.A. Ahhh, I thought. Wouldn't it be great to be in Barrow right now? A quick check of weather.com revealed that it was a blissful 41 degrees in that town. I simply had to find an in-plant in Barrow and chat with the manager.
But after checking IPG's circulation database, alas, I could find no readers there—nor in Nome, Kotzebue or Coldfoot. So I settled for Fairbanks. I called Philip Heine, manager of the Fairbanks North Star Borough school district's two-person in-plant.
"How's the weather up there?" I asked.
"It's been a cool summer," he replied, stirring my jealously to life. But it was a rainy one too, he continued—a good thing because the rain drenched the forest fires burning just outside of town. In summer, he said, Fairbanks gets only a few weeks of temperatures in the 80s, and once every few years it hits the 90s. But on the flip side, he added, the first frost of the year usually hits in August, wiping out everyone's gardens just before the weather warms up again. And over the years it has snowed there every month but July, he said. That day it was a pleasant 63 degrees in Fairbanks—with no snow in the forecast.
"And how does the weather up there impact your in-plant," I asked, struggling to legitimize my call. Turns out it's pretty dry in Fairbanks—so dry that static electricity builds up on the paper, causing problems on the press and collators. In the winter, Heine said, the shop runs humidifiers. When he opens boxes of paper shipped from the lower 48, he added, the moisture makes the sheets curl instantly. Any tricks to avoid this problem? Yeah, don't open the paper till you need it, he said.
Heine just installed an 11x17˝ Hamada perfector and a Horizon bookletmaker to help produce the handbooks, graduation programs and yearbooks his shop churns out. I wondered if the chilly winters made trouble for him in the shop. He said not in that shop, but in a former job, where the print shop had no room to store paper, it used to be kept outside. In the winter he'd have to dig through the snow to find it.
There's one good thing about paper when it's been chilled to 30 or 40 below, Heine said: It cuts real nice. The blades slice through it crisply and effortlessly.
Now that's one thing I never would have known, had I not been sitting here, on a sweltering August day, dreaming of a colder place.
January 2002
Are You A Bad Manager?
I've interviewed a lot of in-plant managers over the years, and from time to time they have remarked about the mess they walked into when they started their jobs. The previous manager, they told me, was a really obstinate guy, disorganized and afraid of new technology. He almost ruined the in-plant.
I've often thought about these "bad" previous managers who did so much harm to their in-plants before abandoning them. Did they know they were doing a bad job? Could they have improved if someone pointed out the results of their actions?
With this in mind, I thought it might be helpful to take a look at some of the attributes of these "bad" managers. After all, what if you are doing some of the things they did?
So I contacted a number of managers and got about a dozen responses. I boiled them down into the following list. Taken together, the following would be a great description of the worst in-plant manager of all time:
• Unapproachable by both staff and customers.
• Inflexible and controlling.
• Trusted no one and kept all details to himself.
• Refused to listen to employee suggestions.
• Treated employees poorly; enjoyed pointing out their faults.
• Kept tight reigns on everyone; treated them like workers, not team members.
• No motivation to change or improve anything.
• Retained old equipment; had no plan for upgrading.
• No desire to move forward with technology—even a little afraid of it.
• Stayed with black-and-white printing when the market was switching to color because it was easier.
• Did not train anyone to handle electronic media. Jobs came in as hard copy or were sent out.
• Did not allow the department to promote itself.
• Happy when a customer's mistake forced a job to be reprinted because the in-plant would make more money.
• Told customers when to expect delivery, despite their requests—then bragged that 98 percent of his jobs were delivered on time.
• No fixed pricing schedule, so prices varied for the same job at different times.
• Fixed pressroom schedule: Red ink jobs on Mondays, blue on Tuesdays, etc.
• No scheduling or tracking system; many missed delivery dates.
Did you recognize anyone who has these attributes? Is it you?
Managers with these traits end up scaring customers away from the in-plant, leading to its demise. Even a nice manager who does nothing to upgrade technology will soon lose customers to Kinko's. And any manager who does not respect employees will certainly not get the best performance out of them, further soiling the in-plant's reputation.
So as we start this new year, a time when many make resolutions to give themselves a fresh start, ask yourself this one question: Are you the "bad" manager your successor will talk about?
January 2004
Bad Service
My local library is only a few blocks from my house, an eight-minute walk. That's very convenient. The service I get there, though, that's another story.
The library seems to have been set up for the convenience of its staff. Most of the time librarians sit in a room behind the checkout desk. I can see them through a small window, their backs to me, eyes glued to computer screens. To get checked out, I have to either be patient and hope someone notices me, or break library protocol by shouting out "Excuse me!" I normally opt for restless finger drumming and throat clearing.
Before I came to town, the library had "upgraded" its checkout system, so that books can be scanned and a single paper receipt given listing the due date of all the books. More than once I have returned the book in which I had placed the receipt, and then had no idea when the others were due. Each time I got a fine. I pointed out this problem once to the librarians, after I had roused them from the back room, and suggested it would be more customer friendly to supply separate receipts for each book. The two ladies frowned at me like I had suggested a book burning and argued that this was the way the new system operated. I would just have to deal with it.
The technology, not customer comfort, would dictate the process.
Not long ago my wife and I checked the Web site of a restaurant chain and viewed the menu of the local establishment. Based on this we made a reservation, but when we got there, to our dismay, none of the items we had been salivating over were listed. The befuddled manager explained that someone at headquarters must have made the slip. Sorry. Now what can I get you?
We left. The restaurant had used the latest technology to bring in business, but it had failed to deliver what it promised. It alienated its customers and risked losing future business from the people we complained to. (And that could be a lot of people if the upset customer happened to be the editor of a national magazine, who could easily name the restaurant, if he was feeling mean.)
I called my doctor's office the other day and was immediately put on hold. This is usually not so bad; I can do other things while waiting. But in this case a loud message kept repeating itself every 20 seconds, telling me the nurses were helping others and would be with me shortly. Over and over I heard this. It was very, very annoying. What's more, I realized that, since I was calling on my lunch break, the nurses were probably also at lunch, and instead of helping other callers, as I was being told (repeatedly!) they were really helping themselves to cheese steaks and would not be taking my call. After 20 minutes (that's 60 repeating messages) I hung up.
The upshot of all this? I'm considering switching doctors, I no longer care to eat at that restaurant and when I get library books...well, I generally still stand there and fume, drumming my fingers. What does all this mean to you? I think that's pretty clear. Don't do these things or you'll lose business!
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