Shame Shame Shame.

Sometimes we can’t just learn things once or twice, we are forced to learn them over and over.

Sometimes we get something right and then we get complacent and we screw up again.

At ISS Atlantic City the Ink Kitchen hosted some shop talks and one was a very good one by Ryan Moor of Ryonet. He spoke of how most of the successful shops he has visited have been very clean. People work better that way and it also makes a great impression on a customer entering your shop.

I cannot tell you how it pains me, but we once had a very clean shop but right now we don’t. Complacency, lack of training, change in employees, and laziness have taken a toll.

A dirty shop is:

– bad for morale

– you can’t work quickly because you are avoiding the filth

– customers will think you are disgusting pigs, not good printers

– printers will get ink randomly on them and this will cause you to get ink on garments where it doesn’t belong, which…

– will cost you time and money fixing them with a spotting gun

– will cost you money because you ruined a shirt (for example Comfort Colors which can’t be fixed with dry cleaning fluid)

– will cost you money because you will send dirty shirts in a customer’s order that get returned or piss them off, and could even cost you that customer

The solution is diligence in two parts. Part one is to clean everything thoroughly as soon as possible, and then on a regular basis. It is easier to keep clean than to get clean, and a very clean shop tends to stay clean.  Part two is to start working in as clean a fashion as possible, particularly not doing stupid lazy things like carrying ink three feet from bucket to screen with a spatula spilling it on the way, when you could have brought the bucket to the screen.

There are some systematic things you can do for cleanliness, like make sure you have the right cleaning tools and chemicals, but mostly you just have to have the right mindset.

The shop will be clean again.

I suffer to post these, but hopefully we will be shamed into action: