2 can produce more than twice as much as 1

[Free Man]

Hello, and happy new year. I think most of us, including myself work alone. The more and more I get into being busier with print jobs I have been considering help. This raises many questions. Looking for any ones input, and especially of course a catspit video, hint, hint.
Many times I will have a back print and front left chest logo on one screen. I'll print all the front or back with the other taped off, and then the other. Is this still done, but just using help to load shirts, and pull shirts for dryer?, or should 2nd man also be printing? How would this work? what should our positions be? I have a 6 color 4 platen, but for simplicity in understanding, I would like feed back on how and where to use a 2nd helper for just a one color front, and back print.
Thanks!

[Catspit Productions]

I am actually at the point at which I would love to hire a full time employee but the taxes are pretty heavy to do so. I use a lot of “subcontracted” workers in times of need and I have an accountant and web designer I pay monthly.

But if you can afford to hire help in one way or another I would recommend using them for cleanup, reclaiming and printing if you were to be so lucky as to find someone you can trust to do good work. I always have lots of screens backed up to clean or reclaim. You can easily hire someone to do that.

The idea is to use a helper to free you of the basic tasks first, allowing you to tend to the core tasks. Having someone pull, load or catch shirts is only feasible on large print runs. That would be the same with folding. I rarely have any one print or handle shirts for me. I use most all shop help for the basic tasks I am “too valuable” to do at times.

I like to have very high quality control so the print jobs I do all myself. Now if I get an occasional order for 500 or 1000 pieces I would like to have someone help fold shirts at the end of the dryer while I load and unload but that would be on an automatic press. Ultimately if I had a good printer I would let someone else print too.

But it can be very expensive to hire a worker on the books these days. Family is priceless to help small businesses grow.

[Free Man]

yeah, or a neighbor kid, haha. I tried to get my wife just to load shirts once and it was a melt down. It made me realize that I had a touch for things that I couldnt event put into words. Ultimately maybe just experience. I think sometimes people think to themselves, "Oh screen printing, any one can push a squeegee", Yeah right; its soo much more than that. Even just to pull a shirt off of a tacky pallet with out getting wet ink jumping all over can be tough for a newbie. Ive decided that you have to be super patient and train or lucky enough to hire a super experienced worker. Both of which are tough to find; especially the patients bit.
Interesting story: met customer in my bar that was friends with the dude that started No Fear. He said this guy lived with a buddy in a screen print warehouse. Straight up rented a space to work out of and secretly lived there. Sleeping on the floor, etc. Eventually got some business going and then did something very risky. Promised the moon and stars to every one nation wide and over seas. Took money for huge orders all over the place which they knew they couldnt fill. Put all the money in a high interest account. Just kept telling people they were back ordered til a customer would take legal action. Then for that customer they would refund money, for which they already made money on. Apparently they did this for as long as possible (about a year) til they could expand and hire help, and outsource everything to China. With a few years they were millionaires. The customer also said that money isnt a good thing for every one, 'cause then he just partied and became an A-hole til one night while at a fancy party abusing drugs and alcohol the guy went out to his car and shot himself in the head. I could tell this was sad for the person telling me this, but in the back of my mind, Im thinking its just Karma.

[Catspit Productions]

That’s true family can either be of big help or they can cause friction in the shop. It certainly is not something everyone is comfortable with. It takes time, and experience to even handle the ink on the screen and become familiar with.

You are also correct in that many people embark on a screen printing project thinking it will be easy, that there’s nothing to pushing ink through a window screen to make a shirt. It’s a common misnomer.

I can tell you from experience not everyone can be trained to screen print and not every experienced screen printer will be reliable. And we all know how difficult it is to get people you can trust to take pride in the work the way you will.

I never heard that No fear story. Interesting, I knew they were screen printers but I never heard that they did that stuff. But then again there have been many people in history that have bad reputations for business and still have giant companies despite it.

[ppdlao]

Interesting stories, and about hiring, man, it´s so complicated, like Jon said, pay taxes and social security, etc, I´ve been lucky my wife helps me out with some core tasks, I think we have to keep upgrading out shop tools, to make the work easier.