Details, Details

Dear copy machine people:

You need to make your machine more user friendly. I know you like to think your machine is perfect, but copy machines sometimes jam. This is inevitable. At first, your machine seems like it is putting in a good-faith effort to direct the user to the area of the jam and to correct it, but once you open up the front of the machine, any clarity is utterly lost. There are knobs and levers and pieces that have to be removed entirely. Things are labelled, but if you are going to call one part 4a and one part 4b, don't tell me there is a jam in "area 4" - especially when the aforementioned 4a and 4b are not remotely near each other.

Oh, and did I mention: once the jam is cleared, 20 minutes later, your machine needs to acknowledge that this has, in fact, occurred, and start to work again.

I know you have technicians who need to get paid, and so they need to have machines to service, but I am also getting paid to do a job, and it is very hard to give a test to my students when the second copy of it is stuck inside a machine and I am 20 minutes late to class after having gotten it unstuck, and had to go find a different copy machine to finish making my copies - even though there were no move visible jams!

I admit defeat. I fought your machine and I lost.
Your machine made me cry.
And then I got a migraine.

Thanks a lot.

- me

So I have become rather intimate with the office photocopier, having spent literally hours over the past few days photocopying summer program medical forms, one page at a time. I have gradually learned all sorts of interesting tricks, from how to use the automatic feeder to my best advantage to how to make the copier do two-sided to two-sided or punch holes.

Today, I learned a bit of photocopier-ese. Here, with help from the "photocopy man" who came to do some repairs, is a rough English translation:

Photocopier: "click-click, click-click, click-click"
Rough translation: "You are making a lot of copies. That means I need to add more toner. Don't worry - this noise means I am doing what I need to in order to give you quality copies."

Photocopier: "Grind, grind, grind." (from where the paper comes out)
Rough translation: "Stop putting heavy things like books and file folders full of medical forms on top of the paper sorter (or whatever the place where the papers come out of is called)!"

Reply from those of us in the office: "But we have nowhere else to put it!"

Problem: There is no other good surface in the photocopy room for putting stuff down when making lots of copies
My suggested solution: Put a table in there
Problems with my solution:
- a) there is no room for a table
- b) even if there were room, we have no table to put in there, nor are we likely to get one any time soon - that is, ever
Solution to the first problem with the solution: We need something the size of a tray table - that, we should have room for
Solution to the second problem with the solution: If we don't have a table, why not make one - here is a garbage can that has flat sides, and has an open top about the size of a try table, if a bit narrower - and over there, I see a paper cutter - which is the perfect top for our trashcan table.

It worked beautifully. I am pleased to report that the paper cutter's surface was the perfect size not only to cover the garbage can - and even leave a little space at the side for when I needed to throw things away - but also to hold an open file folder.

Of course, then there is the problem with the solution to the problem with the solition to the problem....

Problem: The maintenance guy might think i am trying to throw away the paper cutter
Solution: Take the paper cutter off the top of the garbage can at the end of the day
Problem: I didn't

So we will see what happens tomorrow. Meanwhile, if anyone wants to suggest a solution to the problem I have with my solution to the problem with the solution to the problem...

Overall, however, I have a feeling the trash guys are intelligent people, so i am expecting the paper cutter to still be where I left it when I return tomorrow - especially considering that I was probably at work later than most of the maintenance guys anyway...

And if this is what happens to me after two hours of copying today (which followed at least three hours on Friday), just imagine how my blog entries will look a few days from now... I have at least four more hours to go...