Last Tuesday, Mr. Steve, a customer of ours, called me to ask if we could do several banners for an airshow before the end of the week.

After that, he faxed me a schedule for the show and information for two or three banners. But he said that wasn’t all, and the next morning he faxed me wording for several more banners. Some were to fold over table tops, some were to hang from buildings, all were supposed to be lettered in red and blue on white backgrounds. By Wednesday at lunchtime, I had his whole order, and I picked up the phone and called our main banner supplier in Dallas knowing that orders placed early in the day would be shipped out that same evening. I would have my banners by Thursday at noon, and they’d be finished by quitting time. We’d be a day early for a Saturday airshow.

But about 9 a.m. on Thursday, my contact at the banner company in Dallas called to tell me that they hadn’t shipped our banners the previous evening. Because of orders going to the State Fair of Texas in Dallas, they were behind and were just making our order. She wanted to know how we wished to ship them. I told her we wished to ship them yesterday.

Her best offer was to put them on a bus in an hour or two, which should get them into Longview later in the day. Since UPS wouldn’t deliver them until noon Friday, very nearly too late, I agreed on shipping them by Greyhound bus.

An hour or so after that, our customer’s secretary called wanting to know if the banners were ready. These were the airshow banners, that if we were lucky, were just being thrown in with the luggage on that east bound bus. When I said they weren’t, but that they’d be done by Friday afternoon, she said the airshow would be over by Friday afternoon.

“What!?”, I asked. “I thought the airshow was on Saturday!” I was quickly informed that it was a Friday airshow, even though I was very surprised about this, thinking all airshows were usually weekend events.

As I looked through my notes, and even the airshow schedule that had been faxed, I realized that no where had there been given any date at all. Later it was explained that the over-flights done by the U.S. Airforce during the airshow, can hardly be done on a Saturday, as the pilots like that day off.

So our new deadline was Thursday evening, or at the latest, 7:30 or so Friday morning, since the show started at 1100 hours (that’s airforce time, of course).

I assured the caller we’d meet the deadline somehow, even though their blank banners were somewhere in transit to Longview, but that 7:30 would be the pickup time, which was fine.

I had Amanda, who would be working with me on that banner job, call the bus lines and find out when that bus from Dallas was scheduled to arrive. Five-fifteen was the reply, but Amanda had a softball game at 6:30 to play in, so we both planned to come back about 8 p.m. and work until we were finished.

At five, Mike volunteered to go down to the bus station to retrieve the banners. When Mike asked the attendant at the bus station when the Dallas bus would come in, the counter-person said it would be in at five-thirty. He called and reported the delay, but said he’d stay and wait for the bus. Amanda left to get ready for her game, and I was working at the shop when a frustrated Mike called, and said the bus finally did come, but it was the bus to Dallas, not from Dallas, and that the incoming bus wasn’t even scheduled to be in Longview before 10 p.m.!

Also, the attendant told Mike that unless that package was pre-paid, we couldn’t get it until morning, since the business office was closed at that time of the night and only pre-paid freight would be allowed to leave.

Great!

The bus carrying our package wouldn’t be there until after 10 p.m., and even then we may not be able to get our banners. By the next morning it really would be too late. So now, Amanda and I wouldn’t even get started lettering those six banners until 10:30 or so, and maybe not even then!

To heck with that; it was time for Plan B. When Amanda showed up at the shop at 8:00, I put her on lettering the one standard sized banner in the group, a 4x8, which I realized we had at least one of in stock. All the other banners were a strange size, but they could be made from 3' x 6' sized banners, or even other sizes with a little cutting and hemming with banner tape, which is exactly what I commenced to do. By 2200 hours (or 10 p.m. for normal people and signmakers) we were just finishing up all the banners, and we didn’t care whether that danged bus made it to Longview that night or not, we were going home.

At 7:30 the next morning, someone arrived at the shop to pick up the airshow banners, which went up prior to the show, and later I was told everything looked great, and went off perfectly. Even though I’m an airplane nut, I had to work that Friday and missed the show, but we heard later that it was a well attended success.

Mr. Steve called the next Monday thanking us for doing such great looking banners, and doing them on time.

“No problem”, I said, “it was nothing”, and “thanks for the business.” But I knew that we’d been saved from disaster by keeping up our stock, working late and fast, and having an all important Plan B, which is a lot better than being dog bitten by a greyhound, that’s for sure.

I hope your sign business is going well, and all your packages arrive on time, but if by chance that dog doesn’t show, I hope you always have a Plan B.

Have a great month,

—Rick