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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: alan802 on September 22, 2015, 01:30:20 PM
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In the beginning it was a cupcake job with one print location, one color. Now they've decided they want to put their custom labels on every shirt and I do not want to deal with this in-house. It took a month just to find a shirt that they liked, and this customer has the potential to be big, so by adding the neck label we've essentially doubled the work and labor involved and they will be placing large orders so it's kind of a big deal. I'm looking at it from the standpoint of the job just having 2 print locations like most of our stuff, but the large quantities and the hassle with dealing with custom labels has me wondering what I should do. LAT had initially offered to label the shirts with the custom heat transfers but has since taken that offer off the table, and now I'm looking at maybe opening the shirt brand choice back up. We were going to have the labels made, sent to LAT, then they would decorate that part then send the shirts to us and then boom...cupcake job, ability to knock out 5K a day if we needed to, bla bla bla. Now we are looking at having to label the shirts, not to mention taking all of the tags off the shirts, and I'm not going to buy a label printing machine and hire 2 people to run it without seeing how this line of clothing is going to work out. I know some would buy what they needed but we all know that for every couple of thousand of customers that walk through the door with the "next big tshirt design" only 1 of them actually sells 1000 shirts and maybe 1 in a million does anything worth buying equipment for.
So my long-winded questions are for you shops that do custom labels for customers, do you just print it in-house, or do you get hot peel labels made and heat press them? Does anyone have them labeled prior to arriving at your shop by the shirt manufacturer or third party? It sure would make my life easier if they were done like we had planned originally and we would just print the design and be done with it. And there are other things that are making this whole venture not seem so worth all the effort that I've been putting in. The customer comes by the shop EVERY DAY, and not to be rude but I'm so busy I don't even have time to take a break to eat, much less visit and talk about things that we've already talked about a dozen times. I can feel like they have doubts about us being able to fulfill their orders but they haven't ordered more than 80 shirts at a time up to this point and although I really think this could actually take off, I'm not so sure I want in on this since we have so much work right now we can't get everything done with 12 hour shifts, 6 days a week. I try to tell them that the amount of work we have right now is about 3 times more than our usual workload and while I'm trying to manage a very busy shop I just don't have time to hold hands and do all the leg work in trying to get the custom label thing done and they also see that. They've offered to help with all of that, but nothing has really been done that I can feel good about going forward. The guy keeps asking me how we're going to print 50K shirts when his line blows up and where we're going to park the shipping containers and I just tell him we'll cross that bridge when we get there but the fact that the questions keep being asked I feel like I'm going to be doing all this work only for them to leave to a larger shop that tells them what they want to hear. They've been through several shops already and settled on us due to the print quality, but these days you can never count on customer loyalty.
I know it's a long read, and many of you have dealt with this before and currently and I could use some good advice right about now. Should I just screen print the labels in-house? Or should I continue to pursue someone else doing them prior to arrival here? Any and all options are welcomed. Or should I just deal with the known customers and recommend another shop to them and not be so stressed out about this all the time? I really do think this could be big due to the contacts this guy has, but the work we have to do not counting this customer is unbelievable and my plate is more than full. If this does work out we'd have to buy another press more than likely, but how long will this last is my long-term concern. Ok, I'm babbling now, thinking out loud and I've probably lost most of you already. GIVE ME OPTIONS!!!!!
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In the beginning it was a cupcake job with one print location, one color. Now they've decided they want to put their custom labels on every shirt and I do not want to deal with this in-house. It took a month just to find a shirt that they liked, and this customer has the potential to be big, so by adding the neck label we've essentially doubled the work and labor involved and they will be placing large orders so it's kind of a big deal. I'm looking at it from the standpoint of the job just having 2 print locations like most of our stuff, but the large quantities and the hassle with dealing with custom labels has me wondering what I should do. LAT had initially offered to label the shirts with the custom heat transfers but has since taken that offer off the table, and now I'm looking at maybe opening the shirt brand choice back up. We were going to have the labels made, sent to LAT, then they would decorate that part then send the shirts to us and then boom...cupcake job, ability to knock out 5K a day if we needed to, bla bla bla. Now we are looking at having to label the shirts, not to mention taking all of the tags off the shirts, and I'm not going to buy a label printing machine and hire 2 people to run it without seeing how this line of clothing is going to work out. I know some would buy what they needed but we all know that for every couple of thousand of customers that walk through the door with the "next big tshirt design" only 1 of them actually sells 1000 shirts and maybe 1 in a million does anything worth buying equipment for.
