back to article BOFH: Free as in free beer or... Oh. 'Free Upgrade'

"I TOLD you, I HATE working on printers!" I seethe at the Boss. "It's just a bit of configuration," he wheedles, trying to make me feel better. "It's not a bit of bloody configuration, it's translation - from IT into printer manufacturer speak." The Boss is in a pickle. The printer company cretin came crawling around and …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Written in anger?

    A typo here and there suggests a degree of hidden rage being tapped...

  2. Cynical Observer
    Pint

    "ALIGN THE PRINTER WITH THE WORKFLOW!"....

    ....

    The PFY opens the window.

    I push the ladder.

    I pull the ladder.

    The PFY closes the window.

    BOFH and PFI have mastered Feng Shui for Windows?

    Either way - in recognition of the hatred of printing - on me! ----->

    1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Now, those printers will never get installed...

      // no defenestration icon?

    2. Captain Scarlet Silver badge
      Coat

      *THUD*

      Damn forgot the windows don't open here.

    3. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Why, that's standard procedure Windows troubleshooting, isn't it?

    4. Ian Bush

      I sort of assumed

      "I push the ladder.

      I pull the ladder.

      The PFY closes the window."

      was some BoFH poetry form related to the haiku.

    5. GrapeBunch

      It's the new Open Windows Initiative that everybody's been waiting for. One of them, anyway.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Training

    The BOFH need more ladder training if he needed to push AND pull the ladder to eject a Printer Rep out of a window.!

    I find a swift Kick to the 3rd step usually does the trick. either that or a live mains cable hanging from the open ceiling tile.

    1. Cynical Observer
      Angel

      Re: Training

      I find a swift Kick to the 3rd step usually does the trick

      ..Three steps to heaven..... there a song for that?

      Singing with the bleedin' Choir Eternal .. ----->

    2. theblackhand

      Re: Training

      Wasn't pulling the ladder required to retrieve the ladder sans-Printer Rep?

      If you threw away your ladder everytime you disposed of a product rep, you would end up needing a ladder rep...

    3. Pirate Dave Silver badge
      Pirate

      Re: Training

      " either that or a live mains cable hanging from the open ceiling tile."

      Yep. I was surprised this was a ladder incident. When I got to the part of the story where the BOFH grabbed the cables the PFY was handing down from the ceiling, I expected either electrocution or hanging for the smug little printer rep. The ladder was...unexpected.

      1. Number6

        Re: Training

        Yep. I was surprised this was a ladder incident. When I got to the part of the story where the BOFH grabbed the cables the PFY was handing down from the ceiling, I expected either electrocution or hanging for the smug little printer rep. The ladder was...unexpected.

        It shows good planning. Had the end been electrocution or hanging they would have had a body to deal with, and lifting it to throw out the window would have been more effort. Using the defenestration technique means that someone else has to clear up the mess.

        1. Montreal Sean

          Re: Training

          They already planned for the defenestration, and moved a skip beneath the window.

          And arranged for it all to happen on collection day so there wouldn't be any lingering mess.

    4. bpfh

      Re: Training

      Yep. BOFH needs more Bzzzzzert and LARTings....

  4. adam payne
    Joke

    A there was me thinking everybody loved setting up new printers.

    1. TRT Silver badge

      They were Canon right? Or Samsung. Yeah, probably Samsung. Or Canon.

      1. Robert Helpmann??
        Childcatcher

        They were Canon right?

        Missed a trick there in trying to find the non-existent Linux drivers for the things.

        1. The Wegie

          Or Kyocera

          That degree of nasty brings back memories I thought I'd suppressed of trying to ride herd on an early Kyocera multifunction printer bought by a cheapskate boss because it was the cheapest on the market.

          1. Ivory Bill

            Re: Or Kyocera

            For years I kept a blacksmith's hammer which i labeled "Kyocera Repair Tool" in my office. All printers suck, but those old Kyoceras were freaking nightmares.

        2. Not That Andrew

          Re: They were Canon right?

