This printer; this godforsaken piece of junk. It is beeping. It is a steady, long, whiny, high-pitched beep. It throws a tantrum like this regularly, and the only thing that will fix it is to take the paper out and reload it. What is so bad about that, you ask?
The fact that it is the kind of printer where the paper has perforated edges. That you have to line up perfectly, and have extremely developed fine motor skills to guide it, peg by peg, hole by hole, around the cylinder until it eventually "takes" and you can put the bar down to hold the paper in place and use the scroll wheel to feed it through the rest of the way.
Folks, what I just described has NEVER been less than a fifteen-minute process that includes a wide range of emotions and ends with one mentally and emotionally exhausted hotel worker with sore thumbs from trying to feed the paper through.
There is anxiety, there is rage. There have been panic attacks (OMG WHAT AM I GOING TO DO IF I CAN'T GET IT TO WORK SOMEBODY COULD BE CALLING 911 RIGHT NOW AND IT'S NOT BEING LOGGED AND NOTHING IS BEING LOGGED AND I CAN'T PROVE THAT ANYTHING I DID WITH THE PHONE SYSTEM FOR OUR GUESTS EVER HAPPENED AND THEY COULD DISPUTE WHETHER OR NOT THEY GOT THEIR WAKE UP CALL AND NO ONE WOULD BELIEVE ME AND NOBODY EVER BELIEVES ME!!!)
I know continuous Capslock is normally considered rude, but I feel it's necessary to convey the fear that strikes my heart when this printer decides to rebel.
And yet, after all of this, it's usually fixed, so in the end, it doesn't actually seem quite so bad.
Not tonight.
No, that stupid thing is still going strong. I've reloaded, I've rebooted. I've unplugged and left it unplugged for a few minutes and tried again, and all I get is the same flat, high-pitched whine that pierces my brain and my soul.
Well, someday, I'm going to get the last word. Consider this video your warning, Printer.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ec6_1187579158
Okay, so that link doesn't actually work. Oops! I can't figure out how to get it to appear for you, so you will have to copy and paste it into a new tab or window to see it. Do it anyway--it's worth it.
