Mail Houses

Started by DigiCorn, May 10, 2017, 01:09:39 PM

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DigiCorn

Got a strange call the other day. My previous employer recommended me for a job at a mail house, and gave a glowing recommendation. Today I have an interview. Last week on the phone, they asked my salary requirements and I quoted them about $15k/year higher than what I currently make and they said that they were willing to pay. Now I don't know what to do. I'm working for the devil I know, but I know nothing about the devil I don't know other than it's a mail house with 85-100 employees and that can process up to 40 million pieces of mail a month. Has anyone ever worked in a mail house? Can you give me some insight as to what the day is like?
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
― Johnny Carson

"Selling my soul would be a lot easier if I could just find it."
– Nikki Sixx

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
― Ernest Hemingway

Tracy

Just from your previous job info, I think you are qualified, you have done fusion pro, variable data etc..
I know they do Bulk rate programs, I think you've done that before?
Some mail houses do printing too.

Possum

Maybe you could ask for a quick tour? Tell the you want to see how your experience and knowledge integrates with what they do.
Tall tree, short ropes, fix stupid.

pspdfppdfxhd

We've gone from print only to print and mailing in the past 4 years or so.

I would say mailing work is suited for most prepress workers... lots of computer work and troubleshooting. Having variable experience is very important. Integrating digital printing with graphics/printing is also very important now a days. You might be a very good fit once you get rolling.


DigiCorn

So i did an interview last night. Not sure what to make of it. They promise all kinds of late hours and overtime. I don't know if I want that. I'm only 10 minutes from home, and I kind of have a flex schedule as to my arrive time. I'll make less money, and do lots of manual labor (lifting heavy objects over my head repeatedly) than I will i I go to the new place, but it might be worth it to stay here.

Plus, leaving to get home was a bitch. There's a stupid light rail train in that part of Sac, and it's runs directly in front of the freeway on ramp. There's the river on the other side, so going another route isn't an option. And there's an area near the stop signal that says, "Keep Clear," and while it took three rotations of the stop light to get through, it was mostly because I saw over a half dozen douchebags go down the chicken lane with their left turn signals on, only to cut into traffic at the KEEP CLEAR gap. If I had to deal with that every day, I might kill someone.

At the very least, I might use the option to ask for more money to stay here.
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
― Johnny Carson

"Selling my soul would be a lot easier if I could just find it."
– Nikki Sixx

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
― Ernest Hemingway

andyfest

Sounds like you already know which job is best for your life situation....
Retired - CS6 on my 2012 gen MacBook Pro

DigiCorn

It's the  :dev2:  I know, vs. the  :dev2:  I don't know, too.
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
― Johnny Carson

"Selling my soul would be a lot easier if I could just find it."
– Nikki Sixx

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
― Ernest Hemingway

Ear

Yep, corn... you interviewed them and aren't too impressed. Go with your gut.

We have an in-house mail dept and my wife worked at a big mail house, years ago... it is bindery, man... don't gloss it over. They offer overtime because the mail house is at the end of the production line. Shit rolls down the line and the slipping deadline will always be your problem. The machines... they feed paper at an incredible rate, and jam just as fast, just like every other piece of bindery/press equipment. I'm not ripping on mail houses, but I would be pretty desperate to go back to bindery. Even if you are only doing list sort and other computer tasks, you are always busy at the end of day/week. Kinda the opposite of prepress... I'm busy monday (sometimes sunday) thru wednesday, with Thurs and Fri being more chill. Mail guys wander around monday and tuesday but are always here late on Friday.

Pick your poison, prepress stress or mind-numbing grunt work.
"... profile says he's a seven-foot tall ex-basketball pro, Hindu guru drag queen alien." ~Jet Black

GinsTonic

I've come from a digital printers and now work at a mailhouse - I really enjoy it the work.

I work in the datashop and print room and the pace is a big change to what I was used to. Often the turnaround times are hourly, not daily/weekly (particularly for email jobs) and there is a surprising variety in the work, it's not just name+address work. The volumes are reasonably consistent as there are plenty of projects and fulfilment work to keep you busy when the ad hoc jobs dry up. It's not as much peak/trough work that I was used when I was in digital printing.

Even though the work is good and I enjoy the fast pace, the bar is lower than expected when it comes to quality. This bugs the hell out of me but understandably, the hierarchy here is accuracy>timeliness>quality. I think it's because a recipient will only ever receive 1x item of finished output, so the colour consistency and print quality demands aren't as high as when you ship 10,000 units to a single recipient who will see the variation immediately. That, and the product you are sending isn't going to be sold to a consumer.

For me, the real deciding factors were that I can up-skill with solid, transferrable skills, the company where I work has a great culture and I have an awesome set of awesome mangers, all the way to the top. Having a decent set of managers makes all the difference in any job, not matter how good/bad the work is.

Check what kind of work they do. If it's direct marketing (DM) material, the work will probably be interesting and varied (and is possible it will grow as direct marketing is hugely effective and ad agencies are aware of this). If they primarily do transactional work (invoices/statements etc) then be wary as that market is plummeting due to online access.

Ear

Agreed, for lower skilled, entry level workers, it is a great opportunity.

Corn is a skilled/manager level tech. Mailhouse or Digital is a huge step down from Litho prepress, in terms of skill required. It's going the wrong direction... more work, less thinking... consulting would be a more natural progression for an old prepress salt.
"... profile says he's a seven-foot tall ex-basketball pro, Hindu guru drag queen alien." ~Jet Black

GinsTonic

I agree that litho is in a totally different ballpark in terms of technicality and skill compared to digital, but I've found the mailhouse where I work (at least in my role) actually feels like I'm in a completely different industry, which just so happens to have a strong print focus. It could be argued that we're closer to the comms industry than printing. I suppose it depends on what the specific mailhouse specialises in and what their in-house capabilities are.

