Sunday, April 26, 2015

The Ghost of Print Jobs Past

When we moved into our proper quarters, the wireless connection on our printer stopped working. After some time of frustration, the paralegal physically connected the printer to her computer and then we sent all documents to her to print out. Clunky, but it worked for a week or two until I finally got annoyed enough to spend an hour or so in chat with tech support to get it functioning.

So the tech support took over the computer and did this, that, and the other thing. And then, suddenly, the printer came alive. And started churning out all the unsuccessful print jobs that had been tried and never properly canceled. Given the nature of our business, this turned out to be five copies of a fifty-page probate opening document.

I didn't want to turn the printer off, because the tech support people were still working their mysterious ways. So instead we dashed around trying to find which unworking copy of the printer on which computer had sent the job. I don't think we ever actually found it, but we managed to delete a few other things that would have come through next.

And now the printer is working. Which, I suppose, is worth half a ream of paper.

2 comments:

Diary of an Autodidact said...

My favorite print catastrophe was when I accidentally tried to fax something long distance after pressing "copy" rather than "fax." Naturally, my device assumed I needed to make 11 figures worth of copies. Now that is SOME class action suit...

Fortunately, I figured out in time how to job cancel...

Charlotte (MotherOwl) said...

This made me laugh. Oh, how I know the frustrating feeling. You tried to print this and that - it did not work. Now it works, so I print out *this needed-right-now* paper - only to sse ti dorwned in past jobs' ghosts. And then several computers involved URGH! waste of papers, but so worth it if it all works now ;)