Re[2]: Another "TWs get no respect" story

[Karla McMaster <mcmaster%pcmail -dot- cti-pet -dot- com -at- CTI-PET -dot- COM>]

clienhart wrote:
>>the printing company messed up and printed our
>>manual covers for an upcoming release

> I can't believe they and/or your supervisor would even
> consider asking you to do change your margins!

I am presuming that the printing company is giving the client a huge
discount for cutting the covers too small, and that someone in the
original poster's company (sorry, I don't know names) has made the
decision that the cost impact of trimming manual margins is not as large
as the cost savings they will get by accepting the bad material.

Number one question I have is: why isn't the original poster involved in
making this decision? Is the person making this judgement qualified to
do so? Can the original poster lobby to be in on these decisions?

Number two question is: is the problem actually the printer's fault? I
was at a company once that received a large number of mustardy brownish
yellow binders, instead of the lovely blue-gray ones they were
expecting. When we went to complain, we found that the purchasing agent
had ordered from the glue side of the samples, rather than the correct
side...So I'd be sure, before investigating further, that the mistake
wasn't in the purchase order.

Finally, if I found it was worth pursuing, I'd try to gather cost-impact
info. Can people still read the text when the margins are trimmed, or
does the binding interfere with the text? Will this impact customer
support costs--can you give an estimate of how much? Will this mean more
work trying to maintain different sized manuals? Can you give an
estimate as to how much?

Just some ideas...

Karla McMaster, technical writer
CTI PET Systems, Inc., Knoxville, TN
mcmaster -at- cti-pet -dot- com