Wow, Screen Tape Costs!!!

[GraphicDisorder]

I guess you guys will understand what I do when you reach our level of volume and wear the hats I wear. 

How many years has SRI been screen printing? 

[alan802]

I guess you guys will understand what I do when you reach our level of volume and wear the hats I wear. 

How many years has SRI been screen printing? 

Almost 8 years. 

And Mike, I was wondering if anyone was reading some of those because personally, I think it's some of my best work.  If I got one to laugh at them then it was worth it.

[GraphicDisorder]

Brandt I have already agreed there is a difference between an owner and what he does and what a manger does. I do not doubt it for one second. I see what the owner here does every day, we discuss all the time taxes, bills, fees, paper work paper work paper work and I can tell you I do not envy him for one second. Thats one of the many reasons I strive to take as much of the work load off of him as I can.

This is great, this is what you should do and I am sure he is happy to have you.  I don't pretend all of the ownership stuff is harder then just being a employee, it's probably not.  Its more stressful though IMO and its often a lot to deal with when its "on top of" helping in the business.

Him as an owner invested his money and credit in to this business, I invested my personal time and life in to it. We both are invested in to the company but with different sacrifices. Fortunately we are an LLC so his liability is minimal unless he was negligent or has guaranteed any of his personal worth on the business.. I can tell you tho that is not the case. If the business failed he would be safe except for losing a job. This is not to diminish the sacrifice of an owner at all its just my way of saying if you make your business successful enough you can eventually be off the hook personally if things failed.

Whether i am ceam of the crop or not I do not know, I know the best I can offer is 100% effort. I am not as capable as Tony but with me I am as loyal as can be and think of this job as not just a job but a future and refuse to allow the company to stagnate. 

100% is a lot more than many give.  When you find employees that stop watching clocks and only care about the work they are doing its a great thing.  I have been lucky with our hires. I think we have a complete team of that. 

Every single one of those things you listed in the second paragraph are actually what i do every day and then some. I am not just managing printing I am managing every single order that comes through here and i am also managing the building and every thing in it. These are all things the owner counts on me doing so he can concentrate on both sales and the financials. Your doing this stuff your self because you are still young in the business but judging from your success you will grow to the point where you will hire a production manager and you can work solely on your business. Trust me you will be greatly satisfied when the day comes where you can walk in to work and not have to worry about proofs, ink colors, toilets, and whatever crap.

You aren't kidding, every time I remove a process or something from my day to day my life gets a bit easier.  Thats my point in all of this.  I know we all do all sorts of things for our business out side our "titles".  I just felt it was interesting that some seemed to act as if a owner isn't carrying the largest weight on the shoulders.  LLC or not.  Failing is failing no matter what the legal title is and nobody wants that to happen.  Day in and day out I try to be the largest help where we need it the most.  Sometimes thats sales, sometimes it's embroidery, some times its screen printing.  Who knows what I will be doing when I walk in each morning as we are still a young business in respect to screen print and embroidery.  We don't have all the answers and I assure you Alan and you probably have a more efficient set up.  I don't doubt it for a second.  But I argue that you both have a more focused task list in front of you so fixing issues and creating better processes is easier for you to do than it is for me at this stage in my business and that doesn't make you better than me or the other way around.  Just makes us in different places right now.

BTW I make a salary my check is the same week after week. Yet I work a ten hour day five days a week. If I work the weekend it changes nothing. For instance I will be spending a long weekend here soon fixing a broken head on our 12 head. It does not benefit my pay check it benefits the company and in the long run it pays out. I take work home just about every day. I do not leave at 5 and forget this place it is just as much part of me as my children are.

I have always felt you had the companies best interested in mind and you have been in a good employee I don't doubt it for a second. 

[GraphicDisorder]

I guess you guys will understand what I do when you reach our level of volume and wear the hats I wear. 

How many years has SRI been screen printing? 

Almost 8 years. 

Thanks, so 8 Years to hit roughly 1 million in screen print sales.   I think this puts me in a real good mood about where we are.

[inkman996]

I guess you guys will understand what I do when you reach our level of volume and wear the hats I wear. 

How many years has SRI been screen printing? 

Almost 8 years. 

And Mike, I was wondering if anyone was reading some of those because personally, I think it's some of my best work.  If I got one to laugh at them then it was worth it.

Sorry Alan but I have to steal the Peanut Butter and cow shat one from you. And definitely the "Who do you think has to wield the plunger like a sword at least once a week because we have a phantom crapper who clogs the production toilet with their football sized turds"

[alan802]

Yep, nothing to it.  Think you have fun toys now, just wait, it gets better.

First time I heard the peanut butter reference I about choked on a frito pie I was eating while sitting on top of a 36 story building in down town Fort Worth.  If I would have gotten that food lodged any tighter in my air hole I was going to be dead because no way I could have gotten down in time.  I was the only person within about 20 floors because the building was shut down and we were doing the asbestos abatement management for that place.

