My very first job was a delivery buy for a printing company in Chicago......could you imagine them allowing a 14 year old to run around the city now?
Anyway the first day one of the pressman sent me to get him a paper stretcher from another pressman. Well you can guess the rest. I was sent all over all day to find a non existent paper stretcher. I member it like yesterday.. still can laugh at my own expense 40 years later.
It’s just part of the process.
If you got your nose out of joint they would have dumped you.
I have been in High Pressure interviews with managers, and they tag team you trying to make you stumble.
They gang up on you.
Sheesh if a little joke makes you crack I don’t want you on my team.
That must be endemic to the print industry. My first gig out of high school before college was as a press helper on a multi-unit Harris press. My task was to retrieve the only 5 gal bucket of paper stretcher. After being sent to 2 different buildings and 4 or 5 different press crews who “just gave it to the Atlas guys about an hour ago...check with them.”
I hung out in the stripping area the rest of the shift and played on the computer. At the end of the shift, my pressman thought I quit. Nope. I found your paper stretcher. It was empty but now it’s being re-filled. If you want, tomorrow after I clock in, I can get you some more? :)