"He who marches out of step hears another drum." ~ Ken Kesey
and then... it had to make it's way into the basement.. i hear there is some video of that somewhere.. or was that the removal of it's prior self
I had a GREAT experience with Alex Mammoser, Jose Gonzalez and a handful of guys at the M&R factory back in November making magic happen!First, I am pretty embarrassed it took me so long to write something, but it was holiday rush, crazy times, a handful of developments business-wise and pure exhaustion. I had no time. I am a talker, I have come to understand this, but that also makes me a typer when it comes to posting a lot of times. Poor excuse, but 100% the truth. Check out what happened-Early November we had been having a few issues with the Epson print head in our I-image rocket launcher. Fixed it, worked, another problem, fixed it, worked, another problem, you get the idea. Finally one Tuesday I gave up. I didn't have another print head to put into it and the time I was spending and in turn wasting was adding up. I was frantic, I had 3 Epson 4xxx printers in the shop but they hadn't been used in a year so they were clogged and a few hours of clean cycles was doing nothing. Had someone print us off films we needed for the remainder of the week so I could breath. Then I realize we were no longer set up to burn screens with films! Had to re position some things bring the vacuum table/frame back in, TOTALLY guess on exposure times as our light integrator was busted(Oh, ya forgot about that!). It was almost comical how the process of making screens the way I had learned was totally foreign to me now. It sucked, but we got the bare minimum of screens we needed made. I email Mr. Mammoser at M&R and ask him if they have any used units at the factory. I knew very well the new I-image S was something like 6 months backorderd. The wax unit I had talked to a company about was something like 4 weeks out. Mr Mammoser who was out of town at a trade show emailed me back right away and said that it just so happens they had someone upgrade and they had a used 3 head ST unit that had been totally gone through on the floor that they would like to get out. Now when he said that I'm guessing he thought I'd talk things over, take some time, coordinate shipping, ect. you know, take 1-2 weeks.... Well I thought about it over night and emailed him early the next morning, which was even earlier for him because the trade show was in a different time zone. It was Friday morning and my message was something to the effect of: I'll take it, can it be ready to pick up TODAY? I didn't expect it to happen, many people are not ready for my impulsiveness and willingness to do something so crazy. Fast forward a few hours...Got a email at about 9:50 from Mr. Gonzalez at M&R saying they could in fact have the unit ready today, followed by a list of things they needed from me(payment, tax info, pick up company info, ect.). By 10:30am I had called my wife and told her to go pull our 5yr old boy out of class because he was going on an adventure with dad today! Booked 2 one way tickets to Chicago and reserved a moving truck. Informed Mr. Gonzales what I had just done and that I would be landing in Chicago around 12:30pm. We would be to the factory as soon as I got the truck. He emailed me back probably scared of what he just got himself into, but simply said "dock is open till 5".In my rush, I didn't pay close enough attention to which airport in Chicago I booked my flight into. The one that was real close to the factory or the one that was on the total other side of town. Yup, other side of town it is! Show up to pick the truck up feeling confident because we had 3+ hours to spare. My confidence fell as I came to find out the location was locked but had a number on the door. After calling it a few times I get a call back, turns out the 1 man operation had to go pick up the truck from another location and he was 45min out still(forget the fact my pick up time was the same time my flight landed). So here me and my 5 year old son who has a smile ear to ear, stand outside in the 25 degree weather in a "interesting" part of Chicago(near the Midway airport). Finally the old man shows up, now he just has to fill out the paper work. Should of expected it, he needed to do it all by hand because the computer that he had(reminded me of the Apple IIe we used to have in grade school) didn't work with their system. I don't want to pull my hair out because I am beginning to lose it naturally, but I am freaking out now! It is Friday, we need to drive across Chicago in rush hour! The drive was a disaster. I SWEAR they had taken down the exit sign I needed, so I missed my exit and now had to drive 14 miles or something in rush hour traffic until the next exit where I could turn back and face the same traffic. All the while my 5 year old navigator is going on like this is the best day of his life. Probably the only thing that kept me from wigging out! Well, 4:57pm we pull into the parking lot. I'm nervous as hell thinking 5pm means 5pm. Not 5:01pm, not 5:00:03pm, and the workers lined up at the punch out stations looking at me like "this fat guy and his little kid are LOST" only re enforced that. I am lucky I don't know a lick of Polish, otherwise I probably would of been rather intimidated. No one talks English, they just keep pointing. I am REALLY questioning my spur of the moment personality now...I make it to the office and after a little confusion, I am greeted by a guy my size named Damian(hope I remember that right). "Oh hey! You made it! Yes we have everything ready! Let me just call the front. And who is your boss here(addressing my son)?" He was the nicest guy! My son is mesmerized by the forklifts, big machines and equipment stacked floor to ceiling, but finally remembers his name and says "Dexter"! Mr. Gonzalez makes it back to us after a long walk from the front of the facility and is beyond pleasant. I am apologizing profusely because I didn't want to cut it so close to 5 and make anyone stay late. He says it is no big deal, second shift is on their way in and he had things to attend to anyway! I hand him a check and realize it is not enough because I hadn't known there was a crating fee, plus the paperwork for taxes I sent over was not going to cut it(in MN we don't have taxes on capital equipment purchases, so I was scrambling to find what they needed and no one at the state in MN was helpful with what I needed). He tells me to drive the truck around anyway. Now, I am 1)late and 2) don't have the proper paperwork and 3) short funds. Feel like a total douche bag. Once I pull the truck in and tell him I can give them a credit card for the balance, he says Mr. Hoffman had said not to worry about it. It was not written on the price that was sent over, and we could deal with it next week! So for those not following all the way or got board with my story, that was from the time of contact to time it was loaded into my truck probably about 23 hours! Huge thank you to Alex Mammoser(kept me in good spirits via text the whole time) Jose Gonzalez, and Mr. Hoffman. Aside from getting me a machine so I could be back up and running Monday morning, you guys let me give my son a trip that he will never for get. He tells the story about how he went to Chicago with dad to get a machine to EVERYONE. He literally already has his bag packed for the next time he is going out of town with dad...
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Topic: Should of wrote this months ago... (Read 3572 times)
