I enjoy a good vodka martini on occasion. Someone asked me if I ever tried a Fleischman's martini. I said “I have—it’s not bad if you like turpentine!” This post isn’t about making a good martini, so stay with me…

It’s 9:30, Tuesday morning. We promised same-day delivery on 2,500 letters, buck slips and inserting into a furnished #10 for a good customer. We inventory their pre-printed envelopes they deliver to us every 6 months.

Letter copy and buck slip arrived within minutes. We started printing within the hour and rolled the buck slips over to the cutter. Suddenly, someone shows up at my desk... We’re 500 envelopes short. What?! Let’s face it—we’ve all been there.

I informed the customer and said, “Hey, Western States is pretty good helping in a pinch. Just give them a call.” She (my customer) said, “Thanks Jerry, I’ll take care of it and let you know.”

I get an email about 20 minutes later saying she’d get the envelopes to us within 3 hours. Phew—we’ll still make their deadline! I asked operations to hold off on inserting until the other 500 envelopes show up.

True to her word, she walked in around 2:30 with 500 envelopes. But they weren’t in the familiar brown box from WSE&L. They were from a local office chain store: I knew we were in trouble. I put on my happy face and said, “Great we’ll get them in today’s mail.” It’s my strategy to get the work done first and educate later—no sense having an upset customer for no reason.

Our 2,000 WSE&L envelopes from inventory inserted with no problems. Then we tried the “office cheapie” envelopes: They jammed and ripped open. We rounded up our staff to hand-insert those extra 500 and delivered them to USPS right on time.

I visited my customer the next morning to tell her what happened, using a few ripped envelopes as examples. I told her we got them in the mail, but had to hand insert them because “office cheapies” envelopes are manufactured for hand inserting. “But I thought I was saving some money and didn’t want to bother Western States with such a small order,” she said.

I told her my martini analogy and said, “Please don’t ‘chintz’ on the recipe.”

Now that my story’s finished, I’ll have a slightly dirty Kettle One martini on the rocks. With 2 blue-cheese olives, please.