A tale of two copiers
It's the usual comedy of errors around the library these days. The fall semester began on Tuesday. What a difference a week makes. I had honestly forgotten how many students we have, since very few of them are around during the summer session. Suddenly they're everywhere, and because of the new, shorter academic class schedule, they're around a lot more often as well.
The library printer/copier apparently also wasn't prepared for the onslaught, because it staged a revolt bright and early Tuesday morning, when all of the procrastinators were trying to print their class schedules and figure out where they were supposed to be five minutes later. Dr. Jekyll the copier chugged valiantly away, spitting out stacks of stapled and collated syllabi for the faculty members who were pulling together their materials for their classes five minutes later. Mr. Hyde the printer hung up his "out of paper" sign and went back to bed. How the same machine can both detect and fail to recognize the same reams of paper is beyond me, but so far they're both sticking to their stories.
Printer Hyde's schizophrenia was made even more annoying by the fact that there is a brand-new, perfectly functioning, better-than-the-original, color printer copier not 5 feet away from it. In fact, there has been for about 4 weeks now, since its arrival as a "demo" copier. During the course of the free trial, however, we discovered that the new copier did not play well with Hyde (who had to remain on duty because Prince Charming wasn't yet networked as a printer). Somewhat spectacularly, using them simultaneously blew all of the fuses in the library. After the second power outage, I pulled the plug. And Charming's been sitting in the corner ever since, waiting on contracts to be signed, then electrical work to be done, then special cords to be shipped from the manufacturer.
Today all of the pieces seemed to be in place. The new outlet was installed, the cords arrived, a grouchy but lovable Konica technician showed up to bring him to life. But first, due to some scheduling anarchy that resulted in half the library being closed ten hours a week and used as a classroom, Charming had to relocate from the back room to the front, a process that involved shoving him through a standard-sized door. And let me tell you, he's no lightweight. I made the mistake of attempting to follow the technician and a student worker as they shoehorned him through, and I was trapped in the back room for about 15 minutes while they wrenched him free. From there it was a quick trip to his rightful place of honor for reanimation--until they discovered that the newly installed outlet didn't, in fact, have any power.
So once again, I'm waiting for reinforcements. In the meantime, Jekyll and Hyde alternate between productivity and glowering behind me, and Prince Charming sits inert before my eyes. Another fairy tale day in the life of the librarian.
(This got a little out of hand. I didn't intend to write a whole post anthropomorphizing my office technology, but I really liked the title. Thank you for bearing with me.)
The library printer/copier apparently also wasn't prepared for the onslaught, because it staged a revolt bright and early Tuesday morning, when all of the procrastinators were trying to print their class schedules and figure out where they were supposed to be five minutes later. Dr. Jekyll the copier chugged valiantly away, spitting out stacks of stapled and collated syllabi for the faculty members who were pulling together their materials for their classes five minutes later. Mr. Hyde the printer hung up his "out of paper" sign and went back to bed. How the same machine can both detect and fail to recognize the same reams of paper is beyond me, but so far they're both sticking to their stories.
Printer Hyde's schizophrenia was made even more annoying by the fact that there is a brand-new, perfectly functioning, better-than-the-original, color printer copier not 5 feet away from it. In fact, there has been for about 4 weeks now, since its arrival as a "demo" copier. During the course of the free trial, however, we discovered that the new copier did not play well with Hyde (who had to remain on duty because Prince Charming wasn't yet networked as a printer). Somewhat spectacularly, using them simultaneously blew all of the fuses in the library. After the second power outage, I pulled the plug. And Charming's been sitting in the corner ever since, waiting on contracts to be signed, then electrical work to be done, then special cords to be shipped from the manufacturer.
Today all of the pieces seemed to be in place. The new outlet was installed, the cords arrived, a grouchy but lovable Konica technician showed up to bring him to life. But first, due to some scheduling anarchy that resulted in half the library being closed ten hours a week and used as a classroom, Charming had to relocate from the back room to the front, a process that involved shoving him through a standard-sized door. And let me tell you, he's no lightweight. I made the mistake of attempting to follow the technician and a student worker as they shoehorned him through, and I was trapped in the back room for about 15 minutes while they wrenched him free. From there it was a quick trip to his rightful place of honor for reanimation--until they discovered that the newly installed outlet didn't, in fact, have any power.
So once again, I'm waiting for reinforcements. In the meantime, Jekyll and Hyde alternate between productivity and glowering behind me, and Prince Charming sits inert before my eyes. Another fairy tale day in the life of the librarian.
(This got a little out of hand. I didn't intend to write a whole post anthropomorphizing my office technology, but I really liked the title. Thank you for bearing with me.)
posted by Madame Defarge at 4:50 PM
1 Comments:
You're freaking hilarious, as usual. Loved the title. Next time can you write one on The Fax of Life? David Copierfield? Anne of Green Staples? Toner is the Night? Lord of the Files? Lord of the Inks? Stop me...
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