So my long-winded questions are for you shops that do custom labels for customers, do you just print it in-house, or do you get hot peel labels made and heat press them? Does anyone have them labeled prior to arriving at your shop by the shirt manufacturer or third party? It sure would make my life easier if they were done like we had planned originally and we would just print the design and be done with it. And there are other things that are making this whole venture not seem so worth all the effort that I've been putting in. The customer comes by the shop EVERY DAY, and not to be rude but I'm so busy I don't even have time to take a break to eat, much less visit and talk about things that we've already talked about a dozen times. I can feel like they have doubts about us being able to fulfill their orders but they haven't ordered more than 80 shirts at a time up to this point and although I really think this could actually take off, I'm not so sure I want in on this since we have so much work right now we can't get everything done with 12 hour shifts, 6 days a week. I try to tell them that the amount of work we have right now is about 3 times more than our usual workload and while I'm trying to manage a very busy shop I just don't have time to hold hands and do all the leg work in trying to get the custom label thing done and they also see that. They've offered to help with all of that, but nothing has really been done that I can feel good about going forward. The guy keeps asking me how we're going to print 50K shirts when his line blows up and where we're going to park the shipping containers and I just tell him we'll cross that bridge when we get there but the fact that the questions keep being asked I feel like I'm going to be doing all this work only for them to leave to a larger shop that tells them what they want to hear. They've been through several shops already and settled on us due to the print quality, but these days you can never count on customer loyalty.
I know it's a long read, and many of you have dealt with this before and currently and I could use some good advice right about now. Should I just screen print the labels in-house? Or should I continue to pursue someone else doing them prior to arrival here? Any and all options are welcomed. Or should I just deal with the known customers and recommend another shop to them and not be so stressed out about this all the time? I really do think this could be big due to the contacts this guy has, but the work we have to do not counting this customer is unbelievable and my plate is more than full. If this does work out we'd have to buy another press more than likely, but how long will this last is my long-term concern. Ok, I'm babbling now, thinking out loud and I've probably lost most of you already. GIVE ME OPTIONS!!!!!
we do them in house, almost every day. We either do them as screen printed transfers, or with direct printing on our aspe tagger. We also will just screen them on sleeve plattens from time to time. Each method is used for a specific reason, depending on the job quality or quantity.
For 85% of our clients, we just do the labels, but the other 15% that want them, have the good supplied with their labels. Typically they are bigger companies. for instance we do alot of corporate stuff for a private brand, who works with chipotle. All of their tees come tagged with their logo.
I'd say do them in house, but we are just down the road if you need anything.
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Alan,
What is the feasibility of creating a one color manual right next to your dryer to do the smaller runs of neck labels? You know... just until his 50k order comes through.....
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We have basic colors in basic styles private label tagged by the dye lot...but we have been considering getting other colors and small-run styles done to maintain consistency. I haven't made contact yet but I was referred to these guys for small and large runs:
http://www.ddilogistics.com/ApparelServices/LabelSewing.aspx (http://www.ddilogistics.com/ApparelServices/LabelSewing.aspx)
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flip side of the coin here Al, you can't be everything to everyone. We had an opportunity fall in our lap and it was a dream print job, something we really thought we wanted.... but mathematically, it did not make sense, so we had to pass...it would have taken a serious toll on us to have produced it., and at the end of the day - it's only money. sounds to me like you are already stressed out and stretched thin..... The owners need to make this type of stuff their problem, not yours....but this is just me
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Logistics, if your guys are already stretched thin you'd need to add equipment or staff and maybe longer or 2nd shifts. Is the cheddar there for all that off 1 account? What do you do when they bail?
We just went through this ourselves. Huge deal (for us). We passed on a mid/high 6 figure deal (client was also doubling in sales every month or so and who knows what it would have became). The logistics where just not there for us at this time and we'd have to add at least a press and full staff for it as well as logistics people to keep up with the coming and going of garments and such. Just had to pass. It was a sickening feeling but was the right choice for us at the time. I couldn't put my self under that much extra stress with what we already are dealing with daily. At some point ill chase stuff like that but for now no.
