Print shop boss demands large print job start 'this instant' when preparation is incomplete, has to be redone, and costs the company a lot of money: 'Job was late, we lost any profit we were looking forward to through overnight delivery, reprint, etc.'

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Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Jul 23, 2025 12:00 PM EDT

The "manifestation" crowd and your boss have at least one thing in common: Thinking that by saying or thinking something, it will come to fruition. No matter how much you want it, you can't always say something is and have it be so; the demand or expectation itself doesn't bear fruit. Like I'd be so happy right now if even $50,000 dropped out of the sky and landed on the ground at my feet, but that's just not going to happen. There's no amount of "manifesting" or demanding that's going to bring that into being.

The same goes for more mundane tasks. If a task, like getting a machine up and running, takes 10 minutes, it takes 10 minutes. You can't have your boss come in saying, "Do it now," and have it take 1 minute. Nor can you necessarily give that task to two people and have it take them 5 minutes each. That would be like expecting two pregnant women to be able to birth a baby in 4.5 months.

It is true, however, that having a clear goal in mind and a chance of getting there will make success far more likely, and those who believe that their effort will make them successful are seemingly more likely to be. But this is saying more about successive consecutive effort and attempts and energy being put toward something, rather than demand or wishful thinking.

You can't just go and give your subordinates something to do "this instant" when it's simply not possible; at any rate, it will lead to some sort of disaster, like it did for this boss who was forced to eat the cost of their mistake. 

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  • 01

    "We never have time to do it correct, but we always have time to do it again."

    I ran the mail department in a good-sized commercial printing company. Most of my day was filled with taking customer mailing lists and processing them so that they get discounts at the post office, but occasionally I produced consecutively numbered items (read raffle tickets).
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  • 02
    Cheezburger Image 10533196288
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 03
    Now, raffle tickets are small. Maybe 1 by 4 inches, too small to run to the machine by themselves. We decided to run them four across and two high, so eight raffle tickets per sheet. I created a spreadsheet in Excel that had eight columns (one for each raffle ticket position). The raffle tickets in this particular case were printed on a special type of paper that has a holographic background. Very expensive.
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  • 04
    The process of setting up the inkjet machine to print the eight numbers in two spots on each raffle ticket is to find the appropriate XY position for the first ticket number to be placed on the customer portion, then copy that number to replaced on the part of the ticket that is ripped off and given to the administers of the raffle. Now I have coordinates that I can extrapolate to the remaining seven positions.
    via 2BallsInTheHole
  • 05
    Having copied and pasted the original two text boxes using extrapolated XY coordinates, they were all showing the exact same raffle number, the first row/column in my spreadsheet. While I was going through the process of changing position two to reflect the data in the second column, position three to reflect the data in the third column, etc. my always- in-a-hurry manager showed up and, right in front of my entire department, yelled "why is this machine not running yet?" I was currently halfway
    via 2BallsInTheHole
  • 06
    I told him that it wasn't set up yet, I still had some work to do to get it ready. He looked at the screen and could see that there was data for all eight tickets, all 16 positions had a text box associated. Never mind if the text box contained the correct data or not, they all had data associated.
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  • 07
    Happy to tell you, I pushed back hard. I didn't give him specifics, just that the setup was not complete and cannot be run as is. He asked, I sh you not, "what's it going to take to get this machine running right now?" Easy! I'll simply comply!
    via 2BallsInTheHole
  • 08
    I handed him the last piece that came out of the machine (mind you, positions 6, 7, and 8 all contained data for position one, and position 5 was only half right) and said, "if you want to put your signature on this piece, we can run it right now. But I'm not signing off on it until I verify the accuracy of all 16 positions."
    via 2BallsInTheHole
  • 09
    The next day was h I. More special paper had to be purchased delivered FedEx overnight first a.m. delivery, rush job to print and cut and deliver to my department, rush to imprint (correctly) positions five through eight, cut to final size, box and deliver to the customer. Job was late, we lost any profit we were looking forward to through overnight delivery, reprint, etc etc etc.
    via 2BallsInTheHole
  • 10
    I just smiled and did my job, never said a word, but the look on his face when he told me I had to redo half the job was priceless.
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    Cheezburger Image 10533197568
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 12
    CoderJoe1 Boss was on a seagull mission
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  • 13
    Rainy_Grave You can do something quickly, correctly, and cheaply. But you can only pick two of those.
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  • 14
    kinglouie493 We do it nice, cause we do it twice
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  • 15
    zharrhen5 I worked in the printing world for a long time so I know exactly what kind of numbering setup youre talking about. Takes like 10 minutes max. 5 if you already have a template. Boss needs to calm tf down.
    via 2BallsInTheHole
  • 16
    Outspoken_Idiot An extra 10/20 minutes of number crunching on page layout for cut, fold stack jobs could save hours in the bindery department, as our bindery manager found out when he wanted jobs to keep his staff busy, couldn't understand why our origination section lads would talk with the printers and finishers to plan jobs around other workloads. Waiting an
    via 2BallsInTheHole
  • 17
    hour for a particular digital printer was sometimes worth it knowing the finished product fed better through a perforation machine. Hours saved from manual mind numbing labor by the guys in the origination department sometimes it's worth being nice to those guys.
    via 2BallsInTheHole
  • 18
    Tremenda-Carucha I see his point, but wouldn't it have been wiser to just explain the situation to his boss rather than making more work for everyone?
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  • 19
    havereddit Meh, this does not compute. Why would you not "give him specifics"? All it would take is you saying] "if we proceed as we are currently set up, all of the tickets will need to be redone".
    via 2BallsInTheHole
  • 20
    TelstarMan K. J. Parker said the easiest, fastest, safest, cheapest way to do a job is PROPERLY, THE FIRST TIME.
    via 2BallsInTheHole

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