Print and the Revolution

There are unwritten laws of printer courtesy adhered to by the majority of my co-workers. However, there are a few fascists who play 52 card pickup with other people's print jobs without any remorse while yelling "O'Doyle rules!". For those of us who are tired of having sand kicked in our face, the reckoning is here.

Most of us understand that the printer is an informal waiting area. The print job occupying the HP LaserJet dictates who should be in pole position. Standard operating procedure is to approach the printer, take a glance at the current print job, and act appropriately. Figure 1 accurately captures this protocol.

Figure 1. Obtaining your print job (click to enlarge)

Unfortunately, there are employees who hijack the printer with a document that would choke a fully-staffed Kinko's store. They goose step to the printer and elbow onlookers in the sternum to momentarily stun them. This quick blow allows them to cut in front of the line. The coup de grace is how they caress their work with meticulous care and turn other papers into a ticker tape parade.

My print job is next, do you have a problem with that?

These printer bullies are often the work horses ascending the corporate ladder. Be sure to earmark them for future aggravation. From personal experience, confusion is the best method. Approach the printer at the same time as them and fire rhetorical Gatling gun questions in their presence while fumbling through papers, "Did I really print 110 pages?", "I loaded pink paper again?", "How many trees am I killing?".

Another method of confusion involves four steps 1) steal their print job, 2) scan it as a pdf, 3) print the pdf file off of your computer, 4) then complain about how someone is hogging the printer everytime you see the original offender. They'll recognize the document as their own but will be dumbfounded as to how it keeps printing out.

The examples above are effective techniques but one piece of advice; don't fly solo in your efforts. Printer bullies can only be eliminated in a unified front. During recess, alert other members on the same printer network that a revolution is coming. Together, you can take back what is rightfully yours and also have the pleasure of tasting the sweet nectar of vigilante justice. Repeatedly oppress the bullies with the confusion techniques listed above and they will reluctantly migrate to another network printer.

Someone just goose stepped by me at a blistering pace. I think they're heading for the printer. Time to print out all 40 spreadsheets of my Fantasy Football picks.

The revolution is now.