What is it with people?

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Fibonacci

Fibonacci

Member
Joined
Feb 9, 2011
Messages
823
Location
Ridgecrest, CA
So I made one of the new apprentice Jr. Gent. kits earlier this week and was showing it to some people at work.

I hand it to one particulare guy who immediately starts trying to pull the cap off. I tell him to screw, so he looks at me tries to turn it the wrong way, then starts pulling on it again. I took it away from him, unscrewed the cap, and handed the two back to him with the comment that the cap screws off.

He looks at both side, writes with it a bit, then starts trying to jam the cap onto the finial. By this time I am just confused as to what he is trying to do. I ask him what he doing, and he tells me that the clip to hold the cap on is broken, because it wont stay.

I took both halves away from him again and showed him how there were threads on both ends, and you are supposed to unscrew the cap from the front and screw it onto the back. By this time, it turns out that the cap won't screw on to either end, because he has managed to break the threads on both the cap and the finial trying to force them to snap together.

When I commented that it wouldn't work now because the threads are damaged (not looking for reimbursment or anything, just an offhand comment), he tells me that is a crappy design and walks off.

Seriously? What is wrong with you? As far as the damage, I will take some resposibilty for that since I did let him have it back after taking the cap off. I would at least appreciate a "sorry I broke your thing".

Any great ideas on what to do with it now? I could swap those two pieces out of another kit, but there isn't much to do with the other pieces in that kit.

I have be experimenting with the idea of a nicer magnetic pen, so maybe I could drill the threads out and fiddle with that idea.
 
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I had that same problem at a craft show last year. Guy picked up a Baron and proceeded to try and pull of the cap. Which he did! Ruined the threads.
I now hand pens to customers and explain the caps before they get their hands on it.
When do deal with %&#%&@'s some times you cant win.
 
You are learning why Roy has all his pens "under glass" (well, plexiglas).

The more people you show your pens to, the more amazed you will be at the numerous ways they can break them!!

(And I can count on one hand the number of people who apologize!!)
 
I see this every week! Everyone unfamiliar with pens wants to "pull" them.

After an issue some time ago with Jr gent, I started putting a drop of red Loctite between the plastic coupler and the centerband fitting. This helps, but you really can't fix stupid.
 
haven't had one broken by someone pulling on it not from a lack of people trying but have pens get dropped and damage so far no one says a thing they just walk away.
 
Jason, Not a reflect on you whatsoever.

On the other hand, maybe that person is teaching us a lesson right now.
Our the items we make really too fragile for some/most people?
 
You know what they say, You can't fix stupid. An apology does go a long way, An offer to pay goes further, but stupid people do neither. I personally have never made anyone pay for breaking a pen but so it has only been the cheaper ones that suffered dammage. I have had pens walk away, that irratates me even more, I hate a thief. Robbie
 
JerrySambrook said:
Jason, Not a reflect on you whatsoever.

On the other hand, maybe that person is teaching us a lesson right now.
Our the items we make really too fragile for some/most people?
Click to expand...

I would say no for two reasons:

1. These are not junky plastic threads. I tried to pull it apart before letting it see the light of day to make sure it was of acceptable quality to me. After doing so, I checked the threads at 10x magnification to see if I had damaged them at all. I had not.

2. This particular guy is a laborer. He will routinely carry 100lbs in each hand without breaking a sweat. His ability to break something is not indicative of a typical person, and he was working at it. If I had been paying more attention/responded quicker I might have been able to prevent the damage.

As far as getting the parts replaced by the manufacturer, I have no inclination to ask. I get them from CSUSA and every time I have tried to buy a replacement for something that I broke by being stupid, they have sent them to me for free. Especially given that this was clearly abused, there is no reason they should replace the parts.

I like to experiment with things, so I screw up a fair number of parts in the process, and I am to the point that I (usually) won't ask to buy replacement parts from them because I feel bad when they give them to me for free.
 
Some people just don't know. Look at it as a learning experience. Now you know, when you are going to hand someone a pen you need to demonstrate how to open and close it first, then hand it to them. Even then you need to watch carefully to make sure they understood your instructions and stop them quickly if it is obvious they didn't.

I have seen the same thing with twist pens. Stick pens are so common these days people forget about twist, click and capped pens. It doesn't make them stupid.
 