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We have a customer right now that's going to be a pain or one of our best, and they are looking at the same thing Al's custy is looking for....I will agree with Homer it's just money in the end and how much of a headache do you feel like taking to make it :-\
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Maybe it was lost in the lengthy post, but how many pieces is the initial order? A low budget option is to buy a couple heat presses (cap), have the transfers made, and hire a couple temps to press them. Overall cheaper than adding tag printing equipemtn or additional permanent staff until necessary. If it's 5k or less, just run them off on an auto with the sleeve plattens. Done in a day most likely.
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The orders we've had have been fairly short runs. We make our own transfers and apply them using our Hotronix cap press. For a really long run, I might source the transfers out. I like transfers because they don't bleed through to the other side, as can happen with direct printing...
Steve
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Maybe it was lost in the lengthy post, but how many pieces is the initial order? A low budget option is to buy a couple heat presses (cap), have the transfers made, and hire a couple temps to press them. Overall cheaper than adding tag printing equipemtn or additional permanent staff until necessary. If it's 5k or less, just run them off on an auto with the sleeve plattens. Done in a day most likely.
I agree with kingscreen.
When we get big orders we'll try having the labels done by the brand. We only do them ourselves on smaller runs to save time. I agree you should hire 1 or 2 temps and do them in house (plastisol transfer). It's probably the most cost effective/quick way to do it.
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We print them in house. Get yourself a little ASPE or one of their competitors. We like our ASPE. in a couple hours you can blow through 3k prints like nothing. Its the best 7 grand we ever spent. We run ours pretty much every. Its going to be running 12 plus hours a day here shortly with about 25k labels to run in the next few weeks. Its paid for itself on the first 20k prints we ran through it. We had two fast guys on it one day and they ran 6800 pcs in a little over 8 hours. Times that by .40 per label and there is an easy 2700 bucks for the day
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Alan,
What is the feasibility of creating a one color manual right next to your dryer to do the smaller runs of neck labels? You know... just until his 50k order comes through.....
I think that's the best option right now, but finding someone to actually do the work is where I'm having a tough time. I hired two new guys, one a month ago and the other last week, and for the most part they've been great, but one of the two is having a baby soon and his wife seems to be having A LOT of issues with the pregnancy (he's missed 2 full days and parts of 5 others in the 4 weeks he's been here which seems strange but how the hell do you handle that).
I like the idea of the mini auto but at this point I'm not ready to drop even a few thousand dollars on a press because I have zero faith that I'll find someone that would run it..besides myself of course. I also like the idea of the transfers because I have a hat press and I think I could have a temp do the heat pressing far easier than I could have someone directly printing them on a manual or the auto tag printer.
I should start a new thread on all the ridiculous issues we've had with hiring, firing, quitting, missing work for reasons I know you've all dealt with before. I've had a full crew on the payroll for about 3 months, off/on out of the last 6, yet yesterday and Monday were the first two consecutive days where we've had a full crew both days in the last 6 months. And one of my guys is out today (the baby might be coming, the baby might be coming, but only after they gave her a hefty dose of morphine and when she wakes up she'll either be going into labor or they'll release her from the hospital but either way my guy isn't going to make it in today...yes, that's what I was told via email this morning) and my other guy has his family moving in to town since he got here a few weeks before them and he's going to be out tomorrow and Friday. I've got a request out to the temp agency for 2 temps today so hopefully that will work out so I'll at least have someone at the end of the dryer all day.
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I wonder if that since down in south Texas I imagine there are a lot of jobs and many pay well or more than other areas of the country. I wonder if your struggling with staff for those reason? Abundance of jobs and higher/similar wages in easier jobs maybe? Just a guess as to some of your issues.
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This looks like a good job to use our Tagless Pallets on.
http://www.actionengineering.com/Prod-23-1-4955-528/m-r-reg-style-tagless-pallet-br-16in-x-22in-br-40-64cm-x-55-88cm.htm (http://www.actionengineering.com/Prod-23-1-4955-528/m-r-reg-style-tagless-pallet-br-16in-x-22in-br-40-64cm-x-55-88cm.htm)
You can print two at a time. Print capacity - 4" x 6"
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I like the idea of the mini auto but at this point I'm not ready to drop even a few thousand dollars on a press because I have zero faith that I'll find someone that would run it..besides myself of course.
Everyone is an idiot except yourself.. That mental mindset is toxic to business growth.
