techrecovery | First rant...

I work in-house tech support, commonly known as "babysitting." This conversation happened today.

M: me
CI: Clueless Individual
WCI: Wife of Clueless Individual

Some background: CI has an all-in-one printer/scanner/copier[1]. He uses this every day. It's one of the few things that he can do by rote, mostly because the step-by-step instructions are on a sticky note on his monitor. Next to the step-by-step instructions for how to open Microsoft Word. Also cut and paste.[2]

I am called into the office of the CI and WCI.

WCI was holding a ream of documents.

WCI:

jazzmasterson, can you bring these forms to Sir Speedy?
M: For what?
CI: [foobar] inc. wants us to email these to them as... *lookatsticky* pee dee eff.
M: Why not scan them here? *pointatscannerprinter*
CI: [blanklook]
M: The scanner-printer. You can scan them to PDF.
CI: It scans forms, too?

[Much argument, which I lose. Don't ask. The PHB cannot be argued with.]

M: Ok, I have all the stuff in PDF.
WCI: Great! Now we need you to turn them into forms. In Microsoft Word.

I wanna cry.

[1] we bought this out of necessity, a year or so back, because CI has a tendancy to print to the network laser printer, walk over to it, grab everything sitting in the output tray, and then walk back to his desk, where the rest of the company's printouts would die a painful death of being crushed under his 25-page printouts of Bob Dylan lyrics. Now he prints to his own printer and walks over to the network printer, grabs everything on the tray, walks back to his desk with it, and looks confused. I am considering wiring the laser printer to deliver electrical shocks.

[2] This is true. Exact copy/paste instructions: