What has happened to the industry?

That is a question I had on the phone today...

By the way, in the last three weeks I have watched with some shock and trepidation the flurry of electronic nastiness and an insane amount of e-mail and phone calls all similar - what is going on...

First, this is nothing new, in fact I am surprised that we had a relative break from the excessive nastiness for as long as we have. This was added to my attention while working with a project involving testing and deeply studying the direct to garment market and a particular machine and the RIP it needs to work...

At the last show while talking to manufactures of DTS machines I noted the nastiness that was so prevalent on the screen printing industry years ago - you know salesmen spinning stories, trash talk, and underhanded tactics - wow!.

I feel sad that this seems to have seeped back into Screen Printing, I guess I should not be all that shocked, some of the worst snakes ever to curse the industry have slithered back into our peaceful break in the fighting.

I only wish that as small as the industry is that we talked more, I could have avoided getting fleeced myself by some of that nastiness if I had only talked to some of you out there first... Many years ago...

Honestly I will just continue to be who I am and help as many of you as I can, helping and teaching are the only things that keep me in the industry - it has been the most rewarding part of my long stay in this industry.

Thanks again to all of you who stopped by in Atlantic City to say hi and ask questions, the show was hectic (as usual) and I had a great time seeing the lot of you there.

One strange item, I was approached by a manufacturer of screen printing "stuff", this is screen printing "stuff" (a brand) I am known for backing and recommending by the way, and I was chided for "trash talk" about their "stuff". This of course caught me off aim as I was surprised that they had a "customer" that claimed that we were "unfairly critiquing" their "stuff" to "sell an other brand".

This seems out of character for me because I happen to favor this brand of "stuff" and because I so often present neutrality to the point of becoming uncomfortable about making comparisons of equal or "on par" items manufactured for screen printers.

What I thought (later) was that this was strange coming from a company that is KNOWN for excessive "trash talk" about their competitors!

Why the "noive" of ya...