In my role it could be argued that I'm more closely aligned with IT development (which is where the transferable skills lie) than with a digital print operator - it's comparing apples with oranges. My digital print experience helps, but by no means do I have a printer's hat on all day.

Consider a project where depending on the values of the input data, you need to send an email, a letter and/or SMS to a recipient. Perhaps the communication piece points the recipient to a personalised micro website where you need to measure their response, and depending on what it is you need to follow that up with an appropriate email/SMS/Letter/phone call prompt. At the same time all communications have to instantly replicated in PDF form with the correct searchable information embedded in the metadata and uploaded to a call centre's server so that if said recipient contacts the client, their call centre operator can search in their system to pull up the mail item/email/SMS in question. Depending on the size of the input data, the postal address information may require cleansing to achieve the best possible postal lodgement rates. All of this has to 100% robust, with complete lights-out automation with as little as possible human intervention (preferably zero) at the production phase. Apples and oranges :)

But yeah totally agree - if you wind up being a print monkey or are unfortunate enough to work in the lettershop (heaven forbid), you can leave your brain at home, because chances are you're not going to need it if you come from a litho prepress background. All depends on the role you are being offered, where you can go within the company and what sort of thing floats your boat.

pspdfppdfxhd

Quote from: GinsTonic on May 15, 2017, 09:13:10 PMI agree that litho is in a totally different ballpark in terms of technicality and skill compared to digital, but I've found the mailhouse where I work (at least in my role) actually feels like I'm in a completely different industry, which just so happens to have a strong print focus. It could be argued that we're closer to the comms industry than printing. I suppose it depends on what the specific mailhouse specialises in and what their in-house capabilities are.

In my role it could be argued that I'm more closely aligned with IT development (which is where the transferable skills lie) than with a digital print operator - it's comparing apples with oranges. My digital print experience helps, but by no means do I have a printer's hat on all day.

Consider a project where depending on the values of the input data, you need to send an email, a letter and/or SMS to a recipient. Perhaps the communication piece points the recipient to a personalised micro website where you need to measure their response, and depending on what it is you need to follow that up with an appropriate email/SMS/Letter/phone call prompt. At the same time all communications have to instantly replicated in PDF form with the correct searchable information embedded in the metadata and uploaded to a call centre's server so that if said recipient contacts the client, their call centre operator can search in their system to pull up the mail item/email/SMS in question. Depending on the size of the input data, the postal address information may require cleansing to achieve the best possible postal lodgement rates. All of this has to 100% robust, with complete lights-out automation with as little as possible human intervention (preferably zero) at the production phase. Apples and oranges :)

But yeah totally agree - if you wind up being a print monkey or are unfortunate enough to work in the lettershop (heaven forbid), you can leave your brain at home, because chances are you're not going to need it if you come from a litho prepress background. All depends on the role you are being offered, where you can go within the company and what sort of thing floats your boat.

Just shows you how broad the spectrum can be nowadays. Half of this stuff you mention doing does not even make sense to me. Seems to be a lot more than mailing work, more like mailing and IT type work blended together. Not all prepress workers would be capable of the complexity of this kind, some, but definately not all.



Ear

Indeed. I agree with both of you. I'm speaking specifically to DigiCorn's skillset.
"... profile says he's a seven-foot tall ex-basketball pro, Hindu guru drag queen alien." ~Jet Black

Ear

#13
I will say, I can slide into the mailroom and handle their workflow, spreadsheets, variable data, the IT part.... yes, I understand your SMS speak. And little digital RIPs, like EFI Fiery are not complex either (though nerverackin at times). I installed and trained myself on our EFI Fiery with digital press, last year. First time I laid hands on a Fiery. Zero support, beyond getting the admin password. Was producing the next day. Digital is a side project, compared to feeding a platesetter.

The Mailroom techs I know wouldn't have the first clue what to do with the prepress. Alls I'm saying is, I know how to do their job and mine, and I know which is more challenging and why. I have done both. Have you prepped for large web presses in a modern CTP environment? If not, you might not know of what you speak. If so, I'll shut the hell up.  :rotf:
"... profile says he's a seven-foot tall ex-basketball pro, Hindu guru drag queen alien." ~Jet Black

GinsTonic

Quote from: Ear on May 16, 2017, 10:44:27 AMI will say, I can slide into the mailroom and handle their workflow, spreadsheets, variable data, the IT part.... yes, I understand your SMS speak. And little digital RIPs, like EFI Fiery are not complex either (though nerverackin at times). I installed and trained myself on our EFI Fiery with digital press, last year. First time I laid hands on a Fiery. Zero support, beyond getting the admin password. Was producing the next day. Digital is a side project, compared to feeding a platesetter.

The Mailroom techs I know wouldn't have the first clue what to do with the prepress. Alls I'm saying is, I know how to do their job and mine, and I know which is more challenging and why. I have done both. Have you prepped for large web presses in a modern CTP environment? If not, you might not know of what you speak. If so, I'll shut the hell up.  :rotf:

I totally agree that a litho presspress tech would slide into a mailhouse role with less disruption than going the other direction, as print production isn't necessarily the primary focus of a mailhouse, it's a means to an end. I know prepress to enough to get by, but like you say I haven't prepped for large web presses in a modern CTP environment, so I don't think initially I'd do as well in your role as perhaps what you could do in mine.

Based on the litho prepress techs I've worked with I think they are perfect for certain mailhouse roles as they have the technical smarts where it counts and great problem solving skills. In short, based on OP's question - a prepress tech could thrive at a mailhouse and really add serious value to the business if they are slotted into the correct role. If you want to be doing prepress and you enjoy it, then no - a mailhouse is not for you.  :)