Failure to plan on your part.....

[Dave1982]

Oh how we all know this particular routine only too well....


I just had someone call down to my desk to tell me there was a problem with one of the copiers upstairs; it was leaving blue lines on the printouts. ANd of course, that department's admin told me they had a sales meeting they were doing prints for and they NEEDED it taken care of immediately.

So I went up and took a look. Indeed, there were blue streaks, and to my surprise the machine was calling for a new cyan cartidge. In my experience, the common though that "low toner can cause streaks" only rarely turns out to be true, but maybe it would this time?

Nope.....a new cartridge had no effect on the lines, nor did recalibrating the color (I didn't think that would help but it's easy enough to do). Unfortunately, this particular model really isn't servicable by the end-user, so there was nothing more I could do to fix it besides call it in for service. So I did, relaying to the call center that this was a high-use machine and that the customer could not afford much downtime.

On my way back the admin flagged me down to see what was going on with it and I told her it was called in and that I'd put a rush on it.

Somehow that wasn't enough, and she wanted me to call and make "more clear" to them just how urgently they needed the machine to be repaired.

OK, let's look at this situation.

You called me at 3PM on a Friday afternoon. The building closes at 5. On that basis alone it's highly unlikely that a tech will be in today to look at it.

Also, if you are waiting until Friday afternoon to make printouts for a meeting at 8AM monday morning (or so they claimed)........how is that MY problem? I've done what I can do. I can only request a tech and state my case for how urgent it is. After that it's up to the field supervisors to assign the call and ultimately up to the tech him/herself to decide when to come here (obviously they need to factor in travel time when prioritizing service calls).

Failure to plan on your part.....

But above all else....there's at least one other color machine on that floor, three on the floor below, and 1 on the floor above. I think between the FIVE other machines you cna get your printing done. Yes, it's inconvenient to walk across the building but what else can you do?

Seriously.....I'm not a miracle worker.

[Dave1982]

Moments after I hit the "submit" button on the above post, the tech arrived. Apparently he was in the area and had no other calls on his plate.

On the one hand this is good because the "customer" is happy, the problem will be fixed, and I won't have that admin breathing down my neck.

But on the other hand, I hate the fact that she'll undoubtedly think her mini-fit made things happen faster, when it was really just luck.

[EricKei]

I hate the fact that she'll undoubtedly think her mini-fit made things happen faster, when it was really just luck.

Well of COURSE, silly. That's how Corporate works in most any big business: Whatever "motivation" they use -- such as mini-fits -- works 20% of the time or less, but it worked THIS TIME, therefore, they should keep doing it!

[SarcasticJerk]

I was waiting for the part where you looked at the original documents and discovered that they had blue lines on the pages.

[emax4]

Heh, I'm going two ways on this:

1. You should really use this your advantage. You can tell your mgr that you had to bargain with the tech long and hard to come out and get the toner in, make the story have a "sense of urgency" (as salesman will tell you), and that you were able to get it in at the last minute, even staying 10 minutes past your shift end time. I was going to suggest you telling the mgr that you would pay for it out of your own pocket, but they may want receipts, and I don't want to suggesting something that may get you in trouble.

2. You could flat out tell her the truth, but remind her of this lesson for the next time something like this happens.

[earl colby pottinger]

Happened to me

Had a customer complain that all his printout had large black blots on printout. After looking at the paper I noticed the paper was not pure white, it had little flecks in it.

It was recycled paper!

Using a pen I circled a few specks, ran the paper thru the laser and all the specks expanded into large blots under the heat and pressure of the fuser.