This is first in a weekly series of “Misprint Monday” posts. Oh, if we only lived in a world where there was not so much material, so damn many mistakes. Of all the regular columns on the Ink Kitchen, this may unfortunately be the easiest to fill.
This one is a common error this week. If you focus on one error, you don’t see another error. In this case we were doing a rush job and the line of type didn’t look straight, we were having difficulty making the logo which is a line of type look parallel to a white line at the bottom of a hipster knit acrylic hat. It didn’t sew that well either. So with focus on the straight line, we missed that the digitizer had inadvertently messed up the logo. The dot to the “i” in “grid” should actually not be a dot, but actually is should be a diamond. At least six people, customer service, digitizer, artist, two embroidery employees and ugh, yes me, we all saw the hat and didn’t notice the problem with the “i” which is pretty noticeable even if you are not familiar with the logo.
That brings us to the second aspect of this error. We sent a photo to the customer (number 7 to miss it), and told the customer about the alignment issue. It was approved.
A few dynamics all too common to this situation:
– look at one error you miss another one, even a more obvious one
– your customer may approve something, but if you had it in your power to fix it or if on any level you got something wrong? You can insist that the approval means they have to pay, but do you think you will ever get any work from that customer again?
– beware of customers that approve things on their cell phone
– rush jobs should cost more, not just because you may have overtime to pay, but because more errors will happen.
The comfort in this? My friend’s Mom Bonnie Kilgore had the homespun wisdom to comfort me one time. She said, “Show me somebody that don’t make no mistakes, and I’ll show you somebody that ain’t doin’ nothin’.” Wise woman, but every mistake does hurt and the only benefit is usually a hard lesson learned. Maybe if we share a few of each other’s errors we can all make a few less.
Hey a few folks in a shelter in Boston in the cold weather are going to be warmer because of my mistake…
ain’t doin’ nothin’.” Indeed.