It's a number on a balance sheet that makes money, buy the machine and move on to the next issue.
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John, unfortunately, "just buying a machine" isn't so easy in this case. I don't believe that Alan can justify it so easily to the pencil pushers there. I'm pretty sure if they'd listen to half of what he says, he wouldn't be so overwhelmed. Just my gut feeling. Also, it doesn't sound like he's convinced this will all pan out.
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Getting a tagger really is the answer... of course the pencils won't see it that way, and request to find another way to solve the problem..
it's the ferris wheel of production..
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Come on Dave.......you know all these ideas pan out! ;) Seriously, no matter where I am I never commit to this with the exception of established brands. Other wise the potential customer is asking you to help invest in their project with our money.
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I wonder if that since down in south Texas I imagine there are a lot of jobs and many pay well or more than other areas of the country. I wonder if your struggling with staff for those reason? Abundance of jobs and higher/similar wages in easier jobs maybe? Just a guess as to some of your issues.
Im in upstate ny and have pretty much similar issues as alan... its unbelievable..
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sorry i wont change the subject...LOL
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On the subject of pay as it pertains to us getting/maintaining employees: We pay about 30% more now than we did 5 years ago. Our quality of employee has gradually decreased over the years and the sample size is large enough to be able to examine and say that with certainty. It isn't the relationship that you would expect to see but I'm not blowing smoke to make myself or the shop look better, I don't have anything to prove to anyone so I'll continue to tell all of you how it is and no matter the ridiculousness that goes on you can count on me to share it with you. We hired "the best screen guy in central texas" (according to a few suppliers and one of my coworkers that worked with him at another shop years ago) for WAY more than what I was making when I was the screen guy and I'll give you guys a breakdown of what he got done yesterday with no interruptions: Coated 15 screens, reclaimed 12 screens, burned 14 screens and taped up approximately 20 screens in an 8 hour shift. In my experience, that is about 3.5 hours worth of work and I'm being VERY GENEROUS and rounding my numbers up and I think I could do that in about 2 hours. Is there anyone here that would pay someone $15/hr for that kind of production? What about $17/hr? Or how about what he was making at his last shop...$25/hr?
And on to the next question that gets raised: Maybe it's you Alan? Before it was asked to me I was already wondering if I was the problem. When Joe C was here he also paid attention to how I was with the crew and couldn't find anything that would be an issue but he was only here 3 days and for all he knew I could be completely different when he was there than my usual self. I can't address it from another's point of view, I can only tell you that the guys that have met me in person that I am the same person with the crew as I am in any other situation or with those that have spent time with me. There have been quite a few of you that have met me at a show, or spent a good amount of time here at the shop with me and it's not a Jekyll/Hyde thing where I put on a show for guests or the ISS show and I'm completely different with employees. I'm very observant of my surroundings and more so of myself recently because I've had this question raised more than once or twice when I discuss our lingering employee issues. I get upset when someone does something stupid, but it's been years since I "chewed" anyone's butt or publicly raised my voice to a crew member. I walk away and gather myself so that I don't say anything while I'm angry. I've also worked for many others and can say that I treat everyone that works for me at the very least as good but usually better than I've been treated by employers and feel that if anything, I'm too nice and easy going. Trust me, there are so many instances where I feel like if anyone of you guys were in my shoes that you'd lose your minds on some people but it really takes a lot to set me off. My printer made a mistake last week that cost the company almost $2K, he didn't read the production notes that were highlighted yellow on the front of the work order. I gathered the crew, told them we all need to look at the production notes so we're all familiar with each job and can cover each other's butts so we don't make those mistakes as a crew. I put the mistake on the whole crew, including myself and told them all that it's my responsibility to check that exact type of job and even though I was being the screen guy that day was not a good excuse to not double check something like that. When I told the owner about the misprints I caught myself ditching the responsibility of the mistake by telling her what I was doing at the time they were setting up/running the job but I made sure I didn't do that when addressing the crew. I didn't raise my voice, I was actually smiling and looking everyone in the eyes and tried to calm them down because they were all thinking that they were the one who made the mistake. When I told them how much it cost the company their jaws dropped and I told them we'd just have to make sure we don't have another mistake like that and we got back to work. I've learned over the years that my expectations of employees was too high, and comparing what I did when I was doing those jobs to a current employee wasn't realistic. If I'm not able to find good people because I'm too nice then oh well, and if I'm treating people poorly then I'm completely oblivious to it and I am way out of touch with reality if that's the case. If anyone can find fault in my behavior I'm more than willing to listen because if I am the problem at least I'm willing to fix it. I'm never too proud to be taught something even if it's very personal.
