Our Equipment Is Smarter Than We Think!

So someone sends me a 58 page paper on a subject that’s dear to my heart. Since I’m feeling time pressured, the best thing to do seems to be to print it out for reading on my flight Wednesday. I click my print button and instead of the usual smooth printing, with occasional shouts for more ink or more paper, darn thing starts clicking… a fairly loud, very annoying and rhythmic clicking. And it won’t turn off.

Not to be done in, I quickly unplug it. Turning a printer off and on solves more problems than you might suspect. Not this time. When I plug it back in, the same clicking begins. I unplug it again. This time I realize that from my computer’s point of view, the document is still printing, so I dump the print que.

Without unplugging it I open things… sure enough, the print heads are trying, sort of. And yes, there’s a label stuck way back… but it’s been there for ages. And no, there isn’t a paper jam. So I unplug again.

When I replug it in I realize the thing isn’t turning off. So I unplug again and got to Hewlett Packard’s website looking for help. A call to customer support reveals I way out of warranty and they invite me to try email support. When I get there I discover I have to register again, or something. That required an email to get the password, plus filling out a bunch of forms.

I fixed breakfast and decided to unplug not just the power cord, but everything. I ate breakfast and plugged everything back in and started to compose the email… guess what? The printer now works like a charm again.

Was it the unplugging everything? Breakfast? Or starting an email to support?

Your guess is as good as mine; I’m just glad to be up and running again.

Write well and often,

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