Shirts are a pain because we treat them as the red-headed stepchild.  Right from the start – when a customer comes to the counter with shirts – they are treated as an outsider.  There is one procedure for all of the items that we service – pants, dresses, sweaters, suits, coats, jackets, ties, gowns, blazers, etc. – and a different procedure for shirts.  In some plants, learning to mark-in shirts is considered to be advanced training.  It is something that you are taught after you’ve learned some of the more basic things like running the computer, waiting on customers and vacuuming the rug.

I have a busy professional life.  That must be obvious outwardly because I am very often asked; “When do you find time to write your columns?”  The answer is “On airplanes.”  I usually have 3 or 4 columns in the works at the same time and on occasion, an idea for a column comes to me and I defer the completion of the articles in progress and favor my latest brainstorm.  The works in progress are often general shirt related subjects like “how to press a better shirt” or “Why aren’t my shirts getting clean”.  The brainstorms usually come from a particular incident that has recently occurred at someone’s drycleaning plant.  There is a third type and they tend to be more philosophical.  They tend to be ideological webs that are far easier for me to think than to type.  There have been two on my computer for well over a year.  I am committed to completing them because I think that they are important. Today, I’ll carry on more about these philosophies that are more on the general side rather than specific to shirt laundering.  Still, they have value in your shirt department as well as your general day to day duties of running a drycleaning business.