Truth of the trade
Everyday I keep telling myself that this weekend I am going to organize my life better and make more time for myself to do the creative work that I enjoy. On the outside it may appear that designing, looking through fabric swatches, and researching textile crafts is all I do, but in truth actual design work ends up occupying only a small percentage of my weekly schedule.
There are daily issues like paying bills, checking inventory, going through production schedules and goals, discussing patterns with my production team, and attending to customers at the store. And then there are minor crises every month or so. Last month a wall in the store needed to be re-painted because of a leakage in the building, and this week I fell ill with a viral infection only to recover and find out that two tailors have left.
I’m told very often by other people in the garment industry that tailors are a “breed” or a “clan” by themselves and that it is very normal at every factory for tailors to have low levels of attendance and for turnover rates to be high. My production unit is tiny. A couple of tailors’ departure reduces my production to just five or six garments a day. If another few tailors leave my production will come to a grinding halt.
Why do tailors leave? It could be because someone else offered them a higher pay, because they found another job closer to their home, because you hurt their ego by pointing out their mistakes, or simply because they have problems at home (like in the case of one tailor who left three months ago without a phone-call and came back last week to ask if he could join again).
Anyway, it’s a part of the business I’m going to have to accept unless I’m willing to pay everyone more than any other company could possibly offer. Most tailors come from poor families so they need to do what’s best for themselves. As for me it’s back to making phone calls, in search of a good tailor.
There are daily issues like paying bills, checking inventory, going through production schedules and goals, discussing patterns with my production team, and attending to customers at the store. And then there are minor crises every month or so. Last month a wall in the store needed to be re-painted because of a leakage in the building, and this week I fell ill with a viral infection only to recover and find out that two tailors have left.
I’m told very often by other people in the garment industry that tailors are a “breed” or a “clan” by themselves and that it is very normal at every factory for tailors to have low levels of attendance and for turnover rates to be high. My production unit is tiny. A couple of tailors’ departure reduces my production to just five or six garments a day. If another few tailors leave my production will come to a grinding halt.
Why do tailors leave? It could be because someone else offered them a higher pay, because they found another job closer to their home, because you hurt their ego by pointing out their mistakes, or simply because they have problems at home (like in the case of one tailor who left three months ago without a phone-call and came back last week to ask if he could join again).
Anyway, it’s a part of the business I’m going to have to accept unless I’m willing to pay everyone more than any other company could possibly offer. Most tailors come from poor families so they need to do what’s best for themselves. As for me it’s back to making phone calls, in search of a good tailor.
posted by Anaka at
7:36 AM
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