barcoding...

barcoding is a field of expertise of its own. the processes of cutting the plastic to mount on the barcode stickers, then recutting the protected barcode stickers down to size, then trimming the barcode down to the exact specified dimensions, and all this done, with the regular everyday good old kitchen scissors. try repeating that process for thousands of barcodes, and you would be feeling my pain and sores, quite literally.

the final process of mounting the barcodes was probably the best part of it all, considering it was just peeling off the non sticky bit and then sticking them onto the metal invitation plates. after which, the metal plates are collated in alphanumerical order like fresh metal pieces off a factory mould in the fashion of collecting dollar change, and stacked in orderly numbers of ten in any visible space. yes, it was that bad, considering the invitation order numbers have gone up, to a crazy thousand and hundred to be more precise.

three hundred invitations had to be finished and sent off this very day. drove us all up the wall it did. all the more because there was this little problem of manpower shortage, where it eventually dwindled down to a miserable two person operation to finish, pack and deliver. not my idea of fun.

if my fingers could cry blood, sweat and tears, of which it probably did manage to for the second bit, it would. it was a day full of lousy outrageous muck ups. that was day two.

day three is expected to be so very much worse. factory production would, no, has to be working at full speed, with unimaginable over time to be clocked. not a day to look forward to.