I hate when school pictures are taken, then a big packet of prints are sent home with the kid.
Yes I think my kid is adorable (even though this photo is totally goofy. Totally.) Yes I'd love to have a BIG one and a billion LITTLE ones and some in between ones, and keychain ones and ones that look like a credit card, etc. etc. BUT. I'm just not going to pay $50 for the whole packet they sent home. I mean, seriously?
I usually buy one sheet. $13 is already stretching it for me for one of these photos.
But anyway, what I really hate is sending the rest of the prints back. I hate the thought of my little boy's face floating around in the ether. And seriously, if they're already printed out--if they'll risk just having to throw them away are they really worth $50? NO!!
So I hate that. I wish they'd just let me order and print to order. They make me feel guilty for sending back photos of my little gapped tooth smiling boy.
Dumb old lifetouch.
8 comments:
That is a horrible, wasteful system. They should email you a link. But, I bet they sell way more this way.
oh.yes.yes.yes!!!!! i totally got bugged when i got that whole packet of adam! UGH!!! let's all write a "stop being so lame and wasteful and stupid and pushy" email to them! i'll do it if you do it. let's start a movement. grrrrrrrrrr!!!!
Oh argh, I totally agree. They count on you hating the thought of your little darling in the garbage can, and buying pictures to save him from that fate. But I never do. I don't even usually buy one sheet, actually, since I always like the pictures I take better. :)
I remember telling my mom (as she inevitably picked the skimpy "D" package instead of the million-print "A", which _Rachael's_ mom always got) that she must not love me as much as the A-package moms. (I was joking.) Now I tell Abey, "I can just tell this school picture wasn't taken with as much _love_ as your other pictures." :)
One time one of my mom's neighbors found a bunch of pictures of my brother in a garbage can at the mall. They'd printed them out at Kiddie Kandids to try to entice my mom into getting them (but she's un-enticeable; she never got more than the free 8x10 on our birthday. NEVER.) and then thrown them out, apparently. (Hello! Privacy issues! Not a big deal in those days, I guess.) The neighbor fished them out and brought them home to my mom. So she didn't have to pay, AND she resisted their stupid high-pressure tactics, AND her little darling didn't languish in the garbage can. That story had a happy ending. :)
Seriously, I'm glad you all feel the same. And the most frustrating thing is that I know they're playing on my motherly feelings--the guilt over throwing my boy away is exactly what they want. Big jerks.
I love your story of the found photos Marilyn! That's super. And I wish I could do that with these (not that I even really want them because I take photos I like more of him EVERY DAY.) But I do hate to think of them off somewhere being thrown away or whatever. What a STUPID system.
Gin, I feel the same way. It's a stupid guilt-ridden wasteful system.
My mom had THE WORST pictures taken when she was in grade school. They were really bad. So her sweet mother decided they really didn't need to buy them, but when she told my mom she FELL APART. "You don't love me? You don't want my picture? I have to take them back to school and everyone will know you don't love me?" So, grandma bought the whole package. We laugh really hard about it now.
I haven't read the others yet because we're in the middle of a Miss Marple. But they do this, of course, in the same way that the people who sell magazines tell you all about their sad lives and the amazing chance they have to WIN A TRIP somewhere - but only if YOU buy magazines from them. If you make the target feel emotionally responsible, you get the bucks. It's asinine, but effective, and maybe that's the way we ought to sell studio time - somehow. Like recording somebody just singing in the shower (surreptitiously) and then offering them the chance to save their wonderful song from an ignominious fate -
Lifetouch is a chain....so we too deal with this very thing. And I hate it too. Very much.
You are very right and I hated feeling guilty about it as a parent too.
When I was in 7th grade I had the ugliest school pictures ever and i was so embarrassed by them that I told my mom not to buy any of them. Well guess what? She didn't and I couldn't believe it. Wasn't she supposed to love me no matter how ugly? I never forgot that and I really wish I had those pictures just because they would be so funny now. So I guess the moral to that story is to at least buy one so your kid knows you love them no matter what. Then you can all have a good laugh at his or her expense.
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