 

[inkman996]

Yep, nothing to it.  Think you have fun toys now, just wait, it gets better.

First time I heard the peanut butter reference I about choked on a frito pie I was eating while sitting on top of a 36 story building in down town Fort Worth.  If I would have gotten that food lodged any tighter in my air hole I was going to be dead because no way I could have gotten down in time.  I was the only person within about 20 floors because the building was shut down and we were doing the asbestos abatement management for that place.

 

Well if you jumped you would have reached the bottom floor in a few seconds and that sudden stop surely would have dislodged the frito. And as a benefit you would be with in reach of help since the sudden stop probably has some nasty side effects.

[Gilligan]

You know... I haven't really paid much attention to this owner vs employee debate but it just occurred to me, I have been having this discussion with myself at exactly the same time but just didn't relate the two.

I was reflecting as I drove the other day on how well tuned my shop was running from an administrative side.  My guys can get jobs done from start to finish... from answering the phone and quoting them to getting them out the door and taking payment... even balancing the books.  Only thing I currently HAVE to do is sign the check.

This led me to thinking, I sure hope my guy doesn't get to thinking "why do I need him, I can do this whole thing"  which led me to think "What exactly do I bring to this operation that he couldn't do and why doesn't he just start his own?"

I honestly don't have much of an answer for that.  Other than having the crazy notion that "I could open a screen printing shop and make money" or the time it took me to find the right places to research all of the equipment and techniques.  Maybe that is the X factor... but that is also exactly what guys like Mike and Alan have as well.  Yeah, there is the number crunching to figure out when is the right time to make the decision to pull the trigger on these things, but again, this is exactly what this discussion is about and apparently these guys do that as well.

Could my guys do what I do?  Probably, but in this case they won't.  BUT that is mostly because they are young and aren't at that point in their life yet.

Maybe there is an X factor that makes business owners business owners and employees employees.

I just hope I can keep my employees happy enough to not start thinking "I can do this, why do I need him"... because the truth of the matter now is that I couldn't do it with out THEM!

[inkman996]

Kevin I would say the evolution of an employee to an owner is nearly as old as prostitution. It is the risk you will have to take with your employees. If you want to employee people with enough ability and intelligence to manage the place the risk will be even higher. But as I said earlier I truly do not desire ever to be on the owners side of things. Its not something I desire as a job I prefer working with my hands and using my brains on machines etc. Plus a huge difference between me and the owner his college education is in business mine is not. He is business davy and the best part his connections are huge. Its his connections that earns us most of our clients. I would not have that if I left and started my own business. I would surely struggle and possibly fail.

[GraphicDisorder]

Kevin I would say the evolution of an employee to an owner is nearly as old as prostitution. It is the risk you will have to take with your employees. If you want to employee people with enough ability and intelligence to manage the place the risk will be even higher. But as I said earlier I truly do not desire ever to be on the owners side of things. Its not something I desire as a job I prefer working with my hands and using my brains on machines etc. Plus a huge difference between me and the owner his college education is in business mine is not. He is business davy and the best part his connections are huge. Its his connections that earns us most of our clients. I would not have that if I left and started my own business. I would surely struggle and possibly fail.

That's a great respectful post about a owner right there.  That's nice to see.

[alan802]

So you're saying we're all in this together?  Your job or position is whatever you make it to be.  I could do a lot less around here and I could do everything under the sun if I had to.  Just because people don't do something doesn't mean they can't.  I just work my ass off and do what needs to be done.  Nobody else is lining up to fish dookie out of the toilet, I had to cut one of them up with a gardening hoe for christ sake and pull it out with tongs!!!!  Nodody else around here is hanging on to a rickety old ladder 30 feet in the air to change a bulb in production but that doesn't mean the other people around here are doing nothing.  I just spent the last hour trying to fix another job we shouldn't have been printing in the first place, but customers want what they want and sometimes you can't talk them out of it so you find a way to do it.  Before that I had to figure out what the hell UPS and Fedex are doing with all our stuff.  It's a mess and it's not just screen printing stuff. 

Some people do whatever needs to be done, some people do what they are told, and then there are the ones that tell everyone else what to do and take all the credit when things get done. 

[GraphicDisorder]

Just because people don't do something doesn't mean they can't. 

Who said it means they "can't"?

[alan802]

Since nobody answers most of the questions I pose I think I'll sit a few more out.  It's not fun having a conversation where one has to be accountable to questions asked and the others don't.

[Inkworks]

That's usually what people resort to when they have no valid points to make, attack the source, ignore 99% of a post to concentrate on a spelling or grammar mistake, create strawman arguments, etc.


lame.

[GraphicDisorder]

The spelling one is always funny to me.