A Printer's Voice

“I quit.”
“Excuse me? What now?”
“You heard me. I quit.”
“But you can’t quit! We’re in the middle of a new release! I need these books tomorrow!”
“Look, when you said ‘print on demand’, I took that to mean one or two at a time… maybe as many as a dozen. Not one or two hundred every other day.”
“But we have a contract.”
“For one thousand books. I filled that within the first few weeks of your signing it. All other clauses have also been met. I’m out.”
“But I have this order…”
“I’m sorry, but no. I have tried for five years to supply you with quality books. Five years. Your orders have gotten increasingly large over the years and I am only one person. Because of your high demands, I’ve had to work extraordinary hours to the exclusion of all other orders. I’m exhausted and I’m done.”
“Please, just give me one more printing…”
“No. What you need is a new printer. One that can handle the workload you have. One that is bigger than me.”
“But…”
“No buts. No more books. No more late night orders. No more overnight shipping ink in. No more. I’m done. I quit.”


Word count: 203