 In today's Sunday paper (is that redundant?), there was a flyer for Nebraska Furniture Mart. They've got a chair I've been wanting for the bedroom so I can work up there late at night once in a while. I picked up the flyer to look in there to see if they'd have that chair in there. I was doubtful, as the chair is cheap, and they're probably showing all the high-endish stuff.
But before I opened it up, I noticed that they had the address information on the front of it. Sure, why shouldn't it? But I started to think about the logistics of the printing, and what if they sent the wrong boxes to the wrong areas for distribution? What if this one had the Nebraska location featured in the address and directions? What would happen if they caught it? If there were a sale, like a three-day-weekend kind of sale, they wouldn't have time to get the boxes sent back and forth and everything straightened out.
So I thought, maybe they'd pay some jerks overtime to go through and write the address in with a big magic marker. But, no, that wouldn't do, because anyone who'd be doing that job might be disgruntled enough to start writing their own messages on there.
How about an ink stamp? No. Ink doesn't set well on that glossy newsprint. As soon as they'd stack one on top of the other, the bottom one would be smeared to the point of just looking like a Rorschach test. No good.
What if they just trimmed that part of the page off? Everyone knows where Nebraska Furniture Mart is. But, no, that wouldn't work for two reasons. One, you'd be obscuring whatever was on the opposite side, and, two, everyone would think it was a screw-up, which is worse than the original screw-up.
How about printing a bunch of labels and having someone stick the labels on all of them? That would work. So then I started to think about how many inserts would have to have labels stuck on them, and thinking of how long each one would take to do, in seconds, counting time to load labels in the printer, change toner cartridges, etc. That's not fun work, peeling and sticking labels on thousands of inserts. So how much would I do that job for? I don't know. Would I charge a flat rate, or would I figure a price per insert? Or hourly? With which method would I be able to negotiate the best total pay?
Don't know. Doesn't really matter, because the information was correct on the inserts. But it does go to show that you can get high by just not getting enough sleep.
I never looked to see if they had the chair in there.
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