Do You Copy? No, She Doesn’t.

My office is small enough that we all share one large printer/copier that we lease from a supply company, with the exception of a couple of employees who have smaller printers in their offices. However, it’s a day when most of our staff is off, so no one with a personal printer is around.

I print something and walk up to the front of the office where the printer is located to get it. The receptionist stops me.

Receptionist: “The printer’s out of order, sorry. I can’t figure it out. I was just about to call the company to send out a tech.”

Me: “Well, that’s frustrating. I kind of need this document right now. Do you know what’s wrong with the printer?”

Receptionist: “I don’t know. It just keeps beeping, but I can’t figure it out. I need to make some copies, too.”

I don’t know a ton about printers, but I’m somewhat tech-savvy, and I know ours shows error codes/troubleshooting steps on the screen. I figure it’s worth taking a look just in case.

Me: “I’ll go take a peek. Maybe I can figure it out, and we won’t have to wait.”

Receptionist: “I guess you can try, but I don’t know what’s wrong.”

Me: “No promises, but I’ll see what I can do!”

I go over to the printer and see a red light blinking on the side of the machine. I look at the screen to try to find an error code and immediately see the message: “Tray 1 empty. Please load paper.”

I stand there for a moment in disbelief before I quickly refill the paper. I almost wonder if something more is wrong because it can’t be that simple… but then the printer starts up and begins printing out the waiting jobs and I realize it is.

The receptionist seems amazed when I tell her I’ve fixed it and we don’t need a tech. I’m not sure if she just wasn’t trained on the printer or forgot, but I show her where the message is on the screen and how to refill the paper if that happens again.

Receptionist: “Thanks for fixing the printer! I can’t believe you did that so fast!”

Me: “The paper was just out. Nothing to it!”

Receptionist: “And we didn’t even need to call a tech!”

I just grabbed my document off the printer and headed back to my desk, shaking my head.