Protect yourself from pocket perils
Have you checked the pockets? I shouldn’t have to ask that question twice.
We all remember failing to do that important chore, then discovering a tube of
lipstick or a ballpoint pen left in the load and the horrendous job of
attempting to correct the disaster it created.
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Still, it happens to all of us, even though it can be prevented.
We had a nice system in our plant that involved carefully checking each order
and pocket before it was tagged and passed on to the drycleaning stage. If
something was found, we simply emptied the contents into a small envelope and
attached it to the finished order with a note that said “We found this in your garment and we’re returning it to you!” It was another way of saying, “Your drycleaner cares.”
Nice? Not always.
Once we returned a pair of earrings to the wife of one of our best customers who
often picked up her husband’s clothes. Attached to the order was one of our cute little notes and the
earrings.
We didn’t get any praise for returning the contents. Later when we asked “What ever happened to Mrs. X?” we learned of the couple’s separation. It seems those weren’t her earrings!
Good intentions? They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
However, as a business people, we’re not permitted the luxury of avoiding it.
We learned our lesson, and I guess there were other problems involved with Mr.
and Mrs. X, not just a pair of earrings.
But checking the pockets can be an enlightening experience. Too many times we
encountered lost money. We had a customer who was a head waiter who managed a
high-class restaurant and we were forever finding a careful folded $10 or $20
bills in his jacket’s small hanky pocket.
Our worst disaster was the discovery of a small, sharp metal tool that had
slipped through the pocket and lodged in the lining, only to make a small gash
in a dozen or so garments in the cleaning machine. That was a costly mistake.
The big problem, of course, were the ballpoint pens and the tubes of lipstick.
Check the pockets?
The price for forgetting is too costly!
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