I posed a question to Sam the other day, how much does this line running through the middle of a page bother you? He said, “a 2 or 3”. I said, “it bothers me about a 7 or an 8.” Now I’ll explain the differences of our characters and why I’ll argue it should bother him more.

That Line

Sam and I are not the same person. I’m 7 years older and have spent 15 years doing this job. He spent 5 or so years in a corporate environment and 18 months working with us. In a corporate environment, you are only responsible for your role. In a self employed job, you are responsible for it all. This is where I’ll begin.

Our printer started printing that line. Faint at first. A little darker. And then my breaking point as you see above. Our printer produces documents that go out to our customers. Packing slips that accompany boxes. Invoices that tell our customers to pay their bills. Checks that are received by our vendors. Hundreds of pieces of paper a week are produced by that printer. I see that line as a quality standard for our company and it’s embarrassing to me.

Stortz can’t afford a printer to produce a clean document? How does Stortz let that document out of its office? Times must be tough.

Some people see a line. No big deal. To me, a sum of all parts equal the whole. Each component of every detail matters to some degree. You can argue that micro management is a killer of time, but I say that with regard to an end goal in site. So when Sam told me it was 2-3, I knew we were not on the same page.

Instead of telling him this privately, i thought it was better to shame him in front of all our readers. The line through the page would most likely have little effect on our bottom line and 99% of people may not care, however, I went out and bought a new printer because it reflected our image and I want that to be pristine.

Now, for the readers, this isn’t so much about picking sides, but am I over reacting or is Sam under reacting? I know I’ve made my point and Sam didn’t get a chance to make his. I also know Sam won’t like that I’m doing this, but sometimes you have to pay the price for good content. I also think it’s possible that Sam said 2-3 without thinking and he knew it mattered to me from past office interactions and wanted to be that guy.