Is education the answer?

[Notarealsignguy]

Metamucil? There'd be nothing left here

 

[Aardvark Printing]

Manager: What happens if we train them and they leave?
Owner: What happens if we don’t and they stay?​

 

[monroesigns]

We could all get certified, add years worth of additional skillset knowledge and it still won't alleviate the biggest obstacle to our collective ability to sell better looking, more fun to produce, creatively challenging work for most of us. That obstacle is an American consumer that for the most part has rejected finely crafted ANYTHING in their lives. They live in shoddily built houses, drive cars ready for recall any minute, eat lousy food, blah...blah....blah.....

The general public has embraced cheap, mass produced garbage over handcrafted goods because they refuse to see the value in anything durable or of high quality. Its not entirely our fault, billions are spent on influencing our values. The images and messages they are fed by corporate America are cheap beats everything and our high wage European brothers and sisters are spoiled, overpaid slugs.

That message has gone hand in hand with the 40 year campaign to denigrate organized labor, collective cooperation and usher in the race to the bottom on wages and benefits and everything else that made America's working classes the envy of the world from the 50's through the 70's.

Want to turn it around and bring back respect for skilled trades? put your consumer dollars where your mouths are and vote with your wallet, not your emotional attachment to some easily exploited hot button social issues.

It is the "Amazon-ing" of America and beyond. I get "customers" into my shop (or on the phone) expecting to be able to pickup a custom sign in a day or two - one of my main sign suppliers only delivers to my area Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so usually 3-5 business days for most projects (including design, material arrival, creation of their product). But on Amazon, they can have it in 1-2 days, and it will be "good enough".

 

[Notarealsignguy]

It is the "Amazon-ing" of America and beyond. I get "customers" into my shop (or on the phone) expecting to be able to pickup a custom sign in a day or two - one of my main sign suppliers only delivers to my area Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so usually 3-5 business days for most projects (including design, material arrival, creation of their product). But on Amazon, they can have it in 1-2 days, and it will be "good enough".

funny thing is, amazon isn't even delivering at the speed that they used to be