Prepressforums.com

Joe · #11 (**permalink**) 12-28-2005, 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimking

I find errors with most of the jobs that I work on, no problem, I'm talking about nightmare jobs--jobs that come regularly from hell, jobs that are no fun to work on-- trust me.

Is there any other kind of jobs? :lol:

Seriously, take the jobs they give you, fix them, note what you had to do and then move on to the next piece of crap. Like I said, perfect files mean you don't have a job for long.

bethwh · #12 (**permalink**) 12-28-2005, 12:06 PM

Laugh all the way to the bank.

Trust me, your company is not in business to NOT make MONEY.

I fought the same battles, then it dawned on me, my check clears every week, I have a 401K and 3 weeks vacation every year.

I say bring it on - the more the better!! 8O :lol:

prepress_brillance_43 · #13 (**permalink**) 12-28-2005, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe, the prepress wizard

Personally I love these junk files. The junkier the better. I'm getting my 40+ hours per week, 50 weeks a year. I make a timesheet for every job and list on it exactly what I had to fix and how long it took to fix. Then it's up to the higher ups to decide what to charge the customer. The day these people start sending perfect files will be the day we lose our jobs to hot folders. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

and... at the same time make all of us who double as a designer look extremely knowledgeable about files, and processes.

I say leave them the hell in the dark about how to set things up correctly, just document your time spent and let accounts receivable sort out what to bill. your hourly rate wont change just because you had to spend two hours with that job instead of 5 minutes.

just me .02 :roll:

jimking · #14 (**permalink**) 12-28-2005, 01:04 PM

You are missing the big picture here. Printing is changing in good and bad ways for some folks and not others. I've been in this trade for 33 years. What I'm saying has nothing to do with my paycheck (even though that's nice) but the future of our trade as we know it. How long ago was it that everything was analog and over night it became digital. Service bureaus popped up everywhere to service printers. And then they just vanished. The prices dropped which allowed printers to afford to purchase digital gear which in turn put the bureaus out of business. Now, in many plants it is said that prepress is losing money, why?

pix3lphr3ak · #15 (**permalink**) 12-28-2005, 01:25 PM

Such irony today...

We have a customer who was hellbent on designing their own work (B&W forms, etc) to save money. They asked us what software they should get and one of the designers told them InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator or the CS or CS2 suite. Fastforward 2 weeks... customer calls frantically to phone/counter sales lady and says they need help getting their file to us (this is a common enough experience for any printshop, export PDF with correct settings > email or FTP). I pick up the phone and the lady asks me where to begin in InDesign for DESIGNING her work. I was nearly speechless and recommended she buy a Classroom in a Book or go to a seminar. 2 hours later I have the phone/counter sales lady come into my office saying I had infuriated the customer and that they were considering taking their business elsewhere. She could not comprehend why it I don't want to train someone for free on how to my job and cut me out of a job!

GRRRR

tbJAMMIN · #16 (**permalink**) 12-28-2005, 05:28 PM

I don't mind fixing things for customers and their "artists", my point is that I will not take responsibility for any of these corrections. They will sign off on anything we have to do (or at least sign one of our all inclusive blanket waiver of responsibility forms). I like my check cashing and being able to sleep at night. I could care less about job security if it comes with alot of stress and midnight phone calls...

Joe · #17 (**permalink**) 12-28-2005, 11:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimking

You are missing the big picture here. Printing is changing in good and bad ways for some folks and not others. I've been in this trade for 33 years. What I'm saying has nothing to do with my paycheck (even though that's nice) but the future of our trade as we know it. How long ago was it that everything was analog and over night it became digital. Service bureaus popped up everywhere to service printers. And then they just vanished. The prices dropped which allowed printers to afford to purchase digital gear which in turn put the bureaus out of business. Now, in many plants it is said that prepress is losing money, why?

No really, I'm not missing the big picture. I work at a printing plant and have for a long time. Prepress has always been a necessary evil for a printer. I can tell you right now if all of our customers could make perfect files, download them to a hot folder on our FTP site and get the plates through without any human intervention I'd be gone in a heartbeat. They love me but not that much. The money is made on the presses...not in prepress. By getting the junk files to the presses and getting them there correctly we ARE making money for the company overall but we're not making money for prepress specifically.

Joe · #18 (**permalink**) 12-28-2005, 11:54 PM

Just to clarify...I never claimed to be "the prepress wizard".

tequillajane · #19 (**permalink**) 12-29-2005, 04:39 AM

Well spoken my friend, I haven't been in the Biz nearly as long, but have seen small shops loose money and be very close to closing several times, due to poor management, and I feel that alot of that was simply lack of knowlege and desire for understanding the world of prepress,

After all, you can't keep wasting your own reources to get a job onto the press, if your not charging the customer for it, Be kinda like making 200 plates for a book, then finding out they want to change the font, and not charging for the time or plates from the first batch.

But in prepress so much is done on the MAC/PC that management doesn't comprehend, I swear they think you just hit PRINT and it looks great.

Thanks again for enforcing my thoughts! I do realize however that I can only inform and try to impress the importance of this to management, It is up to them to bill for it, I get a paycheck for doing my job. (As long as we're still in biz, anyway)

bethwh · #20 (**permalink**) 12-29-2005, 05:30 AM

I say evolve or die.

How many "strippers" did not want to go "electronic" because they thought they were the best and could not be replicated electronicly.

Well..... Conventional PrePress/Printing lasted about 100 years. I say we have about 10-15 years as things are now. Then if I'm still interested in PP
8O I''ll evolve with the business and continue onward through the FOG!

wooohooo! 8)