The only thing I can think of to help improve the situation is prior to handing the pen to a potential client is to uncap and recap the pen in front of them to show and instruct how it functions. It won't fix stupid but some of the ones in the "read by pictures" gene pool may pick up the hint.
 
Lesson learned. Be careful who you let handle the merchandise and we live in a culture that perpetuates blaming instead of apologizing.
It must have been the threads....design...workmanship.....materials.

People will almost refuse under all circumstances to apologize and if they do the vast majority of time it will sound like......I'm sorry I broke your thingy, but if it was made properly it would have stood up to the inspection.
 
Fibonacci said:
Any great ideas on what to do with it now? I could swap those two pieces out of another kit, but there isn't much to do with the other pieces in that kit.
Click to expand...

I'd bet with a well placed bribe you could get matched up with him in
this year's Secret Santa
 
Not my fault!!!!

I retired coming up on 20 years ago, and even then we were starting to get to be a "not my fault" society. I and other older guys noticed it at work --- something might go wrong and the first thing out of an employee's mouth would be "not my fault" even when it clearly was that employee's fault. Older employees tended to say "I screwed up" - the younger ones were saying "somebody screwed up".

And it has gotten worse in the last 20 years so people looking at pens are simply a reflection of society. I can remember breaking, and paying for, items in a store and would probably still at least offer to pay for something I broke today. I think most people won't.
 
If you are handing a pen to a potential customer, take off the cap and hold onto it. Then the pen won't "walk" either.

If the person requests the cap, most certainly give it to him or her, but try to comment about the weight and its' effect on their writing--"Like it better with a little extra weight on the back? That's the advantage of this (posting)style pen".

Just a FWIW,
 
Smitty37 said:
I retired coming up on 20 years ago, and even then we were starting to get to be a "not my fault" society. I and other older guys noticed it at work --- something might go wrong and the first thing out of an employee's mouth would be "not my fault" even when it clearly was that employee's fault. Older employees tended to say "I screwed up" - the younger ones were saying "somebody screwed up".

And it has gotten worse in the last 20 years so people looking at pens are simply a reflection of society. I can remember breaking, and paying for, items in a store and would probably still at least offer to pay for something I broke today. I think most people won't.
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You nailed it, Smitty! And these people are teaching their kids "it's somebody else's fault".

If a child does poorly in school or sports, these parents entrench in the kids that it's the teacher's fault or the coach's fault, etc.

IMHO, failure to take personal responsibility for one's actions is diminishing our society.
 
We sold glass suncatchers.

Occasionally someone would drop one---instant track meet!!! Some of these gals were really fast, too!! Once in a great while, she (nearly ALL our customers were women, so this is NOT discrimination--it's a fact of our booth) would offer to pay---some young, some old, all really NICE!! We never accepted the offer, but it was nice to see, for a change.
 
I will unscrew the cap before I hand them the pen. The store that sells my pens has had 2 pens broken because of people pulling off a threaded cap, one I could fix the other needed a part from another kit. Now I try to send him mostly twist pens.
As for taking responsibility Smitty is right. Last year at work we had a change in the way we did things. It was a stupid idea but we had to work with it. As a result a few things were missed. We found them and dealt with the situation. ! week later upper management shows up to "fix" the problem and I say " Sorry, won't happen again. One of the other guys told me that I should have explained that the policy was to blame and that it wasn't our fault. I had to explain to him in VERY small words that who or what was to blame wasn't the issue and that "sorry" was really the best way to deal with it and keep the higher ups out of our hair so we could concentrate on doing our job.
 
I know the feeling

Displaced Canadian said:
I will unscrew the cap before I hand them the pen. The store that sells my pens has had 2 pens broken because of people pulling off a threaded cap, one I could fix the other needed a part from another kit. Now I try to send him mostly twist pens.
As for taking responsibility Smitty is right. Last year at work we had a change in the way we did things. It was a stupid idea but we had to work with it. As a result a few things were missed. We found them and dealt with the situation. ! week later upper management shows up to "fix" the problem and I say " Sorry, won't happen again. One of the other guys told me that I should have explained that the policy was to blame and that it wasn't our fault. I had to explain to him in VERY small words that who or what was to blame wasn't the issue and that "sorry" was really the best way to deal with it and keep the higher ups out of our hair so we could concentrate on doing our job.
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I was a department manager for a number of years - I don't think I could do it today. The people who worked for me were good at their job and seldom made mistakes but when they did make a mistake they were all willing to stand up and take responsibility for it. I don't think the employees have that kind of confidence in themselves any more.
 
