Complete pendemonium!

It's amazing how something so small can create some large problems.
We were doing some cleaning the other day and came across a pen that was leaking slightly. Luckily, the pen was in a coffee mug, so it didn’t ruin anything major. However, it got me to thinking about all of the things that could possibly go wrong with something as minor as a pen.
Pens are the most commonly purchased promotional product, easily outdistancing calendars and drinkwear. So obviously, there are a lot of pens being brought and handed out to customers and potential customers. And with the majority of pens costing less than $1, it’s a bargain. Amazingly enough, despite their relative low cost, many people want to pay even less.
(Time to cue up Rich's Mantra: "Cheap is not always good. Good is not always cheap." Repeat until you're convinced).
Anyway, getting back to our "bargain" pens. If something goes wrong with one of these pens, just how much of a bargain is it? And when we started thinking about everything that could possibly go wrong, we found 14 potential problems. From a pen! Yikes!
1. Information on the imprint is wrong
2. Imprint color is wrong
3. Imprint is bad/comes off easily
4. Pen barrel color is wrong
5. Pen trim color is wrong
6. Ink color is wrong
7. Plunger mechanism is broken
8. Pen doesn’t write
9. Ink skips
10. Not enough ink
11. Ink leaks from pen
12. Pen cap is missing
13. Pen is broken
14. Pocket clip breaks off easily

OK...now we're talking 14 potential problems with something that usually costs about 50 cents or so.

Ah, but wait. I can hear the skeptics among you saying "So what? It's just a pen. If something goes wrong, I'll just throw it out and use another."

Good argument. Except that the pen then becomes A WASTE OF MONEY. No matter if it cost 30 cents, 50 cents, 75 cents or $1, that company has just wasted some amount of money. And if that's the way they want to spend their advertising dollars, that's just a shame.

And let's not forget what happens if that leaking pen happens to leak in a pants pocket, a shirt pocket, a purse or on some very important papers. The cost of that leak is now MUCH MORE than the price of that pen.

Which is why you need to be extremely careful when buying pens. Ask for recommendations. Ask for samples. Ask for whatever else you need to make sure that you don't fall victim to one of the 14 problems listed above. Or even one of them.