QUESTING FOR CERTIFICATES
(Posted 2007-08-02 10:20:05 by ArchPaladin)

So last Tuesday I needed to get these certificates printed out because I
have a couple of students that are testing and I need certificates to hand
them.  I had with me a thumb drive containing the images of the
certificates to be printed, and that's all.  No paper, no knowledge of what
kind of paper to print them on or even how large the paper needed to be (as
my business partner has formerly handled all these details).

All previous prints that we had made were done at Staples.  Now where I
live there are two Staples in close proximity to each other, and after work
on Tuesday I went to one of them.  I went up to the copy center, handed my
thumb drive to the person working there, and explained my situation.  I
called my business partner to get an idea about how large and what kind of
paper to use to print the certs on, and the answer I got was (a) however
large the image is when you open it in Adobe, and (b) some kind of
parchment/weave-like/thick paper.  Entirely not helpful, considering I
needed exact details for the woman working at Staples.

We found out through a little experimentation that the correct paper size
to print on was 11x17.  However, the only paper they had in the store that
was 11x17 was 20lb paper stock (apparently the usual stuff you print on -
notably not weave-like thick parchment paper).  After some further
discussion, we determined that the appropriate paper to print on would be
something akin to 65lb cover stock, which is a little thicker and more
certificate-like.  They told me that this particular Staples was like a
mini-Staples and didn't have everything in the store, but they could check
the inventory of the one down the street to see if it was there instead.

I was handed off to a sales associate to take care of exactly that.  In
between apologizing to me and rambling about how he hates retail, he goes
to one of the computer terminals in the store to pull up the inventory for
the next store over and is promptly rewarded with the all-too-familiar
message "Internal Server Error".  Not to be dissuaded, we head up to the
front desk and get on the phone to call the other store instead.  They put
us on hold for 10 minutes while they have someone go do a manual check of
their inventory, and return after those ten minutes with "no, we don't have
that item".  Again, due to the persistence of this particular sales
associate, he calls the third Staples on the other side of town to see if
they have it.  This necessitates another 10 minutes of waiting while they
perform the same manual inventory check, except this time they return with
"no we don't have that item, but we do have 67lb cover stock instead".  I
decide this is appropriate, and the sales associate has them put an entire
package of it on hold in my name so that I can get it when I get down
there.

There is a brief intermission here, while I take care of a subplot where I
must journey back to the old house in Milford, pick up a number of personal
items remaining there, and cart them back to my new home.  After doing
this, I head down to the aforementioned third Staples, and arrive at about
8:15 PM.  I mention the time because this will be important.

I head to the copy center in this third Staples and find a girl standing
behind the counter casually watching another man fill out something on an
electronic touchscreen.  I explain my situation: I have a thumb drive that
has images on it, and they need to be printed on 67lb cover stock, and a
package of said cover stock has been put on hold here in my name.  I
receive some incredibly dumbfounded look as though I was assaulting this
girl with information that was entirely not of her concern, and her primary
reaction is this "how can I help you get away from me?" sort of
responsibility-deflecting behavior.  I am somewhat persistent that I have
this paper on hold in this store, and after a couple of minutes of
discussion, she walks out of the copy center, down one aisle, picks up a
random pack of 67lb cover stock off the shelf, and hands it to me, asking
if that is what I was talking about (item on hold, indeed).  After I answer
affirmatively, she then asks me if there is anything else that I needed,
apparently having forgotten the fact that I came in here to have images
printed on the paper.  I reexplain the situation, and yet again I am
rewarded with more responsibility-deflecting behavior.  I get this story of
"well, I have this large job to do, and there's only one computer able to
read in images and print them out, and the job has to be done tonight and
it will take me until at least 9 PM, so the best that I can do is have you
leave it here and pick it up tomorrow."

Now I can't do that, as my fiancee is our school's calligrapher and needed
one certificate that night to write stuff on it for a test that would be
the next morning.  I explain this to the girl, and the response I get is
"well, I would like to help you except for that large job I have to do, and
it requires a lot of manual attention and someone to actually flip pages
over to print them, and I'm already losing a lot of time, so the best that
I could suggest is if you buy the paper and get it printed somewhere
else".

Ok....when I came in you weren't working (the man she was watching had left
and didn't require her interaction).  When I explained my situation about
the paper you tried to get me to go to the help desk, only helping me after
I was persistent.  Now that I'm trying to get you to print an image for me,
you have taken more time to explain how you can't print my certificates
than it would take you to actually do the work I asked you to do (as it's
about 8:30 at this point).  Is it any more obvious you are completely not
cut out for this job, or at the very least, the night shift?

I wanted to say all these things, but it is not my way to start complaining
(as I tend to get more aggressive than necessary).  So, I bought the pad of
paper, traveled back to the other end of the city, and had the certificates
printed at Kinko's.  I paid 30 cents for the final prints.

This story could easily be rewritten using epic language of some sort.

It still feels weird that ILMA classes start on Saturday.  Everything that
my business partner and I have been planning for about two years now will
begin to bear fruit.  A number of people that we have talked to in the past
have related to us like what we were doing was ridiculous, or stupid, or
unnecessary, or that we don't know what we're doing (some have said those
very words - some who are in my immediate circle of friends).  At the
beginning they may have been correct - talking big about plans when nothing
is happening is rather ridiculous.  It's like playing "martial art school"
instead of actually running one.  Now that we're starting, it's not playing
anymore, but people still occasionally relate to us oddly.

I've been trying to figure out why that is.  Maybe some people think that
we're too young to be starting and need more experience.  Maybe some people
think it was always destined for failure, that there's no money in it, and
that our efforts are futile.  Maybe some people think that in order to do
something big you need a mandate from heaven or other great blessing from
some figure of authority.  Maybe some people are just jealous because we're
actually doing something big when the only things they do are small.

I suppose it's the lot of the new guy on the block to be questioned. 
People tend to react to new things with a sense of apprehension, and while
at first it was difficult to deal with that kind of response, now it's just
annoying.  I'm looking forward to wider recognition among people at large,
but that could be a ways off yet.

I suppose we'll see a month or two down the line whether or not ILMA still
stands.

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