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On Friday I used an awesome printer we have in the lab to print out something or other. It's fast and prints on both sides of the page, and puts 2 or 4 pages on one page if you want. I go out of my way sometimes to use this printer to get stuff done quickly.
On Saturday, our IT guy emails everyone and says "we're upgrading the network so some things may be down briefly, everything will be fine in a few hours".
On Monday, I go to print a simple list of numbers on the good printer, which happens to be a network printer, not physically wired to any computer. It seems to not print. I try again. I realize it was just being slow, and both sheets pop out. It wasn't printing slowly, it was receiving data slowly. 30 seconds from time to hitting print to the page popping out. Right after hitting print, a light starts blinking on the printer as if to say "I'm getting something here, hold on a sec"
So I email my IT guy, and copy my boss since this is a productivity issue. Lots of people use this printer multiple times a day. I just do a reply to the Saturday email and say "do you think this has somehting to do with the upgrades? Could you look into this please?"
IT guy answers "Sorry, Brian, but no that is not the problem. We upgraded some wires and everything we did was superawesome blahblah. Try deleting your temporary files or restarting the PC. Oh and it's month end, so the network is really busy. I'd look into it, but I'm really busy what with having done those network upgrades on the weekend."
Really? The computer doesn't connect to the internet, it's just on the LAN, and the applications used here are very limited because it's attached to a machine that it runs, and that's its main purpose. How many temporary files did it accumulate over the weekend when no one was here? Whatever. I'd already restarted, but I cleared the temp files just so I could say I did it. I print another page of simple text, and it takes 30 seconds. I grumble to my boss later, but don't have time to pursue it.
Fast forward to today. I'm trying to send an international shipment, and that's a really BFD at my company because some poor schmuck F'd up a couple of years ago and sold some restricted product to Iran via China and we had to pay fines and get audited. So now it's a big long process to Fed Ex a sample of stuff to Mexico if you don't want your ass fired. I have forgotten about the slowness of my favourite printer by this time because I was away for some of this week. I have to print an 8 page MSDS to go with my sample. I don't want to use 8 sheets of paper, so I go to my fast printer that will cram it onto 2 sheets. I find the MSDS, and hit print - hmmmm no printer humming.
OH SHIT I forgot this printer is not really affected by network upgrades but is slow now. I watch the light blinking as I think to myself "hm this printer worked for 2-3 years with no more than a 2-second delay between hitting print and seeing paper popping out of it. 2-3 years up until last Friday. Then on Monday it can't print a tic-tac-toe board in under 30 seconds. But it's month end. Funny how the other three netweork printers I use are unaffected by the uncanny barrage of data racing across the intranetical pathways."
After 5 minutes I gave up. It was quarter to 5 and I needed this package out (and Mack was really excited about telling me how he found info that a US factory worker makes as much as 18 Chinese factory workers and he really didn't want to stop talking about it no matter how much shit I had all over my desk and how frantic I appeared). I run around the plant getting this package ready to go, and I have to run back to the lab to weigh it. Shawn says "hey Brian did you print an MSDS?" And I was like "yeah that shit was taking 5-10 minutes." I go to get it off the printer, and I see it's only half done after 20 minutes of churning. I rant a little more to Shawn, but I can tell he doesn't quite give as much of a shit aboout it as I do. That's fine, I'm sure I've seemed that way to his plight before. We shared a small office for 2 years, and that somehow bonds you to someone for life.
IT man, I realize your network upgrades were super awesome and nothing you do ever causes anything to go wrong, but could you please fix this up so I and my coworkers don't go Office Space all over my lovely printer?
Facebook is no good for this sort of thing 
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White and feathery, yet crude and noisy, the chicken is the backbone of our farming community.
