“This’ll all seem funny one day.”
“Look on the bright side. In twenty years, you’ll laugh about this.”
Hard to believe when something horrible is happening in your life. But often true. Most horrible things become funny with hindsight. Or, if not funny, at the very least less painful.
What brought on this revelation? I recently laughed about something I once thought I would never, ever laugh about. Something that I recently thought of, thanks to McDonald’s.
Confession time: I am a sucker for McDonald’s. Especially when pregnant. So, last year, I scored a few of those Olympic Coke glasses they were giving away with their large meals. Four in fact.
And I must have succumbed to my McDonald’s cravings on consecutive days, because they’re all pink.
Yesterday, these pink glasses made me laugh. Eight years ago, they would have made me cry.
Why?
In a former life, I worked for a promotional product company. You needed stuff with your logo on it? I sourced the stuff, put the logo on it, and sold it to you. It was as glamourous as it sounds.
I was still relatively new to the job, working in a three-person team with the biggest budget of the department, when BOTH of my colleagues went on leave at the SAME time for an ENTIRE month. We had a few large quotes out at the time, and the workload was about to be bigger than I’d ever experienced. But I was of course keen to prove how excellently brilliant I was, and told my boss’s boss that I’d be fine holding the fort for the month. More than fine. I told him I’d kick big fat goals.
In the first week of that month, three of the biggest orders we’d ever had landed on my desk.
Kicking big fat goals. I celebrated. I rejoiced.
Then I panicked.
The largest of the orders (of the three, and also of any order that the company had ever received) was for something that had never been done before. A major pharmaceutical company wanted lots (tens of thousands) of glasses to be printed with measuring instructions for a new liquid drug.
But not just any old glasses. The range we showed them from our usual glass supplier was not good enough. They wanted the glasses to be a particular high-end brand.
We found a supplier. We talked to the supplier. We talked to the client. We talked to the printer. Had this been done before? Would the glasses withstand the printing process? Would this work? Could this work? We tested some samples. Everything went well.
“It will work,” said the supplier. “It should work,” said the printer.
“It must work,” said the client.
So the order was confirmed, and I got to it. I finalised the artwork, arranged the glasses, sent them to be printed, and celebrated the single biggest order we’d ever landed.
And then I got a call from the printer. The glasses had reacted oddly to the printing process.
Oddly? How?
THEY HAD TURNED PINK.
Ummmmmm… what? Pink? How? WHAT?! PINK?! HOW?!
The original glasses were not pink. There was no pink in the logo. The test samples had not turned pink.
But these glasses were pink. All of them. All tens of thousands and mega-bucks worth of them.
I don’t usually swear on this blog. So suffice it to say that all I could think of was a word that starts with F and rhymes with yuck. And it wasn’t fire truck.
Lots of things happened after that. Meetings. More test prints. Cost analyses. Scientific glass sample tests. Blah blah blah. All leading to one conclusion: there was no logical reason for the glasses to have turned pink.
Very reassuring. Except that none of it stopped the inevitable outcomes. The client would not accept the glasses; the supplier would not take them back.
A word that starts with F and rhymes with yuck. And it’s not fire truck.
It was horrible. I cried. I stressed. I mulled. I went over and over the job in my head, trying to work out what I could have done differently. I tossed and turned. I hardly slept. And when I did, I dreamt of pink glasses, angry clients, confused suppliers and printers, and spreadsheets with big numbers and lots of negative symbols.
But I got over it. Eventually.
And now I can laugh. It’s still a raw laugh, but it’s a laugh. And in another ten years, it will be a belly laugh.
I might even use pink glasses at my next birthday party. It’s classy to use glasses from McDonald’s, right?
Do you now laugh about something that once made you cry?
Next time I encounter a pink glass I will think of you 😉
Just try not to cry!
Oh I love pink glasses.
It must have been very stressful.
Would you believe I unpacked our charcoal McDonalds South Africa Coke glasses the other day. No one has used them – I should sell them !
