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Printing woes from the library.
Preface
Our printers are the high volume printers. They only print in black and white. We have a special color printer. We only use the paper given to us because the higher ups tell us too and that any other paper can jam the printer (it has happened)
Woe #1
I've gotten several people who open up the printer tray to put in special resume paper which is very thick in comparison to the normal paper. I have told these people that I stopped that they aren't allowed to do that and then I get one of the following reactions:
1) The "how dare you talk to me" response
2) "Well it's just this one time, you can let me right?"
3) "Well this other computer lab let me do it" (I seriously doubt that if the other labs had known what you were doing they would have let you)
or 4) (most often) I didn't know
What's funny is that in all 4 cases when I explain that we have an actual printing services dept (faxes, large printings, thesis printing, resume, etc.) and where it is located, 99.9998% of them get mad that I ask them to walk the 30yrds and down 2 flights of steps to go there.
Woe #2
Our printers can only print certain fonts because the school doesn't want to pay $2500 for each printer so that they can print all fonts. When a non-printable job is sent, the printer tries to print it but only spits out blank paper. We have signs posted all over the place yet it still happens and people still get pissed. They expect me to hand over the money that they lost because they "didn't know" about the font issues. My response, "I'm sorry but I'm not going to give you back the 3 cents per page it cost to print your document. How many pages was it? One? Well if you really want your money back, there's a form you can go fill out and take across the way (about a 10 min walk) for them to put it back on your card. (caveat I understand if a person loses a 30 page paper or if a prof makes a student print out a lot, but come on!!! Bitch at me over 3 cents even though you didn't read the rules about printing. How the hell did you get into college?)
Woe #3
Our printers cannot print powerpoint presentations with backgrounds very easily, if at all. If it gets a job like this it will take it forever (i.e. 5 min for a 30 slide presentation done in 6 slides per page format) or it will just kill the printer and force us to reboot the printer. We had this patron try and print a 120 page presentation and when it didn't print it out in a timely fashion i.e. within 30sec, he proceeded to goto every other printer in the library and try and print the job. He made all 6 printers in the library crap out within 5 minutes of one another and it took another 35 to figure out what was going on because after we fixed one printer another would go out because he would try and print on the one that was just fixed.
Woe #4
Our color printer can only print on one side. Too many people will print out a page and then immediately take out the tray put the just printed paper down and try and print on the other side. Not only does this mess up the sheet below, but it also messes up the internals of the printer, jamming it. I don't much care for touching the very hot part of the printer to fix the problem because that's the part that messes up.
Woe #5
Students love to bother me when I'm trying to stock paper. I have been hunched over, throwing ream after ream into the storage area only to have some jackass reach across the hand truck and me or push the truck out of the way while I'm still trying to stock the paper. The conversation usually goes something like this:
Me
SP (sucky patron)
Me: "Excuse me, but there's another printer right over there (pointing to other printer) for you to use."
SP: "So when will it be back up?"
Me: "Another minute or so." (it takes me at most a minute to fill the trays and stock the storage area)
SP: "Well could you hurry it up?!?! I have paper due for a class in the next 5 min."
Me: "I'm going as fast as I can (I have on occasion slowed down at this point depending how how rude they're being to me), but in the mean time you can walk to the other printer and print from there"
SP: "Fine."
They usually either wait the 30 more seconds it takes for me to finish up all the while staring daggers in the back of my skull, or they walk to the other printer only to find that others, seeing that I was working on one printer, have gone to the other and a line has formed.
What's really funny is to watch the idiots rush to get in line at the working printer and the second I get finished, run back only to have to stand in line for the printer I just finished working on. I love that redeeming value.
Woe #6
People love to open the trays to get clean paper to work on stuff and get mad when I tell them to goto the recycle bin and grab some paper from there. At every print station there is a recycle bin right beside it, and a lot of the time it has blank sheets from failed jobs or extra sheets that just got sent out with the job.
Woe #7/8
We have a machine that will add money to your account, or if a patron is not a student, they can buy a print card from. Other than the obvious not reading the directions posted on the machine, told by us, and/or walked through with by us, we get patrons who for some reason can't get money put on the card. the biggest issues: they put the money in the wrong account (I must get the "I have money/I just put money on my card" line at least 25 times a 3 hrs shift during the first of the year and finals week, or (for the ones that get a print card) they forgot that we told them it costs a dollar to buy the card and you have to put a dollar on it so you can print.
I just wish they would do the two things I recommend: put locks on the trays, and give me a clue-by-4 to hit these people upside the head...well at least put the locks on the trays. Oh well a man can dream can't he?
