First off this is my first blog so I want you to bare with me here. I will give you a little background into me and the craft in which I am proud to be able to provide to a good employer now here in Maryland. My Name is Todd W. I have been in the Printing industry now for over 10 years, I started out in the Printing Trade back in 1995 when I started taking Graphic Arts Classes in Vo-tech while in High School in Pennsylvania. Though I was starting out in Vo-tech Printing was nothing new to me, My Grandfather was a pressman his whole life in the sleepy region of smalltown, PA where I grew up. So he was thrilled when I said I was going to get into printing as a vocation. Upon Graduation I worked 2 years for a small printer a few towns over learning the ropes as a Press Helper, But I felt the need to get the hell out of the small town environment so I joined the Navy, only to end up choosing Lithography (printing) as my profession while enlisted. So upon my 4 year commitment being up I got out, and went back to PA, now looking for printing work. I ended up over in Lancaster, Pa. working for R.R. Donnelly Making about 15.00 and hour as a press helper. I was amazed at that pay and quickly learned the larger the area the more the Pay! But that is a lesson I will get into here in a little bit. So more or less I was jumping from one Printing job to another after some time at each job, for the next 3-4 years. Each time gaining knowledge an more Pay each time. But I always chose to stay somewhat close to family.
This is where my lesson comes in to play here. One day after viewing the Baltimore Sun, I saw where this company in Rosedale, MD just outside of Baltimore was hiring. So I put in my resume. I was surprised to find that I received a phone call from the owner Joseph Cavey in no time at all. So we scheduled an interview and I made the 2 hour commute from PA to Baltimore for this Job. I should have guessed things were seedy there when I got there and started into my interview with Joe he was leading me around the shop and he stopped and said do you mind if I smoke? I said no i didn't mind. (Partly because I am a smoker and secondly because this is the owner of the company; and I am trying to make an impression here). So then he proceeded to pull out a cigarette right there in the shop and start smoking it as we walked around. (Which is about 50 fire and health code violations here in Baltimore County. But this is they're policy there that you can smoke anywhere in the shop, on Press, in Bindery, it doesn't matter to them. In fact they always pass it around when the Fire Marshal is there to stop smoking so they don't get fined.
But anyways to the original task at hand here, So they offered me the job and I took it at what I considered a whopping 22.63 and hour. Health insurance was average, things seemed good. So I started there and we were slammed, I was commuting 4 hours a day for almost 9 months, working as much OT as they had, Hell by the end of the Fiscal I cleared 50 grand after taxes. But then the bullshit started happening. We lost one of our accounts Joseph A Banks, and that did more damage then expected. They bought a new duplicator, an Igen press by Xerox with the intention to get there foothold in the Digital Printing market. The thing is with these style of presses you are charged .25 a click, the way it works is so you are printing 100 sheets you are charged .25 a click/impression aside from the normal maintenance and lease fees. So in theory these machines pay for themselves with huge count runs that you can counter into cost of overhead for that particular job. But that isn't what they were doing they were running short runs of 250 sheets etc. various run quantities but nothing amount to huge 50,000,000 runs like they were expecting.
If you haven't noticed here I have a tendacy to get side tracked, so bare with me. So as I stated before they were swamped at first when i started there out in the Press room, we had 3 28" Komori Presses there, a 6 color, a 5 color and a 4 color. Plus 3 or 4 small presses ( ab dick and hamada type). So the first 4 months I was there they were making alot of money quick. I think in end of 2006 they had made close to 8 million in sales. Which is impressive for a shop that size. We had our Christmas party at the Del Capri over in Dundalk. a nice catered affair. Top shelf to keg, lovely food, dj it was all covered. very nice. I thought ok, I found something good here.
Then the mismanagement of The 3 headed management monster there started to take it's course. You see where Joe Cavey is the owner of Rainbow Printing of MD; His brother Robert (Rob) is co owner, Joe's wife Gale is HR, and Joe's Daughter Kristen is in sales. Very family oriented it would seem. Rob Cavey and his 2 puppets, Richard Kaiser (Plant Manager) and Mike Zigler (Production Manager), poorly manage and treat the employees of any worth there. Everything is a joke, someone screws up a job, Richard calls out the person by saying nice job fuck head or something of the same sort. Mike sets up a schedule by putting nothing on the presses early in the week then backlogging Thursday and Friday with 84 hours a work and expects it done in 48 hours with no overtime, certainly no double time which was taken from the employees there after 18 or so years of having it.
Jobs were bouncing and coming back, the work load was dwindling to nothing, employee moral was never existent, health insurance was going to rise again, Double time was cut out, The work load was slowing, they kept hiring strung out druggies and completely incompetent workers to try to run the presses in there and the viscous cycle kept going full circle. I could see the writing on the wall it was time to get the F out of dodge. I could tell Layoffs were looming. So I started looking circa Baltimore Sun again. Nothing, maybe one or two pressman jobs but not much, then one day I got a call from a Union Shop in the Metro area, met with them, from the get go Polar Opposites from Rainbow Printing. So I said god I hope this works and I got called back for a second interview, so i took my ticket out of there.
So i went in to break the news to them that i was giving a notice. it went as expected they were pissed. I am surprised they didn't fire me on the spot because this is something they are known to do. it took up until my last day for Rob to come to me and say "oh i hear your leaving well you gotta do what you gotta do". I put alot of time and effort into this place and that was his response? typical. Let the good employees walk and keep the people that mess your work up. But it didn't matter cause I wasn't going to stay anyways.
