Here's the situation. This week I made a new family job chart and matching FHE chart. (Ahhhh. . .How nice) New year=new motivation=new charts. I did them on poster board and for lasting durablity I wanted to get them laminated. I had recently been to The Chalkboard store and saw that they advertised laminating for .75/foot.
But there is a Kinkos about 2 blocks away from my house, so I thought I'd save the longer trip (about 5 miles) and just do it there. When I got my project in, they measured and fiddled and showed me how they were going to do it. They charge by the sq. ft. and it's $5/sq. ft. On top of that I was trying to show them how they could lay some of the cards in an order that would save space on the laminating, but they refused to do it that way, insisting that I would need the 3 inch space in order to cut them out. When they got it all figured out the total came to $30.00!!!! Are you kidding? I could have hired someone to make a fancy wooden chart for that. I admit I'm frugal to a fault sometimes, but this just didn't make any sense at all and I had to leave. Thanks, but no thanks Kinkos.
So I drove the 5 miles to the teacher store and dropped it off. I didn't really care what they charged, I knew it would be less than Kinkos. They did a fantastic job, spaced the cards in a way that made sense (I didn't even have to show them), and it came to $2.25. Now that's what I'm talking about.
The moral of the story is teachers (usually retired teachers or students work at the Chalkboard store, I've found) are just naturally smarter than your average Kinko's worker. AND you should never shop Kinkos for lamination. That's all. I'm just trying to make the world a better place by spreading consumer spending tips when I can.
7 comments:
Yeah, I've discovered the only requirement to work at Kinko's is opposable thumbs and an IQ slightly higher than a gnat.
What are we to do, those of us without that cool Teacher store?
Wow, the difference between 30 bucks and less than 3 is amazing. I guess Kinko's thinks they can charge that much because they are such a big name and will get business no matter what.
And I'm jealous of your charts. I'm getting very anxious to get into a good routine again, but right now it's pure survival.
I stopped going to Kinkos when they refused to shrink down a very large certificate for me. Their reason was it was a copyrighted item. It was a gov't document that was public information. Whatever. I can scan and stitch it.
Joni, in Utah you have that incredible store called Honor Copy. Unless those gol dang dishonest Utahns have messed that up too.
Christina, I had no idea that you couldn't copy certificates. Then why do jobs and stuff always want a copy of your certificates? Kinkos is messed again, I think.
Kinkos is messed. I once made a book using pics from the Friend and Ensign for sacrament meeting for my kids. It was $12 to laminate the pages. I could have bought a nice book for that. So I bought my own laminator for small projects. Nice job on the teacher store. Now I want to see a picture of your completed charts.
Staples is no better than Kinko's. I tried to get them to enlarge and laminate a poster I needed for Seminary and they just kept telling me they couldn't do it the way I was requesting it. I ended up getting it done at the school district.
Yeah for Sandra! Keep looking for the better way!
Good job Sandra, Kinko's is such a rip off. That is why I ended up buying my own laminating machine. I can't do big posters, but I can do things up to 14" on one side. I love it!
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