Now on the subject of buying a labeling machine: I had a meeting with our shirt supplier yesterday afternoon and our option of them labeling the shirts prior to arriving here is back on the table and is the direction we are going. I know it sounds easy to just buy a machine and hire someone to run it, but for us it's really very hard. If I went to my boss and said we have to buy this $10K machine to get us to the next level then it would be done. But even the most well heeled of you guys on here wouldn't spend that kind of money on this type of gamble combined with the headaches we have with employees. At least I hope you wouldn't. I hope this customer is going to be doing 250K pieces a year, he thinks it will be 1 million, but he's an optimist but I just can't see anyone buying a labeling machine and hiring for it on the hopes and dreams of the next big t-shirt design. I have 4 production employees on the payroll right now, and guess how many are here working today? ONE, yes, one, my printer. The other 3 had things they had to do. One had his baby yesterday, the other is moving his family to town and my part timer has said many times to just let him know if I need him on Thursday or Friday and he'll come in and I've asked him 3 times now without a yes. And if our only option was to label in house I'm not sure I'd go with the direct printing option and was leaning towards heat pressing because I have a cap press and I feel way more confident that I could find someone to run the heat press versus running an auto.
So that's the latest and I think I'm going home. I was just told that we needed to print two more shirts for a high school team with a 4 color front/back because a new girl joined the team. I just can't deal with this ignorance till I get a good nights sleep. Oh, and the guy doing our heat press numbers just screwed up 2 shirts with a 3 color screen printed design on the front. Guess I'll be replacing those shirts as well. Yeah Saturday!
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So that's the latest and I think I'm going home. I was just told that we needed to print two more shirts for a high school team with a 4 color front/back because a new girl joined the team. I just can't deal with this ignorance till I get a good nights sleep. Oh, and the guy doing our heat press numbers just screwed up 2 shirts with a 3 color screen printed design on the front. Guess I'll be replacing those shirts as well. Yeah Saturday!
Alan,
Don't let it get to you too much. While reading this post, I almost thought you were here describing what goes on around here. Eerily similar in so many ways.
I'll make a single observation in regards to that last paragraph dealing with a school team that wants 2 more shirts after the job has been run and taken down. We've held the line and done two things. We tell them up front, because face it, it's imminent, that they better order a few extra with the original order because they won't want to pay what I will have to charge to set that job back up for 2 shirts. We hold firm to that and in the rare case they HAVE to have them, I explain that our shop operates at $150/hour and we'll need a good half hour to get that job done. $75.00 for 2 shirts frankly teaches them a lesson and they might do that one time before you have them trained. It's sounds really bad but those folks just don't know what it takes to run a shop like yours and mine. I frequently take the new merchandise people for the PTOs and booster clubs on a nickel tour every year into our shop and show them what all goes into a simple t-shirt job. They are just ignorant. And I mean that in a good way. They just don't know and if I had a quarter for every person I've given that tour to that tells me "Wow, there is a lot of work that goes into the jobs!", I'd be sitting at the house drinking beer and not doing this.
Rest easy, bro.
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You need to get yourself some good people. It's always been my experience that any part time job I had or part timers at jobs ive had that none of them took it serious. So that may be one reason your guy isn't coming to help you Thursday or Friday IMO. The "best screen guy in central Texas" sounds like a joke if that was his level of output. I haven't done screens in years and id run a circle around him. Last week I had my wisdom teeth removed, so Shelly and I couldn't be at the shop as a result on Friday. So my 2 screen print guys reclaimed 60 screens, coated 70 screens, ran them on the CTS, burnt, rinsed and tapped them. With the spare time they shorted 4 days worth of blanks for screen print jobs for the next week. Then they helped my artist laminate/cut/ship 2,500 stickers. They left early. That's 2 guys, neither a ounce of screen printing experience before working here. One worked a call center and the other drove a shuttle for the disabled between 2 locations. Keep in mind they likely texted, called people, and monkeyed around throughout these processes all day. I was proud of them as that was the first day in my shops history it ran without Shelly and/or I in the building. I am not bragging either, my shop is far from as efficient or as good as it should be. I am only illustrating that there are good people out there.
