Got any funny pressman's stories?

[ghuerth]

I had just finished servicing a 360 and waiting as the owner/operator was giving it a test. I noticed the wall phone in the press room with what looked like a 15 foot cord. I thought "Safety Issue", so I asked if he ever got it caught on the press and he gave me a negative look like, "Am I that stupid." The phone rang just when he started to feed paper, he grabs the phone, put it between his ear and shoulder and went to pull a sheet while talking to his customer when the hand wheel grab the cord, yanked the reciever from his ear bounced it off the floor up and around and smacked him on the head. He was very red faced as he wrote me a check for the repair.

 

[ghuerth]

I showed up to do a scheduled maintenance on an ABDick 9810 when the operator asked if I could wait, he said the delivery driver was on his way back from the paper store with 4 reams of 4 part NCR and that he had a rush job to complete. They had feeding problems on their copier and had a tech come out and fix it. Not only had he fixed the problem but had tested it by running the job for them. When he was asked how he had fixed the feeding problem, he says, " Well after checking everything I just flipped the stock over and it ran fine"
Any Questions?

 

[ghuerth]

I was a rookie service tech with ABDick when I called the the customer to notify them I was on my way and I asked "What type of symtoms they were experincing" and the operator said "I'm getting ink on all my rollers", a little puzzeled on my drive there but when she showed me her press the rollers were the Plate, Blanket, and Impression cylinders. It was an easy repair.

 

[symun]

Not a funny story but a story none the less...

There were two presses where i work, both heidlebergs.
SM52 4 colour and a GTOz52.
Both presses working good hours a day given the recent downturn in printing, anyway our bosses decided to make one of us redundant.
A month before christmas they took me and jimmy into office and gave us the news.
Thankfully for me Jimmy who is advanced in years opted for early retirement leaving me with both presses to run......
Well, four days after Jimmy (gto operator) retired i was greasing the gto ready for a huge numbering run (election ballot papers) i finished greasing and then proceeded to change the cylinder jacket as Jimmy wasnt the cleanest of operators as it was slit in 3 places from perfing and picture framed with dried on ink.
Anyway, finished setting the cylinder jacket and proceeded to give it a wipe over and whoops in goes my hand.....

That pic was taken in the hospital, 3 broken fingers........

So now the bosses have two presses and no pressmen.......and i am looking at 6 months on paid sickleave and a huge claim on the cards as it was found that the inch controllers had been altered to allow the press to run on more than an inch by the previous operator so he could put plates on quicker.

A year on and they sold the GTO as i refused to use it, i have got back into the job well albeit re-learning how to do things left handed more.
And its election time again so the ballots are printed single sided on the sm52 and then backed up and numbered on our Canon Photocopiers........

 

[discountprintingservice]

I have not been on here in a while, but I am sadden to say that PrinterMike who gave me my first job in printing while I was in high school recently passed on 1-13-14. I learned a lot from him while I worked in his shop and his eye for detail and perfection through old school craftsmanship inspired me to start my own shop. He taught me to run the Multilith 1250 w/T-51, ATF Chief 22 and Solna 124...and kindly offered his expertise if I ever got stumped on a press issue...

 

[kwaka9r]

Hi Richard , mark Ruane here, just joined this forum and noticed your name, great pics on flickr btw. atb

 

[mr.mark]

I had a guy come in to fill out an application that was so drunk he forgot he had work for us before.This guy only work here for a couple days but it was long enough to never forget him.

 

[Drifta]

While training a new binder i was also running an old piece of crap stahl (very noisey) and she came up to ask a question,i had my earmuffs on, i yelled i can't hear you!, so she took off her ear muffs and yelled louder, Yes she is blonde.

Had an apprentice running a simple black job through ryobi Single colour i stood at the feed end with a black pen litely touching each sheet as it was goin through, he'd pull a sheet out see the mark and quickly stop the press to have a look where it could be coming from then show me the problem i'd shrug and say give me a look,i'd start it up and mark is gone, carried on doing this for a couple of hours, made me laugh. have to remember to tell him one day