deird_lj

Printers. I don't know whether to consider them the bane of my life, or a source of endless amusement.

I'm responsible for an excel spreadsheet (I'm always responsible for an excel spreadsheet, regardless of where I'm working), detailing various issues with our project. Yesterday, my boss asked me to give him three copies, in colour, before I left in the afternoon.

Pay attention, because this is important:
3 copies.
In colour.
Got that?

I fixed up the spreadsheet to look nice, and pressed print.
Ten minutes later, I went around to the printer (which is halfway across the office), and couldn't see my spreadsheet anywhere. And the list of printer-jobs was empty, so I assumed it must have been printed out and nicked by someone else (theft of random printing jobs happens quite regularly).
So I went back to my computer, and pressed print again.
No joy.

I decided that, for some reason, the jobs weren't getting through to that printer. Which happens - our main printer isn't terribly reliable. So I decided to use the smaller printer instead. It wouldn't be in colour, but at least it would be printed.
I went back to my computer, and accidentally pressed print before changing which printer I was using. Then I changed the printer, and printed out three copies of the spreadsheet for my boss, and one for me.

My boss was sympathetic to my printing woes, but insisted that he absolutely needed the copies in colour, as he would be giving them to Big Uber Boss, so could I please try again?
I said I'd wait half an hour, and then try the colour printer again.
Which I did. No luck - printer still wasn't working.

The woman who sits next to me then suggested that I should use the other colour printer. I didn't actually know we had another colour printer, but apparently there was another one. Same floor, other end of the office.
So I found out that printer's number, added it to my computer's list of printers, and tried printing.

That printer didn't work either.
I wondered if it was maybe a problem with my computer, before deciding to check the printer number I'd entered. Wrong one.
I entered the correct printer number, and pressed print again.

Fortunately, the second printer printed out all my spreadsheets. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten to change the setting back to "colour", so I got four copies in black and white.

I went back to my desk, fixed it to colour printing, and then walked back to the printer again.
And collected my four colour copies.
And then, on the way back to my desk, I walked past the original printer.
Which, right at that moment, started printing out my original copies. All sixteen of them.

By the end of the day, I had 36 copies of my spreadsheet, including four which were sent to a random printer on another floor that I still haven't been able to find.

Can't we all just use handwriting?