C M Why?! K

I still vividly remember the moment I was presented with my very own printer fob, grey and curved like an ocean-smoothed pebble, clipped upon its silken ‘J2O’ emblazoned emerald lanyard. It signified my graduation from ‘office temp’ to ‘one of us’ in a few split seconds. How quickly ones attitude can change.
Within a few days of possessing this device, I had attempted swallowing it, flushing it down the toilet, stamping on it, placing it in a drawer full of magnets in an attempt to damage its no-doubt micro-chipped (and above all – evil) core, before resigning myself to the responsibilities that come with such a token.
My dad, who is self employed and does a lot of printing for work has been known to experience such frustration with the devices that he once tore the printer from the wall, calmly took it to the patio, before repeatedly stamping on it, followed by getting in the car and driving to Currys to buy a functioning replacement.
Anyone who has worked in an office will realise the sheer frustration caused by the cumbersome, paper-churning, ink-bleeding, money-gobbling machines we have come to know as “printers”.
Many a time I have gazed enviously as my colleague’s neat and unassuming deskjet, fondly named ‘Herman’, quietly hummed and comically wiggled from side to side as it printed its pages, one by one, as it had been instructed to do so. The universe’s balance was only momentarily restored one fateful day when Herman decided to have a giggle with us and started printed everything in some bizarre hybrid codex of Polish and Algebra which seemed decipherable only by an experienced and mathematical cryptologist.
A common qualm I find myself faced with upon my numerous daily trips to and from the printer is the device’s seeming unstoppable ability to come up with new and increasingly irritating technical barriers that prevent it from achieving its ultimate goal in life – quick and quality printouts. This daily ordeal begins with a distant and at first inoffensive beep, which over time grows shriller and once teamed with the patronising blink of the red warning light could induce a violent and unprovoked attack on any innocent passer by that happens to stand in the way of you and your 250 full-colour, double sided printout destiny.
Once you have acknowledged the infantile and attention-seeking machine’s problem, you face the second challenge – understanding how to fix it! I remember emailing the head of I.T. not long after I had started at the company to ask what to do. His response, to throw it out of the window, chain it to the nearest bus and walk the other way. Needless to say, he left the business shortly after this evidently deep-rooted vendetta was expressed.
But, being the inquisitive creature that I am I was determined to at least try to fix the wretched thing. Over time, I have learnt that when the smug, glowing LCD touch-screen of the beast kindly informs you, for the fifth time that day, that the paper has jammed, there is but one solution. That solution is simple and one only realises it after a matter of minutes spent huffing and puffing and sticking ones face in every orifice of the enigmatic contraption. That solution is to open and close absolutely every part of the machine, making sure that each part is slammed shut with authority, just so that the printer is 100% clear that you mean business and you aint messing around! Once this has been done (sometimes it is necessary to complete the ritual repeatedly) you may resume your normal life and return to your desk.
Next there’s the issue of refuelling the biggest diva in the office. Having lugged a heavy box of printer paper from the other side of the office (a return journey involves going through a doorway six times, four of which involve keying in a security code with your free quivering pinky finger), one faces the battle of deciphering which of the five possible drawers the bloody thing would like feeding! That is, if you can get in the box. Scissors are required to cut the plastic binding that seals the box and once you’re in the paper is packaged in, guess what? Yet more paper! Needless to say paper cuts are a commonplace injury I have sustained since my employment at the company. Perhaps if times get really tough I’ll consider calling Injury Lawyers4U to discuss my chances of a legal win in a case against the defendant, a Mr Canon XP290.
As if all of these obstacles weren’t enough, my perhaps least favourite aspect of the printer’s role in my daily life, is its habitual tendency of logging you out after one minute of inactivity. I despair!
The one, and only one saving grace the printer has, is its ability to staple documents that you are printing. You would not believe my joy at the discovery that a printer so inept in every other way could actually use a stapler with relative ease saving my poor, already shredded fingers the prolonged agony of loading and using a manual one!
The next time I have a 300 page document that needs printing urgently I’ll call Guttenberg and see how they’re getting along with the manual printed press back in the 1400s. It would cause me significantly less hassle to invent, manufacture and use a time-travelling machine to go back to the days of manually inputting every alphabetical letter before blotting the papyrus with ink, than to wait a minute longer for the modern-day equivalent to buck its ideas up. And while I’m at it, I might stop off in ancient Greece, as I swear to God, Microsoft’s calculator tool went to the same training camp as the printer!

Brains Behind the Operation

Wow, it's been a while. After ten months of absence from the blogging world I thought it was about time I bucked my ideas up. As a result of week-upon-week of returning home from a hard day's work to the reassuring routine of Facebook, the comfort of stretchy-waisted Pyjama bottoms and the sheer temptation of bed, I realised just how long it's been since I challenged myself. And I mean really, properly, thoroughly made the most of the mass of grey stuff within my petite noggin. And so last night as I dozed off into another eight hours of blissful escape, I made the executive decision to start making use of the gift that is my brain. As a starting point (baby steps, baby steps) I have asked for one-word inspirational topics via my Facebook page, the first one that was kindly donated was 'Printers'. So here goes!