paper thieves!

[knittinggoddess.livejournal.com]

A minor part of our job (tech support at a college campus, where I'm a senior) is to make sure the dorm printers have paper. One hall is having a problem with paper mysteriously disappearing, and the dorm mom has taken to buying paper because she did not know that she could just call us for more. Seriously: I put a new ream next to a full printer on Thursday, and ALL of it was gone by Monday. The dorm holds maybe 80 students and there were no paper deadlines to my knowledge.

One of my coworkers suggested taping a note to the inside of the paper tray (just inside the lip, where it hopefully wouldn't interact with any machinery) that just said HONOR PRINCIPLE. (Our college is big on the honor principle, although obviously its efficacy varies.) Or maybe STOP STEALING PAPER YOU FUCK.

Short of padlocking the tray or making the poor dorm mom hold onto the extra reams, any ideas?

Also, on my last printer walk, I found half a ream of inkjet paper sitting next to the laser printer. I flipped out and gave a short lecture to the kids in the social room, but I doubt they were responsible. AUGH. Maybe we need signs that warn of how the paper might MELT in the super hot laser printer and gum everything up.

Guys, call us if you're out. And look, there is a REAM OF PAPER RIGHT THERE. USE IT. But don't take it all to your room and, I don't know, use it as rolling paper.

Comments

[nem0.livejournal.com]

Our dorm printer used to have a sign that said the first 20 printouts were free, but anything after that was 10 cents a page. And if we ran out of paper, well, tough luck. There are computer labs in the three other dorms on this side of campus, or in the three on the other side, or in the English building, either of the libraries... what do you mean you can't print? Get off your lazy butt, put on some shoes, and go print it elsewhere. Unless it's negative-twenty degrees outside, I have no pity for you.

At one point during summer conference season (the college hosts conferences in the dorms to make up summer upkeep costs), we had a group of teachers who were printing all of their class materials on our printers. After we put the kibosh on that, due to running of paper and toner every few days, they would try to sneak over the desk and grab the paper off the printer tray before the desk clerk could stop them. *holds head in hands* TEACHERS. I expected more from them.

The final solution was to remove the paper from the printer and have them come to the desk, approve their print job, and pay for it before printing. It's hard-assed, but it works.

[knittinggoddess.livejournal.com]

Wow, my boss makes us feel guilty for not keeping the printers 100% stocked. All these other schools are much more hard-assed and I feel better now.