San Francisco, Here We Come:

I have an interesting story about how far we are willing to go to service our customers….

One of our customers, a retail pretzel brand (Pretzel Maker), needed 2000 t-shirts for an event. While this sounds like the perfect order, the details soon brought perspiration to our brows.

Revelation 1: The T-shirts would be needed to be completed In ONE week. Ohhhhkay, we can figure that out… two days to receive the blanks and 24 hour printing shifts…

Revelation 2: Each white T-shirt was to have a design with 7 colors on the back and 3 colors on the front. But, the design wouldn’t be approved until the day the blanks arrived…

Revelation 3: The customer was on a very tight budget for this event. We would have to re-design a bit to reduce the number of colors and setups in the print in order to make it work within the budget and not lose our “shirts”.

Revelation 4: Once we got to the halfway point, we find out that the shirts are needed, not in Salt Lake where we are printing them, but in San Francisco. Yes, as in CALIFORNIA.

The budget did not allow for overnight shipping, or even 2nd day shipping, (which was the latest option available for the shirts to reach the venue in time) so we checked into trucking companies and trains…

All of our options were exhausted, but we were not going to tell this good customer “no”. So, we rented a U-Haul trailer, hooked it up and hauled them ourselves. Took turns driving and arrived on location with some time to spare (about 45 minutes).

The REALLY SUPER GOOD part of the story is this: we brought our daughter, Sierra and our niece BreckLee with us and made it a weekend vacation.

We visited old war ships and had a very nice veteran teach us all about the weapons. Visited the Golden Gate Bridge and relaxed on a pier. We giggled, sang and laughed the whole time!

Both of the girls are teens now, (Brecklee is 17 and Sierra is 13) but they both remember this trip as a great time, even though it was only 4 days (total with driving) and we were supposed to be “working”.

We are thankful to our customers for providing us with many opportunities over the years to teach our children about customer service (optimism), dedication (resilience) and hard work (fun)!

Here is a compilation video of each segment throughout that morning.

Tough Tech Coveralls Logo

What’s really cool is that one of Master Brands’ clients Maggie Moos is providing free tshirts and ice cream for the crews working on the project. Who do you think is doing said tshirts? You guessed it Master Brands.

Check out this link to check in on the project.

Be looking for the episode on ABC in the fall.

By John F Black

In an era where each individual is unique in their clothing style choices, many corporations have found it necessary to require their employees wear corporate uniforms. Some may be upset by the idea of being told exactly what to wear to work each day, while others may welcome the idea of not having to think about what to wear. Ultimately, there are many important reasons why a company would require you to wear a uniform.

One of the main important reasons why many corporations have turned to uniforms is that it helps the company to market their name. When your employees are wearing custom made uniforms with your embroidered name and logo on them, you are continuously exposing your customers to your logo. If you choose a specific combination of colors, your customers begin to identify those colors with your company. Proper marketing is all about continuous exposure and what better way to continuously expose your company then with your employees clothing.

Another reason why corporate uniforms have become so popular, is that it takes away the need to constantly check and regulate the dress code. A company’s image is determined by its employees. If your employees are dressed inappropriately, it makes your company look bad. Imposing a dress code on your employees can be difficult enforce, seeing how some individuals may take it personally if they are told that their attire is inappropriate. So to simplify things and to make for neat and clean appearances, many companies now choose to have uniforms.

If your business is a service based business like a hotel, airline, or even store, corporate uniforms help your clients to identify the employees. When you have a company where a lot of individuals from the outside come in, if your employees are dressed similar it can leave your customers guessing who works for you. By wearing uniforms, you take the guess work out and your customers will know exactly who they need to turn to for help.

As you can see adding corporate uniforms to your company’s policy can help you in so many ways, whether its marketing, keeping a great image or providing your customers with excellent service.

If you feel that your company is in need of a uniform program, then Master Brands is the place for you. We offer uniform programs of all sorts. From Custom Printed T-shirts to full fledged Fire Resistant Gear, we can meet any need your company might have.

Certain precautions therefore have to be taken in order to avoid burns. Bare skin is, of course, not recommended. Flame retardant and fire resistant clothing is necessary. In addition, a certain number of other issues have to be taken into consideration:

• No pockets – With flying super heated debris flying around, pockets are a hazard. Hot pieces can land inside a pocket and burn without being able to fall away.
• Buttoned up collars – Keeping flying debris out of the neck line is essential
• Shirts outside of the pants – Tucking the shirts inside the pants creates the same type of issue that pockets do. Shirts outside of the pants allow the hot particles to fall away rather than simmering.
• Pants without cuffs – Cuffs end up essentially being the same thing as pockets.
• Flammable and combustible material needs to be far from the welding area. Sparks and debris can be projected up to 35 feet or more.
• The rules above about clothing apply to co-workers and others who might be in the immediate vicinity
• Know the location of the fire extinguishers before you start working. Once a fire is blazing, it’s too late to go looking for it. Be prepared.

Heat issues

When dealing with temperatures that can reach 10,000 degrees, and complete skin coverage, especially with FR clothing, we are automatically talking about the possibility of heat stress. Understand the symptoms and treatment of heat related health issues and take the appropriate measures. Make sure that you take frequent breaks away from the heat and stay hydrated at all times.

You can read all three post at the following links…

http://www.safetycommunity.com/profiles/blogs/the-basics-of-welding-safety

http://www.safetycommunity.com/profiles/blogs/the-basics-of-welding-safety-1

http://www.safetycommunity.com/profiles/blogs/the-basics-of-welding-safety-2

We’d like to share a few pictures from the event as well as the story of how this all came to be. We will attach the video in a couple months when it is complete.

In the fall of 2009, a video was circulating on YouTube called “the Pink Glove Dance”. It was made by a hospital in Portland OR and in partnership with Medline, maker of the pink gloves. Medline donates money to breast cancer research for every case of pink gloves purchased. Many friends and co-workers shared the video with me and we thought it would be fun for us to do something similar as a medical center. The Cuyuna Regional Medical Center is a very progressive medical community with a strong commitment to breast health. We have a Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure® team each year in our local Brainerd Lakes race. The Crosby Campus Cruiser’s have won the largest corporate team award each of last 10 years.

The wheels started turning and a core group of our Race for the Cure® committee members met to brainstorm. A simple little video couldn’t be that hard to make, could it? We wanted to have a key prop to wear that would represent the medical center and also bring awareness for breast cancer. The pink scrub idea was born! After contacting many scrub companies and finding only one willing to work with us for adult scrubs, we continued to be challenged for kids sized scrubs. It has always been important to include families in our race team and we hoped that everyone could be dressed similar. I started an exhaustive search online and one day decided to check on eBay. Immediately upon entering a search for “kids scrubs”, I was directed to the “scwubs” site for infants and children scrubs. They even came in the hot pink color we were looking for! I contacted Tracey at Master Brands and she was quick to respond saying her company would do any quantity and any size we needed, and in the color we desired. Once we talked about our video project, she even said they would not only give us a great volume pricing discount, but also print our logo for free. We were hooked on the awesome customer service and willingness of Master Brands to jump on board with nothing but an idea shared. Needing administrative support, we then pitched our proposal and they were sold. We decided to invite our breast health partner facility “Riverwood Health Care Center” in Aitkin MN to join in the video project. Trey from the art department was instrumental in getting our logo just right and took great interest in our project and how it came about. He made certain that what we wanted was exactly what we got, and our expectations were more than met. I know they also worked hard to get Riverwood’s scrubs ready in time.

Word spread fast about the scrub idea throughout the medical campus and soon we had taken orders for more than 500 sets. With encouragement to also register for the Crosby Campus Cruiser’s Race for the Cure® team, we nearly topped 400 to capture the largest team award once again. Staff, families and friends came out in force to walk and run on race day and many even ran the 5K decked in pink, all to spread the message that “Crosby Cares” about the people in our community and breast health. Our team included 17 survivors!

Filming for the video started the morning of the race with both the Cruiser’s and the Riverwood Ribbon Racer’s arriving early to shoot some “competition” footage. The Riverwood Racer’s wore light pink to complement the hot pink of the Crosby Cruiser’s. We made quite an impression on the crowd. We will continue filming throughout the summer to capture more “competive” vignettes between the two facilities, ultimately coming together joining forces and announcing our new breast health partnership. Our goal is to include many survivors in the filming. We will be using the song “This Town” by O.A.R. as a backdrop to the video. It’s really about the sense of community that our medical campus’ share and the feeling that “this town” spreads way beyond our city limits.

Every day there are nurses, lab techs, clinic staff, nursing assistants and more seen proudly wearing their pink scrubs to work. Kids have been spotted wearing scrubs in the community and many comment that they can hardly get their kids out of them! We are so pleased with the quality but mostly with the incredible service from everyone at Master Brands. We can’t thank you enough for all you have done to help make our project a reality. It’s still a long way from completion, but we could never have done what we have without the support of everyone at your company. With your help we will continue to spread awareness of breast cancer and work toward a cure!

With sincere appreciation,

Lisa Slepica
Assistant Director of Nursing
Cuyuna Regional Medical Center
Crosby Minnesota

Outside

Inside
 
 
 

Soft Server Machines
 
 
 

Self Service Toppings Bar
 
 
 

New COKE Fountain Drink Machine with 106 Different Flavors to choose from.
 
 
 

And Finally 2 pictures of the TCBY logo artwork inside the store.

I was actually lucky enough to get a sneak peak at this new store today and I have to tell you it is like no other place around. With 10 different flavors of yogurt, and over, well I forgot to count, but a LOT of toppings. It’s a new self serve concept store where you get to make your own treat. Grab a bowl, mix your flavors add as many toppings as you want.

In addition they have an AMAZING drink machine that has 106 different flavors for you to choose from.

I highly recommend anyone in the Salt Lake area to visit this store this weekend. It’s conveniently located at 2274 South 1300 East right across from the Cinemark Sugarhouse Movies 10.

In case you didn’t know the Cinemark Sugarhouse Movies 10 features movies for only $1.50 (actually only 75 cents on Tuesdays) so come catch a movie and then top off a wonderful evening at TCBY.

And if that wasn’t enough to get you in the door, how about a GREAT coupon deal as the starting topping on your Yogurt.

You can also follow this new Sugarhouse store on Facebook and Twitter.