“May I speak to your Manager, please?”  I’ve said it.  You’ve said it.  We’ve all said it.  Kindly.  With respect.  In frustration.  In anger.  With not-so-nice words of disrespect.  All looking for results… in our favor.

One time, Speak Life Badges’ printer, Maria Gossard from Think Printing, used those words: “May I speak to your Manager, please?”   I am so thankful that she said it with the utmost respect because it changed the outcome for Speak Life Badges.

The Die Cuts

The story goes, in the midst of our first print, we ran into a snag with the die cut for the sticker badges.  The first few presses of the die were not lining up properly.  Thankfully, the skilled die man caught it right away, and called Maria instead of continuing.  Now, Maria could have chewed him out, saying, “What’s the problem?  Don’t you know this need to be done!  My client is coming in to town and I’ve got to get these stickers die cut, the books assembled, and ready by Friday.  I need to speak to your manager now!”  But she didn’t.  Her response was one of honor; first, by thanking the skilled die man for his quick catch of the misalignment.   Then she respected him by appreciating that he didn’t continue the job just to get it done on time.  Had he continued, we would have lost 10,000 sticker pages!  We would have had to pay for the ruined badges and for new ones to be printed.  That’s not even taking into account the time we would have lost on the project had he continued.  Maria then declared success over the project by saying, “There is a solution.  I’ll come over first thing this morning and let’s see what solution we can find together.”  See Maria had future partnership in mind because this wasn’t going to be Speak Life Badges one and only print run.

What Happened Next

I had the opportunity to be with Maria to make the visit first thing the next morning.  It was a beautiful thing for me to witness Maria honour the die man and work with him towards a solution.  And because of her honour towards them, they were willing to work extra time on the job the next day so that they could get it done.  And the die cut job they did with skill and care helped us to achieve a beautiful set of sticker badges for you, my Friend.