You seem more and more tired of the situation, I would approach the owners with the situation and that its time a solution is reached before YOU burn out. You are clearly their biggest asset out there and it seems like you've about had it with employees. Are you guys having this level of staffing issues in embroidery?
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We've had the same core group over there for 10+ years but the additional 2-3 crew members we need in embroidery have been a revolving door much the same way it has been over here. The starting pay is considerably less over there which was one of the initial hurdles I had to face when hiring over here and with the trend lately to try and pay more and get better quality employees. I was getting all these applications and resumes and when I'd show them to Charlotte what they were asking to get paid it was shocking to her. It surprised me too because I worked in retail throughout college and the last few years I know that out of the 130 or so employees at my store that were hourly I made more than all of them so it wasn't like I was getting the shaft. My first 2 jobs that required a college degree paid less than what the majority of these applicants were asking for to be in the lowest position in the entire company. Every once in a while someone will come in and be astounded by how much we're going to pay them that they damn near trip over themselves to shake my hand and join the team. I'll be completely honest, I'm just not going to pay someone $15/hr to clean screens and virtually have no serious responsibility until they show me something. I have no problem paying more than that to someone who makes a difference around here. Right now, out of 25 employees, we have maybe 5 difference makers (3 of them are family) and maybe 10 that do the average and probably another 10 that are leeches and don't deserve a job.
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Do you think some of that is like I was mentioning that I assume there is a bunch of more jobs in that part of the country than others? Probably better paying jobs as well. Just putting A + B. If you can't find good people they have either found a easier or better paying job. It might be such that in that market that you'd have to really ramp it up pay wise to get good people and that would suck if the case.
In my market we are paying more than these guys would be earning without being in a career style job that they attended school for. We have given 3 of them 25% raises in 1-1.5 years they have been here. We bonus each year as well. Our business is growing and we can't do it without good people so we pass it on as frankly I am earning a excellent wage and am satisfied. I imagine the pace in your shop is a good bit rougher than our shop and those guys have to be balls out to keep up. So if pay is out of line for the market or there is a vast amount of available jobs for similar money I can see how that could/would be a challenge to keep people. You've probably even had good people but if they can do less and make the same elsewhere they may just not give you much because they have options.
Food for thought. I know you will get it figured out at some point.
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Brandt makes a good point on the pool of labor you have to dip in.
Over here I have thousands of people to pull from. I could bring in a new guy daily until I find the right one.
Not the case with a buddy, his pool is like 10 people.. and they all suck mud.
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The number of potential employees seems large to me but I could be way off in that opinion but what I do know is we get about 100 emails/calls with a Craigslist job posting within 2-3 days. The last round of hiring I let one of the admin staff next door handle it and CL wasn't the only site used. I didn't notice a difference in the type of person that came to apply, but I wasn't really looking for it and am going back to memory for that. I asked that CL not be the only place we listed the job and I was told we posted it at 3 other places besides CL, but the majority of responses I got via email were from CL. I'd be perfectly fine with not using that site ever again, but it has to be said that over the years we have got some great people from there. But the amount of stinkers is high and the ratio would likely be much better if we used another source for hiring. I like the temp agency thing and it worked great in the past but the last few rounds have been trouble, expensive, with no payout.
Another part of my perception of what the pay should be is due to what I was hired for, what I did for that pay and what I make now. When I think about how much more we're starting new hires at versus what I made it bothers me, but I have had to get over it and it doesn't enter into the equation any longer. Another thought is about the work environment and although we're doing twice as many jobs now versus 09', I feel like things are more comfortable in terms of the heat which is the biggest concern in my opinion. Everyone that works in production except myself has their own personal A/C unit they put on them during the day and I can't imagine how great that would have been during the summer of 11' when we had 100+ days of 100+ degree heat. Although lately we have had to work a lot of overtime, it's only been the last few months that we've done that. We went years without working past 5pm or before 8am, never worked a Saturday in 9 years until the last few months, and I don't ask the crew to come in on Sat. I leave it voluntary, and I come in, the family comes in and helps catch/pull while I run the auto. So there are more than a few things that I feel that other companies would require their employees to do that we don't. Even though the work is hard compared to the average general labor job, I don't feel like it's back-breaking work in horrid conditions. Everyone stands on padded mats, everyone has their A/C unit blowing on them whenever they want, but the workload is high and it's one job after the next all day long. Gone are the days where we could work at a leisurely pace and stretch 5 or 6 low color count, small quantity jobs into a full day. Now it's jamming 10-15 jobs of all shapes and sizes into a shift that is usually longer than 8 hours but less than 10. There have been more than a few days where I've been printing jobs on the manual press for up to 7-8 hours with only the hot air from the crew's A/C units blowing on me and I'm the only one that works longer than a 10 hour day without so much as a break to shove a hamburger down my gullet. Why does that matter? Well, it doesn't other than proving that no matter how hard the crew may be working, the old man with bad knees is putting out more than they are. I want them to see that even though they are working hard, they could be in my shoes and hopefully that is seen and respected but perhaps it's not.
