American Screen Printing Association (ASPA) | Learn silk screen printing, tshirt printing » You Must Be Joking!

Shades of Blue

ASPA — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:48:52 +0000

A local roofing contractor orders about a dozen sweatshirts every two years or so. We printed his sweats with navy ink on ash colored shirts – pretty standard. About a week later, I get a call from the guy complaining about the ink color on the shirt. My first thought was I used the wrong ink color (like giving him black instead of blue). The problem was the blue was a little different shade from the last order of shirts. Normally no big deal except this guy was insistent that people recognize him by his "colors". During the two years between orders, I bought a different brand of navy ink. Now I have his order marked with ink color and brand. I reprinted the sweats and now have a dozen sweatshirts we wear around the shop.

Canton

Cash for Clunkers

ASPA — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:46:07 +0000

I run my business out of my house. It was late on a Friday when a customer stopped over to pick up an order. He drove an old van that would not start back up if he turned the engine off. Well you guessed it. When he ran in to pick up the order he shut the van off. He said he was going to sit in the van and call someone for help. I went about my business, even had dinner with my family. About 5 hours later he was still there — fast asleep in the van. He walked down the street and must have returned sometime during the night because the next morning he and the van were gone.

Steubenville

Trading in WV

ASPA — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:18:53 +0000

My shop is in the hills of West Virginia. Well, one of my customers ordered (100) poly foam caps for his family reunion. Luckily, I took a cash deposit from him for the order because when he came to pick up the caps he did not have enough money. Thinking about how I could make this situation work out for both of us, I let him take the caps. But that is not all I let him take. I got him to take an old junk refrigerator that no longer worked. He just put it in his truck and added it to his collection.

West Virginia

Busted in Bloomington

ASPA — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:38:09 +0000

I had a regular customer call with a referral. They were going to send over a new customer who wanted to have some softball shits done. It sounded great, what better way to get a new customer than through a referral. When the customer showed up at my shop, I found out why they needed an “IN” to get the job they wanted printed. Twelve shirts, decorated on the front, name and (2) color number on the back, right sleeve print, and left sleeve print and a “rush”. This shirt should be worth $50 but they wanted to pay about $8. I won’t tell you if I printed the job or not, but I can tell you instead of gaining a customer — I lost two.

Bloomington, IN

PU in Pittsburgh

ASPA — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:21:34 +0000

We once had a customer who wanted us to print (100) pairs of "tighty whities" for a frat party. We took on the job. When the underwear was delivered, we discovered that the tighty whities were used.

PU in Pittsburgh. - Pittsburgh, PA

Tense in TX

ASPA — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:20:46 +0000

Deadlines can be stressful enough just trying to get the work done and out the door to meet. But my customer insisted on being present while the shirts were being printed. The job was for a golf outing and we were screen printing a 3 color logo on the left chest of some decent golf shirts. The customer wanted to take the shirts with her after the job was done. I wish I could say that production went smoothly but it was one of those days when “if it can go wrong, it will”. Mysteriously ink shows up everywhere, shirts have holes in them and the screens shifted out of alignment. Normally foul language would be ringing through the shop, but we had a customer watching. We finally regained control of the press and production but it was a very long three hours in the shop that day. To keep the customer in the shop but not in the way, we let her help fold the shirts. The printers wanted her to help clean the screen too, but the way things went that day I smelled disaster. We learned our lesson on letting the customer into the production shop. Next time, she can wait in the office and file.
- Houston, TX

Red Faced in LA

ASPA — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:19:57 +0000

We once had a woman walk into our shop who wanted to know if we could print photographs on T-shirts. We told her we were able to do that. She opened up her purse and pulled out a stack of photos and asked which ones we thought would reproduce the best. It turns out the woman was an adult film actress and all the photos were revealing to say the least!
LA

Careless in Chicago

ASPA — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:22:58 +0000

After printing the right hip print of (100) black sweatpants, the printer became kind of tired of looking at the print. When packing the pants at the end of the job, we noticed that he printed the butt of (1) pair instead of the front. Since we did not have time to replace the pants before shipping them out, we decided to go back and print the front of the pants that had the print on the back. The pants were being shipped to a US Navy ship somewhere in the Pacific. We crossed our fingers that they would not complain about the mistake. Instead, they sent us a picture and used the one pair (with the double print) as a prize on the ship. What we thought would be trouble turned out to be a big gag for them.
Chicago, IL