Printers Are Tricky, But This One’s On You

I work as an IT-support team lead. We have a typical office building of a few floors. Each floor has its own printer. On one hectic day, I’m trying to do inventory on the IT department’s floor. I’m in the middle of scrounging for all sorts of technical assets that my barcode reader can get its filthy red line onto when, suddenly, I hear the audible sound of high heels clacking on the floor, and by the sounds of them, lost.

The person opens a random door — which happens to belong to the brand-new director of the infrastructure bureau — and exclaims that their floor printer is not working.  The director confused, sends the person down the hall, saying, “Maybe you’ll have more luck there.”

They turn the corner and look at me, still lost.

Me: “What’s wrong with the printer? Did it show any error codes or anything along those lines?”

Employee: “I don’t know. It hasn’t worked for the past four years!”

Now, I’m confused. There aren’t any broken printers on that person’s floor — not even in the whole building.

Me: “Can you show me your process for printing a file?”

We go to their office, they log in, and we are immediately faced with an overcrowded desktop. Alas, that is not the issue at hand. They open up MS Word, write in “test”, save it, and then close the document. They start getting up from their chair and try to take me to the printer.

Me: “All right, now we just need to print it.”

They look at me, even more confused.

Employee: “I just did? The file should be printing right now if the printer worked!”

In short, I sat them down, introduced to them the printing function, and left, wondering how it was possible that they hadn’t needed to print before for four years, only to conclude that the printer that was whirring daily with documents must be broken.