Kinko's

Elite '08

146

374

Amy P.

Long Beach, CA

Seriously, is it a prerequisite to be an asshole to work at Kinko's? Is there a box to check on their employment application to distinguish your asshole-ness so that you'll be hired for a job? You work at a Kinko's, YOUR JOB IS NOT THAT IMPORTANT that you can't help me!

The parking and their location on a tiny corner also sucks.

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31

51

Hazel Q.

Long Beach, CA

Right up there with the post office and hospitals on the list of places I hate to go is Kinko's.

I really could probably rant for hours about how much I hate Kinko's, but for now, I'll go bulletpoint style.

-Consistently has the absolute worst customer service around.  They know little to nothing about any of the equipment.  As Holly T. said...they'll refer you to another customer to answer your questions.   If they happen to know anything about anything, they'll be sure to let you know how annoyed they are that you asked them a question.

-Far too expensive.  Somehow Kinko's became the main name in the copy/print shop world.  People just go there by default, but they are by no means the best value.  They'll often take twice as long and charge twice as much as Staples of Copyco.

-As mentioned before this location is pretty much the worst location ever.   There are about 6 parking spots and they are all impossible to get into.

-The one redeeming value about Kinko's in general is the 24 hours aspect, which this location doesn't even have.

Thumbs Up:
-????
-Some locations will fulfill all of your 3AM printing need.s

Thumbs Down:
-See above.

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43

45

David P.

Cerritos, CA

The problem with corporate efficiency is that quality is often sacrificed for speed. I blame Henry Ford. A guy with two brain cells and a hammer can be strapped to an assembly line, taught to do one unthinking task, and a hundred guys later, you've got a car that lasts forever. Ford made it look easy, but it's exactly not -- it looks easy because the complexity of the process was so meticulously deconstructed that the guy with the hammer had no questions to answer and no decisions to make. That sort of work flow mechanism works great if the brain behind it is a genius and if the end product is a repeatable, tangible, non-unique product. It's less great when the brain behind it is some corporate drone who's as unthinking as the two-brain-cells-and-a-hammer guy, trying to apply a square solution to a round problem. It's actually much worse than that, because the corporate drone who institutes a poor process is going to turn out poor products regardless of how efficient the process is. The guy with the hammer can only ruin one thing at a time, the guy who institutes a poor process can ruin everything, all the time.

That brings me (finally, mercifully) to Kinko's. Having worked for several years at this very location in college, I am deeply disappointed at the way things have changed. Back in the day, this particular store used to be independently operated, and they allowed the employees an unusual amount of freedom. Thus, we answered questions, problem-solved, and were allowed to be creative (see Holly T.'s review for an example of how ex-employees could be helpful). We were encouraged to learn and seek training that was often outside the bounds of company requirements, and that extra knowledge was a big reason why the store was extremely profitable.

Nowadays, the store exists, as they all do, under the umbrella of a corporation that demands efficiency and profitability over quality and service. Everything is built on templates -- makes projects go quicker, makes it easier to train or replace people, and lowers costs. HOWEVER, if you've got a project that doesn't fit a template, you're in the wrong place. The employees are trained by templates, so if your problem requires some independent thinking, you're in the wrong place. Finally, if a computer doesn't work for some reason, or if there's a computer-related issue, don't even THINK about asking for help. Not only won't the Kinkoids not be able to help you, they'll find a way to get in your way while being pissy and condescending at the same time.

So why two stars? Because it's nice to have copy places handy, and if you know what you want and can get in and out without asking for help, you won't care how poor the service is. On the other hand, f/k that. One star. Suck it.

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Elite '08

53

376

Amy K.

Long Beach, CA

The store itself is fine, and the employees have been helpful when I've been there.  However, the location is TERRIBLE, and you can kind of only access it if you're going southeast on PCH, since you can't turn left into the lot from 7th or PCH.  The lot itself is tiny and oddly shaped, so that I'm always worried about backing into someone or being backed into.  It's best to park in the Denny's lot behind Kinko's, even though signs say you can't.  Pretty much the location/parking issue is all that's keeping me from giving this place more stars, but I hate going because it's such a pain.

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Elite '08

346

605

Holly T.

Long Beach, CA

When this place was open 24 hours, it saved me a bunch of times from late night disasters of the my printer ran out of ink variety. Now you have to go to the one on Atherton & Palo Verde for a 24 hour Kinko's, but this one still has a special place in my heart thanks to the following story. I was there in the middle of the night using their computers to do a newsletter for work, and I was having some kind of problem. I asked the employees for assistance, and they're like, uh, I don't know, but you should ask that guy over there, he knows more about computers than we do. You mean that customer? Yeah, he's here all the time. OK... So I went and talked to the guy and we tried to troubleshoot together for an hour or so until finally I came up a solution to my problem. He was really cool, though, to spend his time trying to help me when it wasn't even his job. So the next day was a T. family gathering, and I told Erika and David how this long haired guy had helped me at Kinko's in the middle of the night, and they're like, was his name Lyno? And I said, yeah... and it turned out they were all friends and had known him forever. Just one of those "Long Beach is a small town of half a million people" stories. Anyway, other than that, this is your usual Kinko's. I used them all the time for drop off copy jobs for work and never had a problem. This location, though, is located in a really awkward kind of triangle by 7th and PCH, and parking is a pain.

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