The last day of school...

When you are in elementary school, the last day of the school is an exciting and expectant time. You can’t wait for the prison doors to be thrown open so the inmates can rush out and run free all summer.

And it’s an exciting time at Exposurbrand. But for different reasons.

Often Teachers will order our “purposeful trinketry” as a way to send their Students off on a positive note. Last June, one particular Teacher ordered T-shirts to give to her Students – the school’s logo on the front and the kid’s name on the back. To be handed out on the last afternoon of school. An order like this is more complex than what you might think. You have to make sure you match the right colour (they offered three different colours) to the right style ( 2 different styles offered) to the right size to the right spelling of the name. What we do, which we hope will minimize errors, is to have each Student fill out an order form. In the case at hand, we asked the kids to include their home address on the order form as well.

Understand that we don’t do the printing on T-shirts but send the order out to a local company that (usually) does a great job of silk screening for us. When we send out the order, we give them a summary of what we need and when we need it. In this case, it was imperative that the shirts be back to us at least a week before the end of school. That gives us a comfortable “margin of error” in case something goes wrong. And, of course, it did.

“Can’t get the red colour you need”, was the first delay; “the material should be here in a day or two...”. Then their paint dryer breaks down and it’s another 4 days before they get the spare part and find a mechanic to install it. We are getting more and more frantic. The worst possible situation is staring us in the face. It won’t only be the cost of 30 shirts that will never be delivered but stay in the shop to forever remind us of this mess; but more importantly, how we have let down our Customer. Finally, at 2:30 PM on the last day of school, they call to say the shirts are ready. We scramble out of the office and race to the silk screener, pick up the shirts and then sprint over to the school and arrive at 3:30 PM...

...To be told that school is let out early on the last day of school. The Teacher is coldly understanding; but not in the least happy.

This is when you really have to respect how Roger runs his business.

We spend the next 3 hours, using the addresses on the order forms and a GPS unit, running all over the neighbourhood and sprinting up the front steps of every kid’s house to deliver their shirt. You should have seen the surprise, pure joy and smiles on their faces.

No money made that day; but we drove home happy.