Printer Hell�

2006-06-19

I�m living in printer hell lately. The printer that we use most totally died. It was so old that the manufacturer no longer makes parts for it. The IT department gave us a weird-ass loaner that you can only print using manual feed. It won�t take a stack of paper, you have to feed it, one sheet at a time, waiting between each sheet until it says it�s ready.

I�m connected to two other printers, one ancient and the other cheap. I had to print some stuff in color for a special job and that printer is at the other end of the office. And also will only take one sheet at a time when printing on manual feed. I got my exercise that day. Print a page, walk down the hall, put a sheet of paper in the machine. Walk back, print a page, walk down the hall, put a sheet of paper in the machine. Repeat 40 times.

The other printer, the cheap one, will suck up five or six sheets at a time when printing manual feed, so I have to stand there and feed the thing one sheet of paper at a time. I can�t just put the paper in the regular tray because several people use the printer. So whenever I have to print out awards, I have to stand there and feed the paper in.

My boss found a local student that got a 10 year, all expenses scholarship from the Gates Foundation and the Mayor thanked her for pointing it out to him. Since then she�s been scouring the papers looking for people to award stuff to. She knows that I can churn the proclamations out pretty quickly using a mail merge, so she�s come up with awards for every high school student in the city. Competence can be a curse. Between that and the Mayor�s compliment, a monster has been created.

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