Printers

You know that scene in Office Space? Yes, you do. Those guys are living the dream. Printers are evil. Technology has come so far for computers, phones, tvs, etc., yet printers are stuck in 1995. Printers are definitely the problem child of the communication family.

Luckily, there's usually one printer at work that functions as it should, yet due to the incredibly low standard of printer reliability, functioning as it should means it is the best thing you've ever had the pleasure of working with. You've learned how to delicately refill the paper tray without upsetting the balance of good and evil in the printer. With every successful print job, you love the printer more and more. UNTIL the toner runs out. Panic sets in and no one knows what to do because somehow there is never toner in the building and when there is, the printer rejects it like a transplanted organ. You consider sending your print job to another printer, but it feels unsafe. You think about what kind of a world we live in where the printer you know and love cannot be trusted and breaks your heart. You fear that another printer won't work and then you'll have two documents floating in the air, waiting to be printed (I guess it doesn't really work like that). Once fixed, you run around to the printers gathering up the shards of your broken trust in printers. You feel guilty for having wasted so much paper. And then you blame the printer. How dare it kill the rain forest and spew out forgotten or long-since printed (elsewhere) documents. Evil.

You just about never know when the printer is functioning again unless you sit right near it. This is dangerous. The printer will choose one of two times to stop working: when you have an important doc that must be printed immediately OR you printed something personal that you want to go unnoticed. You fear that your personal email, receipts, directions to a friend's house, or LOLcat that would look great in your cube will be picked up by someone else, like your boss, and you will be found out for using the printer for your personal things. In reality, this wouldn't be a big deal. But you can never trust printers and what spells they may cast.

Some companies have a privacy page printed over the document with your name on it so that you know whose doc it is and the first page is covered. This is wonderful UNLESS your printer prints that page first, in which case the last page of your document is exposed to judgmental eyes. (Yet again, a large exaggeration. Blame the printers.)

Go forth and print.