He’s a little bit werrr, a little bit weyyyyy, a little bit arrrgggh … Paul Stephenson delves into the dodgier side of the printing industry and those practices best avoided
I had my car serviced last week — I rarely enter main dealerships, but as I get older I sadly don’t get my trousers taken down for a firm spanking that often, so I figured why not, how much can it hurt? The price of oils, plugs and filters left a bit of a red mark on the old nonsmiling cheeks, but the list of ‘must do immediately’ recommendations felt like a bad trip to Frau Buttstraffers School of Correction (just off Berwick Street).
According to the bemused chuckle brother mechanic, a further two grand was required to avoid me causing a twelve car pile up as I left the forecourt. Having recently replaced my brakes the alarm bells rang. A second opinion was required, and I could do no better than visit a consultant known only in the trade as, The Reverend. This is a man who lives solely to work on my particular type of tricky engine; a man who sleeps alone in fire retardant pyjamas and styles his hair with Axlecream; a man who if he invited you for dinner, which he never will, would fry the fish in Castrol R, present the chips in a hub cap, and serve each calibrated pea with an adjustable spanner. He spends quality time alone in the gents with greasy old copies of Autocar — basically, he’s frightening.
He circled the vehicle, pumped her up on the ramp, and drained off some fluid. Sniffing it, I expected him to tell me it was a cheeky little red that had suffered from too much of the Dordogne wind, causing the grapes to sulk a little; but he remained silent.
At one point he blew on her wishbone bushes, gently, like Ray Mears when he’s trying to light a fire with a twig and some squirrel fluff, and then he listened for a full five minutes to something only audible to a really big eared dog. In due course he turned to me and said: “There is absolutely nothing wrong with this car. Your main dealer diagnosis is the result of a bonus system that rewards the least amount of mechanic’s time spent on a vehicle, offset by the maximum amount of work found.” Spok is alive and well and running a garage in Nottingham.
Could it be that the main dealer had tried to tuck me over, roll me up and stitch my kippers? I hadn’t felt that ripped off since a drug dealer tried to sell me a wine gum. And it got me to thinking, what are the dodges in our industry? The ducks the dives the woo’s and the ooh ‘ers? Shall we prod the beast, turn it over and inspect the seedy underbelly of print and embroidery? A little perhaps… while stressing that the following are never used by the majority of up standing and church going like myself — I’ve got a Blue Peter badge for God’s sake. If you’re wondering who actually made those Christmas decorations out of coat hangers tinsel and real candles, the one’s that burnt down the nursing home, look no further!
There’s the one screen per film ploy. You know the drill, when customers are told that their postage stamp size artwork will need an A3 screen all to itself which must be charged for accordingly — tell that to 10 people, cram all the films onto one screen and hey poncho, ten times the profit — Harry Grout would have loved it. And in the same blue vein that threads the stinky cheese of print, each design will need its own film, won’t it? You wouldn’t put four left breast size designs onto one A4 film would you, all nice and composite like, and then charge each one out separately? Good Lord no, I’m sure it’s only ever been dreamt of Mr MacKay.
What about Flash Whites — was he mates with Flash Harry? Sometimes you need ‘em, but let’s be honest me scurvy swabs, sometimes you don’t. And if you do get away with just one white and a touch of expanding base, you don’t charge for that extra white do you boys, no no, never been done.
Let us also not forget the ridiculous technical explanation. I actually heard a printer once explain bad registration away by blaming a rogue batch of ink — apparently the molecules in the plasticizing agent were vibrating excessively. And did I ever tell you about the time that Claudia Schiffer was making a cake at my place, when her scanty blouse was ripped off by the blender and she began kneading her breasts like a baker with a rush order? It’s about as close to the truth. And that’s just print — I wonder what the Terry Thomas Embroidery Company get up to — you don’t think they ever tell you it’s a 30,000 stitch design and then digitize it with 30 do you — could that be why some logos look about as threadbare as a rug in a knocking shop? But in the Printer’s Criminal Almanac there is one crime listed above all: the inability to take it on the chin. When the wrong print colour has been used, on the wrong shirt, for the wrong customer, as has or will happen to us all, there are those who stand up and are counted, replace the garms, re-print or be damned sir — the kind of printer you’d have wanted with you at Rorke’s Drift. And then there are those who make excuses: “You never said you wanted that colour … well I can’t see an email and anyway you can’t prove they’re the wrong garments and it was my day off and I’m on 15 different kinds of tablets you know and…” Those who drink alone, and skulk in dark doorways to avoid the light of honesty.
You might be forgiven for thinking that with my pedigree at some point I have been guilty of one or more of the above crimes, but I’ll put my hand on the Holy Pantones, swear an oath to the contrary and meet any man with a Krebs gun at dawn who says otherwise — I might be able to get you a container load of fire damaged woks, but print my brothers and sisters, is and forever shall be sacred. Amen.
