r/TalesFromTechSupport - It's Harder To Smash Something With A Face!

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Chapters:
00:00 Part 1
06:16 Part 2
11:42 Part 3
14:27 Part 4
20:28 Part 5

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KCC Rob
227-207 Dundas Street East,
Trenton, Ontario, Canada
K8V 1L8

[klocugh]

22:38 The first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem. Bob perpetually refused to do that.

[theplaintech]

Decades ago now, when Sears was still a thing, we had a front loading Kenmore washing machine. It was a masterpiece of wondrous technology which worked flawlessly for over a year and did extremely competent work. It was under full warranty. Then one day, it failed. A service repair person came out. Ordered a part. Fixed it. It ran maybe a week and then another failure. Another technician came. This went on for two months. Visit after visit. Even the master technician for the district who taught the repairmen came out and gave it a try. I noticed their print out: It was costing them more in repairs than we had paid for the washer itself. At that point, I pointed out that it would be cheaper and easier to just replace the machine, which they did, with the caveat that the NEW washer was no longer under warranty. They took the old one to the place where they taught the techs to teach them how to repair the washers. The new one operated well until we moved and sold off the washer / drier stacked combo.

It was a great machine. The manufacturer was stellar. The company that sold it was stellar. The repair people were absolutely competent. The question is... do some of these machines actually have a personality or are we just anthropomorphising here? The Universe works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform.

[kabob]

All I can say is that Bob has very, _VERY_ temperamental Machine Spirit...

[Ryanthusar]

I think Bob just needs a holiday, such as a visit to the top of The Shard and then shown the quick way down.

[xyz.ijk.]

Is Bob and the Printer Cartridge the same as Kevin in a Big Rig? (Asking for a friend.) 😂😂

[rabidpanda]

"5 years old, about as old as high volume machines get"
Not me, looking at my currently 10 year old printers, 2 of which have a counter that's been maxed out for over 2 years now.
I hate my workplace lol

ETA: In case anyone else is wondering, the reason paper sits next to the printer for 24 hours is so that it adjusts to the humidity of the room before being used

[redjackel]

By the Omnimessia.
Bob needs a dedicated Tech Priest just to deal with all the issues that machine spirit has...

[merlinathrawes]

Under the circumstances I think I would get a camera for that space anyways!

I think Bob needs an bat and bullet enema!

[y_fam_goeglyd]

The reply to "Bob" reminds me of when I was working for a telecoms company. This was back when the printers had long reams of paper with stripes on it and holes in the side to pull the next bit through. When I sent my work to a printer, for some reason it was pot luck which one the job went to. Some sort of hub (this was in the early 90s, my memory isn't that good). One printer just _wouldn't_ work for me. It would jam up or not print, or print everything on one line...

We were on the 3rd floor of a building on top of a shopping centre (small 'mall') and therefore had no windows that we could open. One day I lost the plot with that printer, picked it up, yanked out the connections and headed to one of the huge windows. One of the engineers saw me and got to me in a hurry (my office was shared with a whole load of engineers - my job was to do with finances across our entire district so I needed long lines of numbers printed out. Daily). He asked me what I was doing, I said it was going out of the window, he said the window didn't open, I said "I know".


He took the printer off me, and somehow hooked my computer up to a different printer. Blood pressure finally dropped.

[michaeltempsch]

Printer in the CompSci students computer rooms at Uni had a printout of Dogbert chanting "Out, out, you demons of stupidity!" taped to it.

[mindlessmeat]

I wonder how many people will realize the MASH theme is called "Suicide is Painless". It has some interesting lyrics if you have never heard it. It was originally written for the movie, but a lyricless version was created for the show.

[Lagbeard]

Bob, the little machine that still won't. The villain of all offices.

[blazerocker]

Bob's behavior seems familiar. There are several electrical objects in my house that do weird things. The only thing they have in common is that they use electricity in the house. I could only surmise that the electricity flow to Bob is not consistent and somehow is corrupting Bob's circuitry and programming. There could be multiple or just specific factors at work. Could be just the electrical circuit and/or circuit breaker has issues but everything else on the same circuit is sturdy enough to not be affected by disproportionate flow. Only Bob is built in such a way to be vulnerable enough to the uneven flow to be affected. I couldn't say without testing but I've seen some electronics do weird things so I can't dismiss the possibility.

[kevincozens]

I love that suggestion of hiring a comedian to lighten Bob's mood. :)

[solstan]

The most weird problem I have seen was when a cutomer got a whole batch of paper that was cut in the wrong direction.
It jammed a lot going in with the wrong side first.
Turning the paper 90 degres worked, but that was impossible with the large trays …

That pallet lasted almost a year …

[roxcyn]

Minimum wage is £10.43 per hour in UK and they made about 100 visits give or take, at what point do they just say "okay, this is a bad printer, let's give you another a brand new one." Because you're making your company look and and the product.

[oliverer]

I'm a mechanical and electrical engineer with a love of obscure problem troubleshooting.

Spending a few days giving Bob some TLC and treating his declining health would have been really interesting.

[bland]

I just took one of those tests that you have to take if you want to be an IT person and I obviously failed all the questions about printers. That is unless I got super lucky and answered one of the questions correctly because they're multiple choice.

[josephpavone]

Has anyone tried an exorcist, maybe some holy water

[Fyreflier]

20:07 I can confidently state that that will NEVER happen because we've had a fridge at work (yay food service!) leaking nearly as long as I've worked there and they refuse to actually fix it and instead just call out engineers to fiddle with some bolts, at one point they painted the drip tray with waterproof paint, and then declare "well. we can't fix it but we've done that!"
A new fridge would have been cheaper around four or five years ago.