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I hate the kind of people who rant and rave about bad experiences at a business. I hate the kind of people who belittle ignorant employees.
I am not one of those people. I am qualified to say whatever I like about Kinos (who recently merged with Fed Ex and the 6th circle of Hell) because every single one of the 47 times I have done business there, something has gone wrong and it has taken a long time.
Today, I just needed to print out a page of invitations I designed on the laser printer so we could copy them onto cardstock and not get crappy-looking blacks. 4 hours and 2 trips and 4 dollars (minus the 6 they refunded us) later, we just had to leave empty-handed. They don't have enough USB ports on their Mac for me to use my jump drive, and that was my last resort.
So I am going to write a letter to the suggestions department and tell them to please start training their employees and updating their software before everyone involved in the situation wants to kill themselves. I can't imagine what it must be like to go home at night after working a long hard day at Kinkos not having been equipped to handle any of the 75 disasters that just occurred. I hope they get hazard pay.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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quote: I can't imagine what it must be like to go home at night after working a long hard day at Kinkos not having been equipped to handle any of the 75 disasters that just occurred. I hope they get hazard pay.
They are surley to thier wives, yell at their kids for every little thing, and eat WAAAAYYYY too much junk food. They do not get hazrd pay, but luckily they get overtime when they work 10-12 hours for a WHOLE EXPLETIVE WEEK!!! Their staff is so incompetent because 90% of them walk out with out notice because they job is so EXPLETIVE stressful. Uh, not that I'm bitter. I'm sorry but not surprised you had such a bad experience. Just comfort yourself with the fact that Finkos does not put the food on your table.
Posts: 1021 | Registered: Sep 2004
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And they couldn't just plug it into a Windows computer why? My friends take their USB drives between their PCs and Macs all the time.
Posts: 1170 | Registered: Jan 2003
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I never go to Kinko's. They charge $3-5 for binding my work reports. The Mathematics Society office on campus will do it for 75c. And it's en route to my classes.
Uhhh... Moral of my story: go to MathSoc instead.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:My friends take their USB drives between their PCs and Macs all the time.
Really? My jump drive is formatted, much like a disk, for Mac.
I know there are better places to get things printed, but unfortunately those types of places are open 9 to 5 and cost about 13 times more than I can afford. Sigh. One day, when I'm rich...
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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Sure. You can just format it in a file system that is compatible with both. They usually come with FAT file system, which OS 9 and X can read as well as Windows 98, 2000, and XP. It even works between Linux and the other operating systems. That's how my friends and I transfer stuff from one person to the other. It's either that or use a CD, which uses a separate file system that they can all read. Posts: 1170 | Registered: Jan 2003
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It boggles my mind that you couldn't simply email the danged thing to your nearest Kinko's and have them print it.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I have to admit, I haven't tried to use the printing services at Kinko's. They probably have a policy of making it as hard as possible for you to port data in so that hopefully you will rent their machine to create your document there. But they are the ones with the laser color printers.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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(((Annie))) I know. I mean, we don't have this particular store here, but honestly, apart from doing photocopies, the guys working in thi type of stores don't know a thing about, like anything touching close or far computers. Posts: 3526 | Registered: Oct 2001
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I tried using their Print-to-Kinko's thingy to print something for a friend's birthday, once. The software was slow as molasses. Also, when I filled out the form, I put down a pickup time of 9:00 p.m. I expected it to be DONE at 9:00 p.m. Arrived at the store, and they hadn't even STARTED it yet! Then they had problems finding the file. When he finally started printing it, it was coming out one-sided. I told him I had wanted it duplexed, and he said the printer couldn't duplex. Apparently they couldn't print directly to a copier, so he had to print out one copy first, and then duplex it on the copier from hardcopy.
I was in the store for nearly two hours. Unbelievable. And that's not the only time I've had problems there.
I am so very glad that when I was working at a quickprint center, it was NOT Kinko's. While I was there, I heard a rumor that Kinko's was going to start offering printing press services, as well. *shudders* I would NOT trust a Kinko's employee with my printing projects. I had to go to specialised training to fully understand the nuances of taking a printing order, and I doubt that the average Kinko's employee would receive such training. Stay away!
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I've had that too, xnera - I go to pick up an order and they say they couldn't find the file (um, it's right here, see? Oh!). Last year when I had them print out my final project for design, which was in Illustrator, they instead saved it as an eps and printed it out in Photoshop (don't ask me why) and it was three inches bigger than it was supposed to be. (That's very lovely," I said, "but you see, it's a booklet, and thus all of the pages have to be the same size.")
I finally got the invitations done - I had to print them out on a friend's inkjet and then take them to Kinko's to copy them onto cardstock. Well, first I had to find out which of the two copy machines that weren't out of order left the least streaks and then I had to dial the lightness way up because they were printing out totally black and then I lost all of my grey tones because the contrast skyrocketed on me. But I was just glad to get out of there.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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Blaaaaaah kinko's. Fortunately, there's a University-associated copy center which is fast, professional, and cheap. I printed 200 coil-bound cookbooks last year. Kinko's wanted to charge twice as much (~$9 a book versus Metcalf's $4.50 a book).
Ugh.
And when I wanted to get something printed on cardstock, Kinko's did a demo copy for me that I had to pay for which printed the text off-alignment and clipped the edge of the artwork (1/4" from the paper edge). Metcalf did the mock-up flawlessly and for free.
Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
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You know, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say a good thing about Kinko's (though I have heard people say rather neutral things), so I find it a little weird that they seem to be thriving. Maybe people just don't feel that there is an alternative?
I don't like Kinko's either, but then I'm a little biased, as my mom is the owner and operator of an independent business service business. You rarely, if ever, get service from a chain business like you do from a privately-owned and operated business.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Oh, and I forgot to mention one other thing about the print-to-kinko's thingy: IT DIDN'T TRANSFER MY FULL FILE!!! THERE WERE EIGHT PAGES MISSING!!! Stupid, stupid, stupid Kinko's.
I love love love the look of Plastikoil, but I HATE HATE HATE working with it. One of my most stressful nights at the copyshop was when I had to bind 20 2-inch thick books BY MYSELF after hours. OMG. I started screaming at the machine, I was so frustrated.
I am so very glad I don't work there anymore. You have no idea.
Posts: 1805 | Registered: Jun 1999
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We recently had a good experience at Kinkos. My wife wanted to enlarge a game printed in a children's magazine to use for a large group of Sunday school children.
I scanned the magazine, converted it to gray scale and enlarged the file to 36-inches in width. I dumped it to jump drive, we took it to Kinkos, the attendant put it in his Windows machine, and without any readjustments (which would cost extra), printed it on the large format printer. It came out perfectly.
Of course there was the time when my wife took some small items printed on cardstock to be laminated, and the attendant stacked all the items together and laminated them into a single mass.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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Apparently they couldn't print directly to a copier, so he had to print out one copy first, and then duplex it on the copier from hardcopy. ![[Mad]](mad.gif)
Stupid, stupid, stupid Kinko's.![[Wink]](wink.gif)
