COLUMN: The Tale of the Broken Copier
I love being a humor columnist. Every week I experience an endless barrel of fun (and not the creepy kind you’d find in “Pee Wee’s Playhouse”). But sadly, at least at the collegiate level, it isn’t the most lucrative endeavor, keeping a well-hearted man from paying off his bills and, more importantly, his Netflix account.
For that purpose I have a second income, one that has been harbored by poverty stricken students as far as the eye can see: an on-campus job.
Five days a week, between classes, I make my way to Old Main 204 for my office job with the languages, philosophy and speech communication department. Common scholars know for a fact that a department name that long must be incredibly interesting, and believe me, it is.
Never have I been able to walk through a copy room where I could eavesdrop on conversations about President Regan’s “tear down this wall” speech, the pronunciation and grammatical breakdown of the word “wall” in Portuguese and verbal outlines of proof as to whether or not walls even exist, and all at the same time. It surely makes for a great way to break from studying my accounting workbook.
During my shift I share office space with Darla and Suzann – full-time office workers and possibly the two coolest non-young adult people I can find campus-wide. Many days in the office can be quite slow, but they are never shy of their share of adventure. An experience last week should give you proof:
I raced up two flights of stairs and into the office Thursday morning, prepared for a basic two-hour stretch of shredding paper and making copies, heightening my hopes only for the possibility Suzann would bring a batch of the greatest chocolate chip cookies baked by a non-Keebler Elf.
I was greeted, however, by a blurring vision of frustrated faces and countless quick-pacing professors who looked to have experienced the worst. And they had. No, they weren’t enduring death or sickness, economic crisis or even a surprise visit from Falkor, the furry dragon from “the Never Ending Story.” They had all experienced the mother of all office disasters: a broken copier.
The copier is the cytoplasm of all office supplies, the life-giving machine that keeps offices and classrooms function at a desirable rate. It never stops running, much like the stock market or Forrest Gump.
The lack of a working copier meant terror to a collegiate faculty, something more than havoc, and our only hope was to hunker down, wait things out and pray nobody needed a gratuitous amount of copies before the repair man showed up.
Our wish didn’t come true, as a professor came in with a doozy. She needed 200 copies, double half-sheets, in light yellow, and needed it that day. We had little time, possibly not enough yellow paper, and no copier to even get the job done.
The tension seemed palpable and the task impossible. This was when Darla – trusty, determined, down-right heroic Darla – used her brain and came to the rescue, based on her profound declaration, “let’s try scanning and printing the sheets on the computer.”
It almost felt like preparing for an emergency appendectomy as I filled the printer with the ever-vital sheets of yellow loose-leaf and Darla sat armed and ready at her computer making printouts 50 at a time.
I waited in angst as if waiting for my own child’s birth or the season premiere of “Jerseylicious” as the copies filtered through the plastic bells and whistles one by one. Everything ran smoothly, and the first 150 copies came to be without a single flaw.
Now the pressure was deep, akin to the 18th hole of the Masters, as we approached the final 50 copies. Was there enough paper? Was there enough ink? Can Darla’s finger handle the immense pressure of the moment as it clicked the mouse one last heart-pounding time?
The last 50 became 25, then 10, and before long every copy made it into existence, shouts of joy in almost every heart in the office. I approached the printer to pull out one sheet of yellow paper, the only one left in the printer. We had done it, and almost at the buzzer.
Baffled, I wondered on what great power, what controller of the human condition, made this all possible. On a freezing day, in an allergy-infested office, we had all witnessed a miracle. We sat together and relished in the wonder of it all.
Then we all ate lunch. I mean, good golly, its 1 p.m. already. All this talk of walls and heaven-sent copying miracles is rough on an empty stomach.
– steve.schwartzman@aggiemail.usu.edu