Press

"Janine, your order came in!" Sr. Gwen called from the bottom of the stairs.
I had just gotten back from my family visit.

"What order?"
A week of conferences in Springfield, two weeks with family, a week on the grounds of Kings House Retreat Center, and several flights were topmost in my memory.

"Someone had rang the doorbell and I found this at our door," Sr. Gwen explained.
I looked at the brochures in disbelief.

It was my first time doing business with this copy center and I was glad it was not too far from our convent. Although it was a little after noon in June, the heat was barely tolerable.

"Everything looks good... however, the bottom part of this column doesn't look quite right."
"Oh, how should it look?"
"Well, it is suppose to be a gradual increase of the shade of orange. This looks algae green to me. Is that what you see?"
"You are right," John Gwartney replied. "That is a block of green. It really depends on what program you use to design the brochure. Sometimes it translates differently onto paper."
"Well, I did print about 25 copies at home from our color printer and it doesn't look like this. Then, we figured out that is probably cheaper to have you do it, so that is why we sent the order to you."

"Oh?" John slowly replied.
"If you still have the file, we can look at it on your computer screen. I used Publisher and that software is usually "what you see is what you get."

"You're right. It's not green on the screen. Let's print out a test page."
A minute later, our community's brochure slid out. The distinctive algae-green block was still present. "That is interesting," John murmured.

"I'll take and pay for the brochures. Please don't worry about it. The green does not take too much away from the overall look. I am just concerned about your printing press. There might be something interesting going on there."

"Hmmm... we haven't noticed anything before..." John continued pensively.
"It is okay... my boss will not have a problem with it," I reassured him.
I was not just referring to Sr. Jacinta, my superior, but my BOSS, the Guy Upstairs. Although it was relatively a small print job (the total cost was not more than $150.00 and with the economy doing poorly), I did not want John to lose his job.

"We can offer you a 10% discount."
"Oh, well that is a good first impression," I exclaimed.
"No, it is not. You didn't get what you wanted," John remarked dryly.

I smiled quietly to acknowledge his integrity and quickly paid.
This was over a month ago.
I did think much more of the incident.

Mistakes happen in any business.
I was not expecting for my order to be completely re-done correctly, delivered to our convent door, and without cost.

I was impressed.
Although the name of the shop was "Minuteman Press," I was treated with more than a minute's attention.

ps. Irving's Minuteman Press website http://www.irving.minutemanpress.com/