When cheap gets expensive

By the end of today, I was feeling more than a little exasperated. What should have been a simple purchase had somehow become a much bigger exercise in time, effort and cost. The supply of asset tag labels was running dangerously low, so I obtained a quote from a professional printer for 5,000 labels and submitted it for approval. The process seemed straightforward enough. However, instead of approving the quote, my boss decided we could save money by buying our own label printer and printing the labels ourselves.

There was no consultation or consideration of whether I had time to print labels. The printer arrived this week, bringing a whole new project I hadn’t planned for. I spent hours installing software, troubleshooting drivers, configuring templates, and working out how the label-printing system worked. Just when I thought I was getting somewhere, I discovered a small but important detail: he hadn’t ordered any labels.

That sent me searching for suppliers and comparing options. The irony became obvious very quickly. By the time we purchase a suitable stock of labels, the total cost will be three or four times the original quote I submitted. Sometimes the cheapest option on paper ends up being the most expensive solution of all. I shut the lid on my laptop and went home.