Preface
Our printers are the high volume printers. They only print in black and white. We have a special color printer. We only use the paper given to us because the higher ups tell us too and that any other paper can jam the printer (it has happened)
Woe #1
I've gotten several people who open up the printer tray to put in special resume paper which is very thick in comparison to the normal paper. I have told these people that I stopped that they aren't allowed to do that and then I get one of the following reactions:
1) The "how dare you talk to me" response
2) "Well it's just this one time, you can let me right?"
3) "Well this other computer lab let me do it" (I seriously doubt that if the other labs had known what you were doing they would have let you)
or 4) (most often) I didn't know
What's funny is that in all 4 cases when I explain that we have an actual printing services dept (faxes, large printings, thesis printing, resume, etc.) and where it is located, 99.9998% of them get mad that I ask them to walk the 30yrds and down 2 flights of steps to go there.
Woe #2
Our printers can only print certain fonts because the school doesn't want to pay $2500 for each printer so that they can print all fonts. When a non-printable job is sent, the printer tries to print it but only spits out blank paper. We have signs posted all over the place yet it still happens and people still get pissed. They expect me to hand over the money that they lost because they "didn't know" about the font issues. My response, "I'm sorry but I'm not going to give you back the 3 cents per page it cost to print your document. How many pages was it? One? Well if you really want your money back, there's a form you can go fill out and take across the way (about a 10 min walk) for them to put it back on your card. (caveat I understand if a person loses a 30 page paper or if a prof makes a student print out a lot, but come on!!! Bitch at me over 3 cents even though you didn't read the rules about printing. How the hell did you get into college?)
Woe #3
Our printers cannot print powerpoint presentations with backgrounds very easily, if at all. If it gets a job like this it will take it forever (i.e. 5 min for a 30 slide presentation done in 6 slides per page format) or it will just kill the printer and force us to reboot the printer. We had this patron try and print a 120 page presentation and when it didn't print it out in a timely fashion i.e. within 30sec, he proceeded to goto every other printer in the library and try and print the job. He made all 6 printers in the library crap out within 5 minutes of one another and it took another 35 to figure out what was going on because after we fixed one printer another would go out because he would try and print on the one that was just fixed.
Woe #4
Our color printer can only print on one side. Too many people will print out a page and then immediately take out the tray put the just printed paper down and try and print on the other side. Not only does this mess up the sheet below, but it also messes up the internals of the printer, jamming it. I don't much care for touching the very hot part of the printer to fix the problem because that's the part that messes up.
Woe #5
Students love to bother me when I'm trying to stock paper. I have been hunched over, throwing ream after ream into the storage area only to have some jackass reach across the hand truck and me or push the truck out of the way while I'm still trying to stock the paper. The conversation usually goes something like this:
Me
SP (sucky patron)
Me: "Excuse me, but there's another printer right over there (pointing to other printer) for you to use."
SP: "So when will it be back up?"
Me: "Another minute or so." (it takes me at most a minute to fill the trays and stock the storage area)
SP: "Well could you hurry it up?!?! I have paper due for a class in the next 5 min."
Me: "I'm going as fast as I can (I have on occasion slowed down at this point depending how how rude they're being to me), but in the mean time you can walk to the other printer and print from there"
SP: "Fine."
They usually either wait the 30 more seconds it takes for me to finish up all the while staring daggers in the back of my skull, or they walk to the other printer only to find that others, seeing that I was working on one printer, have gone to the other and a line has formed.
What's really funny is to watch the idiots rush to get in line at the working printer and the second I get finished, run back only to have to stand in line for the printer I just finished working on. I love that redeeming value.
Woe #6
People love to open the trays to get clean paper to work on stuff and get mad when I tell them to goto the recycle bin and grab some paper from there. At every print station there is a recycle bin right beside it, and a lot of the time it has blank sheets from failed jobs or extra sheets that just got sent out with the job.
Woe #7/8
We have a machine that will add money to your account, or if a patron is not a student, they can buy a print card from. Other than the obvious not reading the directions posted on the machine, told by us, and/or walked through with by us, we get patrons who for some reason can't get money put on the card. the biggest issues: they put the money in the wrong account (I must get the "I have money/I just put money on my card" line at least 25 times a 3 hrs shift during the first of the year and finals week, or (for the ones that get a print card) they forgot that we told them it costs a dollar to buy the card and you have to put a dollar on it so you can print.
I just wish they would do the two things I recommend: put locks on the trays, and give me a clue-by-4 to hit these people upside the head...well at least put the locks on the trays. Oh well a man can dream can't he?
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