The customer was a salesperson for an industrial supply company, and his client needed several free standing, portable “MEN WORKING” signs. We make and try to stock some round sign bases with a single pole, which usually carry a 20" x 20" aluminum sign face. The standard face was a bit too small for that application, so I cut some 2' square faces that would stick up above the existing sign posts a bit. 

 

I made sure the holes were not centered vertically, but closer to the bottom of the sign faces than to the top. I knew of the asymmetry of the hole pattern but forgot to mention it to my employees who covered the mill finish aluminum faces with orange safety vinyl, and applied the black lettering and border as I had designed. 

 

That job was done while I worked in our shop across the street, and when I came in these four sign faces were wrapped with shrink wrap and awaiting the customer’s arrival. However, I wanted to see them and cut the wrapping loose to get a good look. I noticed my employees had not cut the vinyl out of the holes in the faces, so I grabbed an X-acto and started to work. Quickly I realized the first sign face had the holes favoring the top and not the bottom, exactly the wrong position. Rats!

 

Well, they had done four of them, and surely some were done correctly, even if accidentally. I placed the second sign on the worktable and located the holes, and again they were wrong, but as sign maker’s luck would have it, the other two were just fine… not! 

 

With each sign, as long as they were oriented vertically, there was a 50/50 chance they would get the holes right, yet every one was lettered upside down. All were to be redone, and quickly before the client arrived. 

 

That same morning there were two decorative “medallion” type aluminum signs to be lettered over a beautiful royal blue powder coated background I had sprayed the night before. The five holes in these signs, three at the top and two along the bottom, were counter-sunk before coating, which easily defined which side was the front.

 

I was out on the install part of that job late in the afternoon when I unwrapped the first one. I noticed the mounting holes were not counter sunk... or more accurately, they were counter sunk on the back. The odds again were exactly 50/50 if my staff had done them with their eyes closed, and as commercial sign shop fate would have it, the second medallion sign was decorated with beautiful graphics on the back as well. So far, counting the four pre-drilled sign faces, out of six tries with heads or tails odds, we had lost every time.

 

And it didn’t end there. The next morning I went to work early to clean and blast three 4' x 8' angle iron sign frames another employee had welded for me, and the six posts made of square steel tubing that went with them. As I spread the posts out on saw horses, I wondered about the orientation of the seam that always runs the length of the tubing on one of the four sides, and if the holes had been drilled through that side so it could be turned to the inside (or outside) and not be facing the viewer?

 

If the drilling was done by a blind man, he’d have a 50/50 chance of getting each one right, and a very slim chance of drilling them all incorrectly. But, a sign guy could easily beat those odds, and as luck would have it, each one of six was drilled wrong. Now, how can we do these things consistently? Going bust an even 12 times in a row would involve odds of a bit more than 4,000 to 1, according to my calculations, and we did it without even trying!

 

That’s just sign maker’s luck. How else could you explain it? The same luck that means the one day of the week we set aside for installs will always be the windiest day, and that the substrate we have the least of will be the exact one needed the for our next big order. Want to sell some orange aluminum signs? Just let a sign shop run out of orange aluminum and see how quickly the demand picks up!

 

From experiences like these, one just might conclude that a sign maker and the stock market are a dangerous mix, and avoiding the casino boats or even the local bingo hall is probably a danged good idea, especially if the term “sign maker” appears on your business card. That’s been pretty much my experience and my conclusion. 

 

Well, since I only make money the hard way, I guess I’d better get back to it. But I really do hope your luck is better than mine (just about has to be), your shop is doing well, and all you countersinks are sunny side up. 

 

Have a great month—Rick