Here’s
the latest on the Office Depot booklet printing, folding and stapling
computer/printer team. I had to make two
more trips up there yesterday. First, I
returned a call from them. Seems they
were having some trouble (Imagine that)
and needed me to do something. I had no
idea what she was requesting, however, so I told her I would come up to the
store and she could tell me in person.
Fortunately the store is not but about a mile away, or we would already
have more serious issues. When I arrived
she went into her second attempt at telling me what she needed for the
printer’s computer to accept the document.
I finally stopped her and asked her to show me. Ah. Finally. Their super-intelligent computer needed each
page of the 8 ½ by 11 inch folded in half booklet (not each piece of paper, mind you.
Each numbered page of the document, itself) to be printed as an 8 ½
by 11 sheet in itself. Apparently all
the computer could comprehend was how to shrink that down into the proper
formatting. OK. More work for me.
I
went back home and set to work reformatting the document. Amazing what a West Ender will do to keep
from driving all the way downtown to the other print shop in town. I increased the font size appropriately so
that the shrinked copy would still be readable.
I gathered up the original copy I ran on my printer, made a PDF file and
put it on a flash drive, and made a return trip. The girl waiting on me was ecstatic. I finally had given her what she needed. Her boss told her to make me a copy so I
could approve the job. So she ran them
through the good ol’ machine. And it
printed out the booklet … on that monstrously sized, 8 ½ by 16 inch paper. She brought it over to show me that it had
indeed sorted the pages properly (except
for one little glitch that she assured me was fixed). She then said they would get it down to the
right size and take it from there. I
said, “I would like to see one that is the right size.” Seemed like a reasonable request. She loaded them back up. And it printed out the booklet … on 8 ½ by 14
inch paper. It didn’t look bad. Just not the size we ordered. That brought out a call for the big
guns. The mysterious Page would have to
be involved in the process from here on out.
She is the printer computer whisperer who can get it to do
anything. Page would be able to get it
right … when she comes on duty in another two hours. Of course.
Chris
and I were in WalMart later in the afternoon when my phone rang. On a hunch, I went ahead and answered. It was … dun, dun, dun … Office Depot. Seems Page was not as all-powerful as they
had assumed. She could only convince the
computer to shrink as far as the 8 ½ by 14 inch paper. Anything less was deemed impossible. For them to do the order as I requested, they
would have to run each page, then assemble, fold and staple each booklet by
hand. Horror of all horrors … the
old-fashioned way. And of course the
increased manpower required to do such an unthinkable task would considerably raise
the price of the job. Right. Their final offer was to run the print job at
the already quoted price, but on the larger paper. I honestly didn’t feel much up to arguing
from a position somewhere between the pineapples and grapes. We will have slightly larger song booklets
for the sunrise service this year, folks.
Hope we can all see the print. And
maybe, just maybe, I will make the trek all
the way downtown next year to that other print shop.
Psalms
40:2 says, “He lifted me out of the slimy
pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place
to stand.”
Father,
please help those folks out with the print job.
No matter what, though, we will worship you on Easter. Amen.
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