I just came to find out that they just layed 7 people off this past weekend. I saw it coming. Glad I got out when I did. But the thing that has me disgusted is the way they went about doing it. They came in @ 4:30 am and sent the one pressman home saying not to worry about clocking out they would do it for him. Then proceeded to lay the rest of 3rd shift off. Then they layed off the 1rst shift shipping manager who, just returned from cancer about 3 months back. and another on second. The thing is they hired a consultant over a year ago to avoid this, why wasnt the consultant fired? Why didn't they lay off according to newest hire? just a piss poor run operation, I give it a year and there doors will be closed.
I have left alot out here because there isn't much sense starting this out as a war and peace novel. I will clarify things in the next couple of days. but overall my ridence of Rainbow Printing of Maryland 8303 Pulaski Highway Baltimore MD 21237 is a relief. I just feel bad for those still stuck there. get out while you still can!
This is where my lesson comes in to play here. One day after viewing the Baltimore Sun, I saw where this company in Rosedale, MD just outside of Baltimore was hiring. So I put in my resume. I was surprised to find that I received a phone call from the owner Joseph Cavey in no time at all. So we scheduled an interview and I made the 2 hour commute from PA to Baltimore for this Job. I should have guessed things were seedy there when I got there and started into my interview with Joe he was leading me around the shop and he stopped and said do you mind if I smoke? I said no i didn't mind. (Partly because I am a smoker and secondly because this is the owner of the company; and I am trying to make an impression here). So then he proceeded to pull out a cigarette right there in the shop and start smoking it as we walked around. (Which is about 50 fire and health code violations here in Baltimore County. But this is they're policy there that you can smoke anywhere in the shop, on Press, in Bindery, it doesn't matter to them. In fact they always pass it around when the Fire Marshal is there to stop smoking so they don't get fined.
But anyways to the original task at hand here, So they offered me the job and I took it at what I considered a whopping 22.63 and hour. Health insurance was average, things seemed good. So I started there and we were slammed, I was commuting 4 hours a day for almost 9 months, working as much OT as they had, Hell by the end of the Fiscal I cleared 50 grand after taxes. But then the bullshit started happening. We lost one of our accounts Joseph A Banks, and that did more damage then expected. They bought a new duplicator, an Igen press by Xerox with the intention to get there foothold in the Digital Printing market. The thing is with these style of presses you are charged .25 a click, the way it works is so you are printing 100 sheets you are charged .25 a click/impression aside from the normal maintenance and lease fees. So in theory these machines pay for themselves with huge count runs that you can counter into cost of overhead for that particular job. But that isn't what they were doing they were running short runs of 250 sheets etc. various run quantities but nothing amount to huge 50,000,000 runs like they were expecting.
If you haven't noticed here I have a tendacy to get side tracked, so bare with me. So as I stated before they were swamped at first when i started there out in the Press room, we had 3 28" Komori Presses there, a 6 color, a 5 color and a 4 color. Plus 3 or 4 small presses ( ab dick and hamada type). So the first 4 months I was there they were making alot of money quick. I think in end of 2006 they had made close to 8 million in sales. Which is impressive for a shop that size. We had our Christmas party at the Del Capri over in Dundalk. a nice catered affair. Top shelf to keg, lovely food, dj it was all covered. very nice. I thought ok, I found something good here.
Then the mismanagement of The 3 headed management monster there started to take it's course. You see where Joe Cavey is the owner of Rainbow Printing of MD; His brother Robert (Rob) is co owner, Joe's wife Gale is HR, and Joe's Daughter Kristen is in sales. Very family oriented it would seem. Rob Cavey and his 2 puppets, Richard Kaiser (Plant Manager) and Mike Zigler (Production Manager), poorly manage and treat the employees of any worth there. Everything is a joke, someone screws up a job, Richard calls out the person by saying nice job fuck head or something of the same sort. Mike sets up a schedule by putting nothing on the presses early in the week then backlogging Thursday and Friday with 84 hours a work and expects it done in 48 hours with no overtime, certainly no double time which was taken from the employees there after 18 or so years of having it.
Jobs were bouncing and coming back, the work load was dwindling to nothing, employee moral was never existent, health insurance was going to rise again, Double time was cut out, The work load was slowing, they kept hiring strung out druggies and completely incompetent workers to try to run the presses in there and the viscous cycle kept going full circle. I could see the writing on the wall it was time to get the F out of dodge. I could tell Layoffs were looming. So I started looking circa Baltimore Sun again. Nothing, maybe one or two pressman jobs but not much, then one day I got a call from a Union Shop in the Metro area, met with them, from the get go Polar Opposites from Rainbow Printing. So I said god I hope this works and I got called back for a second interview, so i took my ticket out of there.
So i went in to break the news to them that i was giving a notice. it went as expected they were pissed. I am surprised they didn't fire me on the spot because this is something they are known to do. it took up until my last day for Rob to come to me and say "oh i hear your leaving well you gotta do what you gotta do". I put alot of time and effort into this place and that was his response? typical. Let the good employees walk and keep the people that mess your work up. But it didn't matter cause I wasn't going to stay anyways.
I just came to find out that they just layed 7 people off this past weekend. I saw it coming. Glad I got out when I did. But the thing that has me disgusted is the way they went about doing it. They came in @ 4:30 am and sent the one pressman home saying not to worry about clocking out they would do it for him. Then proceeded to lay the rest of 3rd shift off. Then they layed off the 1rst shift shipping manager who, just returned from cancer about 3 months back. and another on second. The thing is they hired a consultant over a year ago to avoid this, why wasnt the consultant fired? Why didn't they lay off according to newest hire? just a piss poor run operation, I give it a year and there doors will be closed.
I have left alot out here because there isn't much sense starting this out as a war and peace novel. I will clarify things in the next couple of days. but overall my ridence of Rainbow Printing of Maryland 8303 Pulaski Highway Baltimore MD 21237 is a relief. I just feel bad for those still stuck there. get out while you still can!
