DAILY MIX | SHOP TALK
MISHAPS & MISTINTS: LAUGHING IT OFF Regardless of our skill or our knowledge, we all make mistakes from time to time. Between hectic days and busy minds, a paint store can sometimes feel like the exemplification of Murphy’s Law (whatever can happen, will happen). But whether a mistint or an outright fail, these momentary lapses often provide us with welcomed reprieves of levity from our day-to-day, even if usually only in hindsight! We’re spilling on your best stories of in-store blunders so we can share together in a bout of much-needed laughter….
“The biggest mishap I’ve had personally is a bucket of lacquer on a 100-degree-Fahrenheit-plus day. I pulled back the pop off lid and boom! Lacquer explosion. I was covered head to toe. I had to take a bit of a lacquer thinner bath that day!”
Gentry Stafford - Spectrum Paints “A contractor placed a paint order with us and requested that it be dropped off at the job site, which was a residential house. Our delivery driver dropped off the paint at the backyard of an incorrect house. The contractor calls the store looking for his delivery. We tell him that it is already at the job site and he informs us that the paint is in fact, not there. Our delivery driver goes back to the house where he dropped off the paint, which was one block away from the correct house and, thankfully, we were able to reclaim our paint and get it delivered to the contractor at the correct house. Oops!”
Bob Langbein - East Bay Paint Center “You know when you start a new job and you really don’t ‘know’ the people you’re going to be working with and how they are going to be to work with? My experience with the guys at the Osage Beach store was interesting. I felt like it was a test. What I knew and how I would handle customers. My first week I was having a typical busy morning mixing paint and working with customers. When I finally got a break and went to the restroom, I looked in the mirror to find that my face was completely streaked with black tint!!! When I came out of the bathroom the guys were rolling on the floor laughing at me. They let me work all morning like that. I knew then I was working with jokers and that these guys were going to be fun to work with - trust me I got my paybacks on them!”
Diann Goins – Dugan’s Paint
40 | July/August 2021 | ALLPRO INDEPENDENT
“I remember one of my employees took a sample out of a competitor's can to color match. He made a draw down and put the sample under our lamp to dry. Without realizing he didn't clamp the lid he grabbed the can, held it out in front of himself and began to shake it. The entire contents of the gallon poured all over him, head to toe, face, ears, hair and all. He was covered, and the bad part was, it was solvent based.”
Joe Tuttolomondo - Southern Paint “About a year and a half ago I had a guy walk in through the paint dept. door and ask if we sold Martin Senour paint. My reply, of course, was, ‘No sir, we are a Benjamin Moore dealer and that is our primary line,’ and then I named our secondary line(s) off to him. Then, (this is a true story) the gentleman asked if he could taste the Ben Moore paint stating that he could tell a lot about the paint by tasting it. So I asked him if he wanted a packed white or a base and that it was $63.59 a gallon and he could eat all he wanted. He chose the package white. After taking a giant glob on his finger, which more than filled his tongue and turned his entire mouth white, he said to me … no thank you I'll keep looking and walked back out the door.”
Randy Hill – Dugan’s Paint “A few years back we had a deer jump through our showroom window and proceed to walk around the store. Thankfully, it didn’t make any more of a mess and actually walked to the door, pushed it open, and left. We wound up using the security camera footage for a social media post that was our most popular social post to date. A classic lemons into lemonade story.”
Michael Gleason Jr - Gleco
