Here’s an illustration of why some corporations lose money.

While I was working with The Paul Revere Life in London, Ontario, I wore a suit and a clean cotton shirt every weekday. Once a week I would take my shirts to the dry cleaners on Oxford Street. I was a regular customer and I had a good rapport with the staff. It wasn’t often I had a complaint, but if I did the staff were very helpful.

At that time I favoured striped shirts with white collars and cuffs. I had my favourite shirts which I tended to wear when I would be out visiting clients.

One day I was dressed in one of my favourite shirts; white with a light brown pin stripe. Very suave and went well with my suit.

That morning I went to the washroom and as I tucked my shirt tail back into my pants, my hand literally went through the shirt material. I finished adjusting myself and returned back to my office. I told my staff what had just happened and they informed me that my shirt sleeves were coming away at the shoulder join. I lightly dragged my fingers down the front of my shirt and it shredded just like tissue paper. I was like the Incredible Hulk, bursting out of my clothes. This is ridiculous. I put my jacket on and drove to the dry cleaner.

I showed the manager what had occurred. She had never seen anything like it before. Luckily I had some shirts to pick up, so I changed and gave her the torn and shredded shirt to send up to their Head Office for examination.

After some time I got a cheque for the shirt and $100 worth of dry cleaning coupons. The problem was that I really liked that shirt and was unable to find a replacement. I had bought the shirt at Shorten’s, the menswear store in the building where I worked and they were unable to get a replacement.

Some months later I did manage to find the same shirt. I remember taking it to the dry cleaners and telling them, with a smile, not to mess up this shirt.

The shirt came back and there was a brown stain on the breast pocket. Oh jeez. I showed it to the manager. She sent it back for re-cleaning. It came back with the same stain. They were unable to get it out. Some weeks later I received another cheque for the shirt and another $100 in dry cleaning coupons and I got the shirt back.

What a pain! I left the shirt on a hanger in my closet. Why I left it there I don’t know.

Sometime later I was getting one of my wash and wear light Summer shirts from my closet when I noticed a light stain on the breast pocket. Curious, I thought and faintly reminiscent. Without thinking I put my hand inside the pocket and found a piece of tissue paper stuck there. I pulled it out and “voila”, the “stain” disappeared. Hmm, I wondered, what if? I found my favourite pin striped shirt, stuck my hand inside the breast pocket and, you guessed it, there was a piece of paper stuck to the inside. I pulled out the paper and the stain had now gone. My favourite shirt was back in play.

The puzzling thing is how come none of the staff at the cleaners thought to look inside the shirt pocket? What kind of quality control did they have, if any?

In the end, the dry cleaning company was out $500 in cash and coupons and who knows how much manpower was wasted all because of a lack of quality control and commonsense.