That’s Not Actually What I Said…

First of all please allow me to apologise for the number of work related posts that I’m making at the moment, my life otherwise is a bit dull at the moment so it’s either this or nothing! I’m sure there’s probably at least one person out there who prefers these posts over the others anyway.

A few weeks ago a gentleman came in just before we opened and enquired about having some pictures printed from CD. I don’t mind answering quick questions while the lab is still closed but as you probably know by now that’s where I pretty much draw the line. Anyway, this customer told me that he had some pictures on CD that he wanted printing but that they were grouped into folders which he would like to keep together if possible. I told him that if he put the CD into the kiosk it would display and/or print the pictures in the order in which it found them on the CD, which is normally in alphabetical order by folder in this case, but that it wouldn’t display each folder in the same way that a PC would. I also pointed out to him that he would need to seperate the prints into their groups himself later. He seemed happy enough with that.

He then enquired about the cost, saying that he had about 1500 prints he needed. I worked out the approximate cost for this at the size he wanted and told him that it would be around £75 to have that many printed. I also pointed out to him that the maximum number of prints you can put in one order is 999 and enquired if they were all on the same CD with a view to explaining the easiest way to go about doing it. As it turns out they were across four discs so I said the best way to do it would be to do each CD individually but speak to us first so that we know to add the orders together to prevent him having to pay more than is necessary. The chances are that each disc had enough pictures on it to qualify for the lowest price per print anyway but it’s best not to take any chances. Again he seemed happy enough and said he would bring the CDs in.

I expected him to do so later in that week, or at the beginning of next week at least, as when most people say they will be back with a memory card or CD that’s generally the sort of time frame they return in. However, I didn’t see him again in this time and there were no very large orders around so he hadn’t come in when I wasn’t there either. After a while I totally forgot about it. That was until last week when a colleague who hasn’t been working in there very long presented me with a pack of four CDs that this customer had dropped in the previous day. My colleauge had tried to tell him that he needed to put them through the kiosks but he said that I had told him I would do them for him because there were so many. This is clearly not the case, if anything the fact that there were so many of them would make me even more reluctant to tell someone that I would do their pictures for them simply because of the amount of time it takes. As you can imagine I wasn’t best pleased but at least he had given us a week to do them in.

However, I hadn’t heard the best bit yet. Apparently I had told him that the kiosks wouldn’t show the folders or put them in order for him so I said I would take the CDs and could do that for him and could I please pack them as per folder (i.e. put all the pictures from one folder in an envelope and then the next folder in a different envelope and so on…). Now, as you’ll probably recall I did tell him that the kiosk wouldn’t display the folders but I also told him that it would display the pictures in the order that they were on the disc and that if he printed them all they would print in order. I even specifically pointed out that he would need to seperate them himself if that’s what he wanted. As you’ve probably guessed I was even less impressed now and was in half a mind to give him a call and tell him to come and do them himself.

Unfortunately my colleauge didn’t know that what he was saying was a load of rubbish and agreed that we would do it for him so I couldn’t really not do it now. That meant I had to sit there and go through nearly 1600 pictures on our machine 38 at a time which in itself is pretty soul destroying. What makes it worse is that once you’ve started a CD you can’t really leave it half way through as you’re liable to lose your place and not know what you have and haven’t printed. It also doesn’t help the general smooth running of the lab when the machine can’t be used for a while because I’m sitting there running these CDs through. It’s just as well he did give us a week!

Part of me wonders if he did it deliberately or if it was just a misunderstanding. On one hand I can see how he might  have misunderstood me when I said that the kiosks wouldn’t display the folders but would print in order but on the other hand I never mentioned that our machine would be any different so how did he know that it would work that way? I definitely didn’t say anything that would have given him the impression that it would and I definitely didn’t make it sound like we would take them in for him. All I said was to let us know when he came in so we could add the orders together for him.

Still, it’s all done now.