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That sounds a like a bunch of phone calls, when we place a ad we get a few dozen pretty quick. We either are getting lucky or people want to work here. Sure my guys aren't perfect and when needed I out hustle them. But they do work pretty hard when they know we have to hit deadlines. If its casual work always gets finished but its milked some. Im ok with that.
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I spent my days on a concrete floor with a fan caked in lint for 11 summers in Florida..
kids these days.. no respect for hard working elders i tell ya
cushy working environment.. decent pay.. no consequences for my actions.. oh look they added some OT. He messed up 2k shirts and still works here.. I can come in late and they don't do anything.. yeah this job rocks!
Tighten up the ship.. you have some resentment on your floor
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Well, on a MUCH more serious note, my printer was late coming back from lunch and he came to me when he arrived and showed me a text his wife (who also works here) received from his brother in law, or so he thought. His wife's brother has been kidnapped by the cartel in Monterey Mexico and they sent a pic and are extorting the family now. This is bad. I don't even know what to say. I don't have a good feeling about this. I just told him to go handle what he needs to handle and we'll see him when he gets back. I hope it doesn't turn out any worse than it already is.
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Well, on a MUCH more serious note, my printer was late coming back from lunch and he came to me when he arrived and showed me a text his wife (who also works here) received from his brother in law, or so he thought. His wife's brother has been kidnapped by the cartel in Monterey Mexico and they sent a pic and are extorting the family now. This is bad. I don't even know what to say. I don't have a good feeling about this. I just told him to go handle what he needs to handle and we'll see him when he gets back. I hope it doesn't turn out any worse than it already is.
You can't even make that up.
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Alan to get back to what you wrote about your printer messing up a 2k job.
Our printers have to take the first print they do after setting up with the work file to the graphic designers to get approval before printing the order.
The best workers make mistakes, you system has to allow for this.
Also back to the neck labor, I am in India visiting my shirt supplier, here they do containers of shirts with iron on labels, but labor is cheap here.
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Alan to get back to what you wrote about your printer messing up a 2k job.
Our printers have to take the first print they do after setting up with the work file to the graphic designers to get approval before printing the order.
yep, we do the same. always need approval from the press op and the designer/commercial that worked the order (depends on who's available).
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We've done the "approval" thing many times over the years and it's usually something that we do right after we make a stupid mistake, it goes on for a few months, then we see that we waste about an hour per day waiting around for me or my artist (I don't trust my current artist to approve anything) or the former GM here (currently a sales person/scheduler) to approve a print. The busier we are the more I may or may not be sitting around waiting to look at a print. I'd love to do a cost analysis on this because we've made one mistake this year that cost us any significant time or money and that was the other day. So is it worth it to lose several hours a week of waiting around or just deal with one or two bad mistakes per year. Don't get me wrong, on tougher jobs, multi-colored/specific pantone color matches we absolutely get an approval from myself before we run, but on a one color back print typically it's left up to the crew to make the right choice and read the Work Order. I do agree that there needs to be at least 2 people that are checking things like this at all times, and I've been the main person that takes on the responsibility as well it should be, but I can't even begin to explain just how busy I've been since we've virtually doubled in size over the last 2 months.
Wish I had more time to talk about this, but my printer has gone to Mexico and who knows if he'll ever be back. I am currently training both new guys to run the press.
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my printer has gone to Mexico and who knows if he'll ever be back.
His name isn't christian is it.. that guy runs off from all the shops