I'm an old guy and it took me years to realize that there are some people that are just not nice, bad is the word and some are worse than others. There aren't many of them thank God and that's why things go as well as they do. We just have to take steps to protect ourselves from these few.
 
I've been at my current job for almost 12yrs. The longest by 5yrs except for the boss. I learned very quickly to "confess my sins" immediately and every time my boss would stand in the gap because she knew beforehand what the circumstances were.
I trained every person in my department who started after me and the first thing I explained to them was "She doesn't tolerate fools" and "When you make a mistake, and you will, 'confess your sins immediately'".
Still, sometimes someone would be hired on and I would end up quoting (someone, I don't know who) "Looks like the gene pool could've used a little chlorine a few years ago" and we would start a pool as to how long before that person was let go.

Smitty, well said!
 
I ended up firing someone a couple years ago because of that.

She was moving a $250K laser and dropped it. Instead of saying anything, she just put it back and pretended nothing happened. I spent 3 weeks trying to figure out what went wrong before calling the manufacturer. The service tech came out, opened it up, took out the shock indicator that showed it had been dropped approx 2', and charged me another $50k to fix it.

Upper management wasn't too concerned about the money, but was very concerned about who might have been in the facility to damage it. Theoretically, there were only three of us that should have had access to that room. Management finally called in an investigative service to do prints and such to verify the security of the room. This particular person denied having touched it until the investigator showed up and started dusting for prints.

At that point, she evidently spooked because she admitted to the whole thing. She was annoyed at it sitting on the desk she was using, so she was just going to move it to another table. Not a problem, except that it was about 70 lbs and she slipped.

All things considered, the $50k to fix it was not a big problem. The 3 weeks of lost lab time were a huge deal. We missed a deadline by 3 days, and that cost us several million in lost revenue. If she had just owned up to dropping it, we could have had it fixed in two days.

People make me sick sometimes.
 
Fibonacci said:
… Any great ideas on what to do with it now? I could swap those two pieces out of another kit, but there isn't much to do with the other pieces in that kit.
Click to expand...
This happens on occasion. Customers break stuff.

One of the best ways to minimize this is to do what you did; talk them through how to remove and post the cap when they are looking at the pen. However, if they are still having trouble, have them hand you the pen (as you did) and show them how the cap removes and posts, handing them back the posted pen. Sometimes, they'll still try to pull off the posted cap, rather than unscrew it, but the repair for that is much easier and doesn't cost you money.

If you guys are like me, you probably have a bin with pen parts sorted by kit type. This is where you go to find the replacement part when some doofus breaks a pen. If the needed part doesn't live in there, I generally will scavage it from a fresh kit and add the remaining parts to the bin. Occasionally, I'll take a look in there to see if I have enough parts for a whole pen.

Displaced Canadian said:
Last year at work we had a change in the way we did things. It was a stupid idea but we had to work with it. As a result a few things were missed. We found them and dealt with the situation. ! week later upper management shows up to "fix" the problem and I say " Sorry, won't happen again. One of the other guys told me that I should have explained that the policy was to blame and that it wasn't our fault. I had to explain to him in VERY small words that who or what was to blame wasn't the issue and that "sorry" was really the best way to deal with it and keep the higher ups out of our hair so we could concentrate on doing our job.
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I may be misunderstanding what is going on, but it seems like you have chosen to ignore the policy to do things the 'correct' way instead of advocating that a problem policy is corrected. I have fired people for taking that approach.

beachlover said:
I've been at my current job for almost 12yrs. The longest by 5yrs except for the boss. I learned very quickly to "confess my sins" immediately and every time my boss would stand in the gap because she knew beforehand what the circumstances were.
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This is a concept that I firmly believe in. I will shield my staff if 1) they are trying to do the right thing and are following established procedure and 2) they keep me in the loop when something has gone wrong. Few things irritate me more than 1) employees who ignore procedure or 2) getting dumped on by another department or my boss without my having any previous knowledge of a problem.
 
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