Kinkos fail

[Dreamstalker]

So I'm at my "normal" temp job downtown stuffing envelopes.

There's a huge mailing going out right now, about 1500 pieces. We had to "outsource' the printing of the envelopes.

The way it is normally done is smaller alphabetical groups (multiple A-Z piles) due to the way the database is set up, so the letters can be matched with the envelopes right away.

Seems straight enough, right? Just send the search output file we gave them to the machine, envelopes come off the printer in small alphabetical groups.

Somewhere along the line, someone at Kinkos made an "executive decision" to run the sort not the way it was given, but sorted by zip code and then alphabetically within that. So the letters that are printed in-house come off the line as they should, but the envelopes are another story. My boss has no idea what was done to mangle the order that badly.

The letters are in one order, the inserts are in another, and the envelopes are in yet another so I can't easily get everything to follow one scheme.

Four hours and I've only managed to complete about 50. Unfortunately due to the general money crunch, I'm not likely to get help next week. At this rate I should be done by...well, before Thanksgiving I hope.

The bright side is, I will get paid for all the time spent on this. The boss mentioned something about "extra combat pay" due to the overwhelming nature of the task...

[Custard Chick]

I understand your pain. I work at a small print shop and we do smaller mailings (under 1000) and a LOT of them are personalized letters. Thankfully, if we have to outsource the printing of the letter or the envelope, the entire job goes with it so we don't have to worry about it. Also, we don't personalize the envelopes, just label them, we don't have the machinery to personalize each envelope.

's and home-made, fresh from the oven cookies! (You're going to have to wait a couple hours for the cookies though! I won't be home for a bit! Hehe!)

[digilight]

A run like that should have been specified to be printed exactly as is, do not re-order the database. Even though the envelopes are printed correctly they are out of order. Would you accept a 1500 page document that was printed out of order? Then why would you accept a envelope order that was printed out of order like that. This should have been returned to Kinko's for a reprint on that. That or just run the damn lot thru a Laser printer with a bypass tray and a straight line exit tray and you can do it in house yourself. Unless you are using window envelopes or peel and stick envelopes this is a small enough run to do in house on a descent laser printer (hell the stock should run you around 30 bucks for #10 White wove envelopes as well).

[bainsidhe]

I'm with Digilight. Was Kinkos given instructions regarding the order of envelopes? If not, then I can't really blame them (though I'd hope someone there would've asked...). But if Kinkos didn't follow the instructions, a request should be made to reprint them.

If it was your company that unfortunately failed to give proper instructions, they should consider how many manhours you're spending to fix this mess. In the long run, it may be more cost-effective to rerun the batch.

Anyhoo, good luck. Sounds pretty dull

[Dreamstalker]

I don't know how the order was specified, but am going to try and find out. I'm not sure why that wasn't done here as they were standard 8.5x11 white envelopes, nothing fancy (although we only have one machine that can do big jobs, so it's possible that was originally going to save time).

I somehow managed to sort them in piles by zip code (I wasn't going to try alphabetizing 1500 pieces) going 0-09, 1-19, etc. It still requires some shuffling to find matches, but it's slightly easier than it was. Got through 100 or so today (the bulk of the day was spent sorting and trying to keep my brain from dribbling out my ears though), but I think next week will be much easier. Hard to find a "flow" when things are that out of whack.

I'm guessing it would have been more cost-effective to just rerun the batch, but my boss didn't catch the error until he started sorting them (there were three sub-piles that each of the three organization bigwigs was writing personal notes on, so those had to be split out of the big batch). Not rerunning it at the outset probably tripled the man-hours involved in prepping the actual mailing.

[Broomjockey]

Was Kinkos given instructions regarding the order of envelopes? If not, then I can't really blame them

Uh, any competent print shop will not just randomly re-order a printing. They'll either run it as given, or they'll call and sit on it until they get confirmation. This batch was obviously not competent at some point in the chain.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Without seeing the order or knowing what was discussed, I can't really comment as to who is to blame here. Probably enough blame to go around. It should have been specified by whoever placed the order, or Kinko's should have called.

In any case, all I can say in defense of my poor brethren still in the trenches, is that ever since Fed Ex took over, morale is at an all time low in that place. At least in my experience, Fed Ex treated Kinkos worse than shit on their shoe. Plus, they took away the profit sharing system that made Kinkoids give a damn.

Not to excuse incompetence, but there you go.

[Chromatix]

You might want to look up computer sorting algorithms, to see if any of them would help you speed up your manual process. It sounds like you've done the first stage of a radix/merge sort already, which is a good start - it at least gives you smaller piles to sort properly. I suspect that an insertion sort would do the rest of it fairly efficiently.

[Dreamstalker]

The plot thickens

I found out exactly what went wrong, although the why is still a question.

While sorting, I would match envelopes to letters, and the zip on the envelope was slightly off on some (07690-9257 instead of 07691 for example). All the envelopes had the +4 extension, where most of the letters did not.

My suspicions were further confirmed when running across a letter where I knew the zip on the envelope was correct (letter had the incorrect one; my town changed one digit in the zip code about 5 years ago).

It seems that all the addresses had been run through a verification procedure of sorts (boss called it CAS), and if the program thought the zip was wrong it had been changed. In some cases drastically (there are about 4 envelopes out of the 250 I got through today that I cannot find). The order had been specified to not do that at all.

I've had a few experiences where the change provided by the USPS is not always correct (case in point: I had purchased something off ebay when I was living in NM, seller ran my address through the USPS validator which resulted in the package being lost and presumably ending up on the other side of town).

[Evil Queen]

...You didn't happen to order a bb gun did you? Because I have it here in Texas.

Interesting story, actually. While living in New Mexico, friend gets a package. But he doesn't know the name of the person even though it has HIS correct addy on it so he takes it inside, thinking he'll take it to the post office and return to sender.

Some time goes by and he forgets about it. By this point in time, I moved to town and am helping Friend and a few other friends move some furniture around. We rediscover the package. I know it's a crime to open other people's mail, but I opened it anyways because Friend didn't care and figured it'd be better to know what the hell he was throwing out.

Turns out it's a Crossman bb gun. This one to be exact. Since Friend hates guns, he says I can have it.

It's currently in my trunk. I don't go anywhere (not even work anymore) without a weapon of some sort.

[Dreamstalker]

Nah, my purchase wasn't a bb gun, it was atom-bomb-made glass (Trinitite). The seller re-sent the order, and told me I could keep the original one if it showed up--it did, about two months later.

Boss wants me in next week as well. I think he's figured that even if they have to pay me extra, it's worth it to them as I'm thorough and will get it right. I should have told him to go back to Kinkos and tell them what happened; might be worth at least some sort of discount/refund as it was their error.

[Evil Queen]

Oh good, because I like my bb gun.