Printers Can Smell Fear

I work at a law firm. I was at work doing worky things. I’d been over to see one of the users in a test group for the latest print code that was waiting to be rolled out to everyone.

It can cause such a stink when it goes wrong that you don’t just give it to everyone for fear that now everyone can’t print. You select a few. And yes, we cherry-pick. If you can form a sentence in a bug report and can remember way, way back into the past two minutes and recall what you did, you get put in the top group. I believe at the time there were five different ways to print. Changes had been made to some part of it and it was out with some test users.

I had just been to the desk of one of these users over some issue she couldn’t work out.

By the time I’d walked back to my desk, a colleague was already on the phone to [User].

Colleague: “Yeah, yeah, he’s just walked in. Hold on.” *To me* “It’s [User].”

Ah, Jesus. What now?

Me: “Hi, [User].”

User: “Hi, [My Name], I can’t print since you’ve been over. I’ve tried everything I can think of and nothing’s working. Whatever you did must have broken it.”

Me: “What do you mean, you can’t print? What way are you trying?”

User: “The new print button and the old one.”

Me: “On the toolbar?”

User: “Yeah”

Me: “Huh. It shouldn’t have affected the old one even if it was broken. Try File and Print, through the dialog.”

User: “Yeah, that’s not working, either.”

Me: “Okay, try the plain Print button.”

User: “Mmm, nope. Nothing.”

Me: “Okay, try Ctrl and P.”

User: “Didn’t work, either.”

Me: “This is weird. Are there any errors on the printer?”

User: “[Coworker]. [Coworker]! Are there any errors on the printer?” *Pauses* “It says load paper.”

Me: “Yeah, I’m going to go ahead and say that’s related. Put some paper in and I’ll wait to check that it’s okay.”

User: “Yeah, that’s worked now. Ooo. It’s printing a lot!”

Me: “Yeah, it’s gonna do that.”