Ow. The Pain.

[bitchtude.livejournal.com]

I need a stupid shield or something. This call happens about 7:30 this evening. I am at home. MgrX is at a location 30 minutes south of me.

MgrX: OMGZ!!11! Did you get my message or the message from $CoWorker?? I can't print anything on the printer. It comes out all black!

Me: Yes, yes I did get the message. You need a new printer. I'll be down tomorrow afternoon some time with the replacement. $Boss is going to get it in the morning because I do not have company credit card.

MgrX: But I can't print out my closing paperwork!!

Me: I know, but I'm pretty sure it can all be reprinted tomorrow for you. I don't have a printer for you and have no way to get one tonight. I have to be at $Location1 at 8am tomorrow and $Location2 when I am done there. After that I will drive back up, get the printer that $Boss will purchase in the morning and then come back down see you.

MgrX: But how am I going to print out my paperwork??!?11?

Me: Appropriate people know that you do not have a printer and that you will not be able to print. Proceed with closing as normal minus printing. We will work on printing everything tomorrow.

MgrX: But... but... what about my reports? Should I write everything down?

Me: If you wish, go right ahead.

MgrX: It'd really be a lot easier if I could just print everything.

Me: *sigh* Yes, I know. See you tomorrow.


So I am apparently not only supposed to be able to pull company credit cards out of my ass but printers as well because people just don't understand "I do not have a printer for you". Oh and for reference, Loc1 is 1/2 hour - 45 mins south from where MgrX is, Loc2 is 15-20 min further south from Loc1. The place where the printer will be is 20 minutes NORTH of MgrX. It's going to be fun driving day in FL summer rain.

Comments

[ximinez]

You're getting rain?!?!? *envy*

[bitchtude.livejournal.com]

Yep. It's that time of year. And it's not that I mind rain. I just don't want it coming down all at once.

[ximinez]

Send some of it up here to Gainesville. Shouldn't be hard. It's not very far, right? ;)

[bitchtude.livejournal.com]

Maybe if we get everyone down here to blow really hard, we can get some of it up to you, LOL! Of course the weather folks were pretty off base today with their "80% chance of severe thunderstorms". I hardly saw a sprinkle all day.

[ximinez]

LOL. You must've done something, because we actually got a little bit!

[mariasama16.livejournal.com]

Ahh, it must be sun shower season again. Been a few years since I've dealt with them. Dare I ask what cities are involved? (I grew up in Lake Mary/Sanford). :P

[bitchtude.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they're loads of fun, especially driving on the interstate. Mostly it's Bradenton and Sarasota (down to the southern part of the county).

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

"It is not possible to meet that time constraint because I'm not allowed to break the laws of physics."

It's amazing what people convince themselves other people can do, especially when they have no idea what the limitations on the process might be that apply to *everyone*, and it's even more amazing when they believe that panicking and throwing tantrums will change the fact that what they want cannot be done in this universe ..

[bitchtude.livejournal.com]

Yep, because they each think that they are "special".

[bitchtude.livejournal.com]

Or you show up at their location...

... and they're not there.

[bitchtude.livejournal.com]

And it was not listed as part of my job description.

[medusa-nw.livejournal.com]

He's never heard of saving it to disk and printing it off somewhere else? Wow...

[bitchtude.livejournal.com]

Well this is a very small store and they only have 1 printer so that's not an option. Though even if it was, she still wouldn't have thought of it.

[ptomblin-lj.livejournal.com]

Don't they have a Kinkos or Internet Cafe around there?

[goose-entity.livejournal.com]

well, if it's POS (interpret however you wish) software it may have no choice other than "local printer". And most people who deal with POS (...) really don't have the smarts to "print to file" then get that dealt with by someone at a bureau.

One could, however, install CutePDF and print the PDF the next day. Even mouth-breathers eventually get the idea of PDF.

[ptomblin-lj.livejournal.com]

I keep forgetting what a POS Microsoft Windows is. I'm spoiled by the Mac which has "Print to PDF" built into the operating system. Even most Linux distros install the capability by default.

[goose-entity.livejournal.com]

Ubuntu has the PDF print functionality built in. I get irritated by my work PC which is XP - I keep having to *install* proper functionality.

+1

[ace-brickman.livejournal.com]

Adobe? We don't need no stinking Adobe!

Oh, and OOo PDF creation out of the "box" kinda rocks too

[bitchtude.livejournal.com]

Oh gods no... please don't add any more steps into the process. This would only serve to completely confuse most of these people.

[goose-entity.livejournal.com]

then they can FTP them to your local web server and remote in to there to print them at your location for mailing back to them, so they then hit print 27 times because they didn't see anything coming out of their local printer....

No, not talking from bitter, bitter, bitter experience, why do you ask?

[bitchtude.livejournal.com]

Nope. And you must realize these people are not problem solvers. They think in a straight line and if there's a block/break in that line, they just stop. Most of them can barely use the POS and computers to do the basics of their job.

Which means job security, but hellishly stupid and annoying phone calls, for me, LOL!

[pixelchik.livejournal.com]

I wonder if they wrote it all out.. :) That would be pretty damn amusing.