Faking Productivity
So I’m diong this project for my screen printing class. We’re supposed to get quotes on all kinds of printed projects from print houses and then pool them into a giant proposal and presentation…. In other words, we have to call print companies and pretend to have a massive job for them to bid on. We gather all these quotes and then display them to the class.
So I found a site online that you just put in the data of the job and then it emails itself to hundreds of print houses in the world. Within an hour, I had 2 emails and 4 phone calls from different print houses… some in California, New Jersey, Florida, Canada… it’s crazy! The kicker is, they’re all asking me questions about this “job” and none of them realize that it’s not real… They think we’re really going to print 312,500 48 page catalogs. So I have to answer all these questions now… like… “Is your fulfillment facility able to take bulk boxed skids?” or “Are you a broker for another client?” or “The profit margin is 8% for the sales rep, and your profit is 18%, so we can’t mark up the cost that much…. what we can do is run the 4-color process colors to match the 2 Pantone Spots and save money that way…. Do you know that Pantone Reflex Blue smears if not run on a heated coil web press?” And I’m like….. “uhhh….. yeah…”
It SUCKS! I’m not a fan of lying to these people… and I really technically have never lied… I just requested a quote and they are providing it…. but I just feel dirty doing it…. I know I’m wasting their time and money and it bugs me…. ::sigh:: oh well… 32 more days and I’m done with school…. FOREVER!
7 Comments
There is no way I could do that, I couldn’t even think about doing that, but if it’s for a class then I guess you have to lie about it
I just hope they aren’t counting on the money from the bid 
Unfortunately that’s real world… I had that assignment once when I worked for a child care company. They gave me a cover story and everything. I called one day camp on their list and refused to do the rest. Like you said, I felt really wrong doing it.
hmm.. this reminds me of some “calls” you and two other nameless guys made.. like to meijer asking for anti-depressants and firearms…
No…. prank calls are far different than making guys do hours of work thinking they will be in the running for a print job that will probably cost over half a million dollars… We’re wasting a LOT of company time and if these guys are banking on commission, or large jobs like this to stay in business…. we’re giving false hope…. It’s not just a question of “do you have this?” on a 20 second phone call…. this is a half a day of work for them with a lot riding on the outcome of whether or not they “get” the job…
yeah that sucks. Did you get the package??
I don’t go in until 8:30pm ish…..
He’s got the package all right.