          And if you are really "lucky" there drivers tucked away in the cavernous depths of their asian website that will only compile on and might even work occasionally on DeadRat 4.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Mushroom

        Or Epson

        I have a super duper multi function job sat next to me with everything mentioned included - except none of it works when connected to a network, ethernet or wireless; only when it is connected to a single PC by a USB cable.

        For scans I have reverted to using my old camera and cropping the image!!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Or Epson

          @Ian

          And a wooden table?

      3. Donn Bly

        re: They were Canon right?

        With a password of 111111? They had to be Xerox

        1. Lee T
          Unhappy

          Re: re: They were Canon right?

          That's 5 1's, not 6. Though that may be a typo. *cries*.

        2. Montreal Sean

          Re: re: They were Canon right?

          Nah, can't be Xerox, six times the number 1 is two digits past buffer overflow.

      4. Roq D. Kasba

        Better still, the 'El Capitan' upgrade that broke compatibility for Macs.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          El Capital deliberately broke USB support

          I've even got the email from Apple where they admitted it.

          Well, "admit" is the wrong word. "Stated" that they deliberately reimplemented USB in a a different way to every other system, that while not explicitly disallowed by the standard, is the exact opposite of the technical books on the subject.

          No, not bitter. We wanted to do firmware updates anyway. Especially ones that required a Windows machine to apply the firmware update that makes it work again on the Mac.

      5. Accuran Devil

        Or Sharp... Hate Sharp printers... Would rather setup a monkey with a pencil and stencil

      6. Decade
        Mushroom

        Or Ricoh

        Every generation of those things is bigger and has more features, but is also more complicated and fragile. The latest generation in my office comes with an entire mini-ITX PC running Windows 7 to run the print server, but it needs the original Java-based OS to run scanning and email. So, I need 2 network ports where 1 once worked, one for the built-in Java OS, one for the new mini-ITX PC.

        Also, in some situations, the PC silently discards print jobs. A Ricoh technician was here for hours, and he couldn’t figured it out.

        1. Spoonguard
          Flame

          Re: Or Ricoh

          "Also, in some situations, the PC silently discards print jobs. A Ricoh technician was here for hours, and he couldn’t figured it out."

          That like eerily similar to my adventures with CUPS on Debian..

        2. Captain Scarlet Silver badge

          Re: Or Ricoh

          That sounds like a Fiery print server add-on (Which a few Canons or Sharp's had here).

          Never saw the point in them so assumed they were just more expensive versions of an add-on network card.

          1. Leeroy

            Re: Or Ricoh

            The pc running windows 7 is normally only used for 'pro' machines and is over £5k extra for the basic version, please tell me it's for printing high quality jobs with colour matching and that someone had training on calibration with the photospectrometer ?

            Silently discarding jobs usually happens when usage tracking is turned on, BW has no restrictions and colour requires a pin that has to be entered into the print driver. If you don't put the correct code in the job will vanish but you can see it in the printer log. Yeah it's a bit crap. Another reason can be that the copier will only accept print jobs from the print server, configured by ip or host name. It's to help enforce the authentication on the print server and prevent people bypassing it.

            The worst thing about Ricoh is the new tablet interface with no physical buttons and a 'new and improved experience' according to BLI. Yeah we turn that crap off and thank god you can set up the old interface that Ricoh have been using for a decade.

            /Rant off. I'm back in work Monday/ Ricoh tech lol

        3. C0p3n

          Re: Or Ricoh

          "A Ricoh technician was here for hours, and he couldn’t figured it out."

          You don't say ...? Company I used to work for had a contract with them. "Ricoh couldn't figure it out" could be code for almost anything. Seems to me all they do is make sure the power is plugged in.

  5. WhoAmI?
    FAIL

    Sounds all to familiar

    I remember when I was a lowly help desk bod. We bought new printers from a well known company which has a large research arm in America somewhere

    New printers! Scan, fax, print, fast, A3, A4 and A5! Yummy!

