Printers Problems &Patience
I like many people my age I find the technological world intimidating at times. But this week I finally managed to stand up with the best of them.
On Saturday morning I came into the office and saw that I had received a fax overnight. The fax had been printed, but the whole page was also cover with magenta ink from the printer. It looked like someone had fatally stabbed my printer and it had hemorrhaged on the first piece of paper that it could find.
I set right to work to repair and save it from a terrible injury. I whipped out the user’s guide and proceeded to follow the instructions that were listed in the trouble shooting section under “print head errors”.
It wasn’t long before the printer was flashing me messages on the monitor.
I followed the instructions precisely and cleaned the ink cartridges and the print head. I even did a deep clean on the print head. Twice!! It still spit out papers with magenta ink and printing on only half the page. I had slowed the hemorrhaging down but had not stopped it. In an effort to save its own life , the printer flashed a message on the monitor to contact the company support.
I followed the instructions and was soon involved in an online chat with
Frank (My support person). CHAT!! I’m old enough to remember when
chatting involved using your mouth and vocal cords much more than your fingers.
Soon Frank had my printer humming along nicely, but only after he had invaded my computer’s personal space via a marvel called GO TO Meeting. Ah the loss dignity that we suffer to technology. Everything worked well the rest of the day and all day Sunday.
MONDAY Morning! Massive hemorrhages of magenta ink. This time I didn’t even try to fix it. I went straight to the chat box thing. A fellow named Jeck answered.
I referred him to the case number from Saturday’s episode. He responded.
“I See. What did you do?”
Me. “I didn’t do anything. I saw the hemorrhage and said to myself ‘I must get help. I will chat with Jeck . He will help me, Please Jeck, help me.”
Jeck: “I see. Okay, you must remove the printer head.”
ME: “You want me to cut out its head?”
Jeck: I see, yes you must take it out.”
After his giving me precise instruction I was able to remove the malfunctioning organ. My printer sat there gasping with all of its internal organs exposed. Jeck assured me that he would overnight ship to me a new donor head. In the midst of all this I was in the process of upgrading to a new computer. Since the poor printer was now on life support I decided not to make any further connection changes until this printer was functioning independently again.
The new head arrived the next day and I was able to complete the surgery.
I’m happy to say that it is printing wonderfully now. All of this from a woman who remembers that the first phone she used hung on a wall and was operated by a crank.
