The Copier

Last week, my office moved to a new location, and I'm now in a true office environment rather than a lab environment for the first time in my professional career (a career in which I use the word "professional" in the same way the Clippers are a "professional" basketball team).

In fact, my new cube stares directly at one of the two printer/faxer/copier/aggrivator machines in our office. Initially disappointed that I'd have to listen to the beeps and chirps emitted by the copier all day, I positioned my monitor such that I can stare out at the copying world without them realizing I'm reading espn.com at 9am.

What I have quickly discovered is that I actually have the best seat in the house. People behave in extremely bizarre ways when they are outsmarted by a machine, and I can now chronicle these events in this blog while they are actually occurring!

For example, yesterday I watched an individual place a document in the feeder and begin typing on the copier keypad. He was apparently transcribing the first 100 pages of Moby Dick, a beep emitting with each keystroke. After several minutes of typing and staring, he leaned back and confidently slammed the green, backlit "START" button. The machine proceeded to warm-up briefly and then do nothing.

It was brilliant. I couldn't have made the situation any more pleasurable if I myself had been controlling the copier's response. What was even better was that the individual went through the entire process a second time (using the same procedure, no doubt) and got the same result a second time.

Another thing I quickly learned is that copier manufacturers have had to wise up about helping people remove jammed articles from the copier bowels. Our new copier has step by step guides that walk you through what colored lever to pull and which way to turn which knob to get your latest paperwork out during a misfeed.

As I watch people down on all fours trying to follow these instructions, frequently unsuccessfully, I imagine the copier quietly beckoning, "Closer...closer...closer..." before latching onto their victim and hosing them down in toner. Surely I can rig this up...