    After the engineer attempted to install the first printer, I told him I wasn't going to allow him to install the rest and risk leaving the company with no high capacity printing, and that I would do it instead. I un-boxed every machine, wheeled them around the buildings, opened every machine and connected the power supply board to the rest of the printer, upgrade the BIOS, faff around with drivers, and then get them all working with our fax software (which wasn't fun)

    They worked OK after that

    1. Roland6 Silver badge

      Re: Sounds all to familiar

      We bought new printers from a well known company which has a large research arm in America somewhere

      New printers! Scan, fax, print, fast, A3, A4 and A5! Yummy!

      Bet they all defaulted to 'Letter', because that was hard coded into the printer firmware and drivers - I kid not. For a well known US printer manufacturer, several years back, who's printers and drivers had exactly this feature, I went as far as creating my own set of (unsigned) drivers, just so that when users installed the drivers on their PC/laptop their printer preferences had been preset to A4 and thus avoid 'error messages' about the printers having the wrong paper loaded...

      Mind you just had another problem with another well know printer manufacturer; change the paper setting in the printer from 'plain' to any other and the user will get an error telling them the printer is loaded with the wrong size of paper!

      1. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
        Flame

        Re: Sounds all to familiar

        "'PC LOAD LETTER'? What the *fuck* does that mean?"

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QQdNbvSGok

        1. cd / && rm -rf *

          Re: Sounds all to familiar

          "'PC LOAD LETTER'? What the *fuck* does that mean?"

          Paper Cassette, Load letter-size paper. Easy when you speak HP Pringlish. You have to remember this was the days when a single-line LED display was all the rage.

          On a slightly related tangent:

          http://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers

          and scroll down to "Error Messages"

          1. Down not across

            Re: Sounds all to familiar

            Paper Cassette, Load letter-size paper. Easy when you speak HP Pringlish. You have to remember this was the days when a single-line LED display was all the rage.

            Those were fun days..

            <ESC>%-12345X@PJL

            @PJL RDYMSG DISPLAY = Insert coin

            <ESC>%-12345X

            Or extra fun lock the keys with @PJL DEFAULT CPLOCK = ON

            1. Peter Ford

              Re: Sounds all to familiar

              I seem to remember setting the ready message to "OUT OF CHEESE" once... That resulted in some interesting support calls.

            2. Berny Stapleton

              Re: Sounds all to familiar

              > @PJL DEFAULT CPLOCK = ON

              Oh that's cruel... I so would have liked to have known that one in my younger years....

      2. Montreal Sean

        Re: Sounds all to familiar

        Roland6,

        So it's your fault all those copy centre printers at Staples here default to A4 and on occasion refuse to accept any other size!

        I've lost countless hours trying to configure them to stop being A4.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

      3. Spanners Silver badge
        Go

        Re: Sounds all to familiar

        A while back, I was involved in testing Open Office. This was running the programme and seeing what was wrong with the interface etc. It was sometimes reporting things as silly as a missing full stop in a dialogue box.

        I came across someone in the USA who was about to report that it was defaulting to "non-existent or imaginary" paper sizes and units of measure, They did indeed exist and were not imaginary, Yes, the paper sizes were things like A4 and the units of measure were mm...

        There is a difference between ignorance, which can be excusable, and planned ignorance which is not.

  6. Toltec

    He forgot to mention

    the stockpile of toner cartridges for the old printers sold to them the previous week.

    1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: He forgot to mention

      at a special discounted price, if they bought 3 years' supply at once. :-)

  7. David Robinson 1

    XYZZY

    Nothing happens.

    1. Geoff May (no relation)

      Re: XYZZY

      Did you try plugh?

      1. Zimmer

        Re: XYZZY

        GO on, admit it, you're lost....now where's that Plover....

    2. Midnight

      Re: XYZZY

      Hello, Sailor.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sorted

    In the USA we have a simple solution to printer issues - we send them out for calibration with an AK47.

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