The Error Here Was Believing Them When They Said There Was No Error Message

I’m tech support for my university, and as such, I’ve had to deal with some quite silly and stupid requests. We are a third-party company hired by the university, so I treat everyone from faculty to a student as a customer. I’m working my shift, and a customer comes walking up to the desk.

Customer: “Do you fix printers?”

Me: “Yes, what’s the problem?”

Customer: “It won’t print. I don’t know why.”

Me: “Does it give you an error message?”

Customer: “Nope, just won’t print.”

Me: “Can you bring it down?”

Customer: “Can you do it? It’s a bit heavy.”

All right, fine, whatever. We go up to her room and I grab the printer. It’s a huge Epson printer/scanner/copier combo, and this thing is HEAVY. I pick it up and, straining to keep my balance, waddle down four flights of stairs back to my service desk.

I set it down and ask her to give me her computer.

Customer: “Oh, I don’t have it. I’ll go back and get it.”

I’m sitting there plugging the thing in, and she comes back down with her laptop. She tries to print something, the printer gives off a red light, and sure enough, an error pops up on her screen.

I read it, look at her, read it again, look at her, and just wanna punch something.

It’s a paper jam.

She had me lug this thing down four flights of stairs so I could fix a paper jam. “Okay,” I think. “Maybe she just didn’t see the error message before.”

Me: “It’s a paper jam.”

Customer: “Yeah, that’s what the error has been saying. I don’t know what that means.”

Me: “…it means there’s paper… jamming your printer.”

Customer: “Well, how do we fix that?”

Me: “…remove the paper jam? 

I opened the panel and removed the paper jam in a second. I lugged the thing back up for her and returned to my service desk, dumber for the encounter.