Apparently the Coke glasses are back at McDonald’s right now! Just when I’ve kicked my habit.
wow!! What a story!!! Thats is mad!!! I worked in a high powered IT Job in the UK.. for the MOD and it got so stressful that you slept, ate, daydreamed, stressed MOD.. didn’t exactly want the MI5 come knocking at my door because I leaked a secret in my sleep!! haha Its crazy what they want/expect us to do! Your job sounds awesome – except for that 1 pink glass… what happened to all that pink glass??
Oh yes, I’ve had jobs that consumed every waking minute of my life. No more. Except motherhood, of course.
What happened? It all got smashed. All of it. Uh-oh. I think I might cry again…
I know that we have done this a few times – looked back at something and laughed although at the time it wasn’t funny – but for the life of me I can’t think of one situation now !!!
I will think of you anytime I see a pink glass – I’m surprised it didn’t put you off pink glasses for life !
Have the best day !
Me
It certainly put me off them for a while!
Oh no! I think I’d still be crying!
You live. You learn. (Thanks, Alanis!)
what a crazy saga and i am laughing at your fire truck line. i love how the coke glasses brought this past situation up again and you could laugh at it.
Nee naw, nee naw. Yes, I’m glad I could laugh at it!
Haha oh fire truck lol. Glad you could manage a laugh now.
Looking forward to the belly laugh one day!
Great story! I used to be on the client end of that sort of fun. You can imagine better than most all the ridiculous ideas that can materialise. I once had champagne glasses engraved for a client 21st celebration and delivered to radio stations and publications- but it all went well. Had a close call with some novelty invitations though. SO much fun :/
I actually found that people wanted crazy, original ideas presented to them. But when you went out of your way to find something, and then presented it, they’d invariably order the stress balls. Or the mouse pads. Drink bottles.
The ridiculous tended to come in the form of ridiculous deadlines. I need them tomorrow – sorry, no can do!
Oh you poor thing that must have been terrible. So glad that you can start to see the funny side to it now
Leaving some fairy wishes and butterfly kisses from #teamIBOT
It was at the time. Interestingly enough, it’s not the worst working situation I’ve been in. But that’s a story for another day. x
Hindsight is a beautiful thing, I imagine the pressure to correct the problem would have been immense no doubt, must be nice to laugh at it now.
It was, you’re right. Definitely the most pressure I’d ever felt until that point in my life. Thank you.
OH MY GAWD that would have been a NIGHTMARE – lots of fug this and fug that I’m sure. I have to say I do like those glasses, Maccas ones, because they have thin rims! 🙂 xx
Fuggity fug! They are very sturdy – they’ve been dropped a few times and are still intact!
I for one, LOVE McDonalds glasses. Totally classy!
Yes, I always drink from them with my pinky in the air!
did it REALLY matter if the glasses were PINK?! FFS! Some customers are so picky!! 😉 So what happened? Your company had to absorb the loss!?
You’re lovely for taking ‘my side’, but they really did look awful! Yep, we destroyed the glasses and wore the loss. FUN.
You know you’re in a good place when you can look back and laugh! You know you’re in a better place when you have 4 McDonalds glasses. Love your work! x
Thanks, Grace. In a much better place at the moment, at home with my family!
Great piece
Can’t believe they wouldn’t take the pink glasses – would have been a far better marketing tool! – maccas can see that 🙂
Oh no, while I was devastated at the time, I don’t blame them for not accepting them. They looked all kinds of wrong!
I that is crazy! Makes a great story though. I would have taken the pink glasses if I was your client!!
Yes, it’s great to have a story I can now laugh at!
This was such a fun read, Emily, so I’m laughing at your hindsight!
Could the printer have, um, maybe tried the technique on a SAMPLE of the glasses first? Doufus!
Clients are hard work, man. And printers. They’re hard work too.
Oh and in answer to your question – there are LOTS of things I laugh about that were not even remotely funny at the time. And lots of things that I am still working a laugh up over. I need to lighten up about things that happened 10/20 years ago, I really do. x
The funny thing is, we did do samples first. And they were fine. NO IDEA what happened.
Yep. Work would have been so much easier without clients, suppliers and printers. Ha.