This pilot fish takes a job teaching at a local college, and his office is right next to the IT department.
“I helped out between classes when the IT guys were swamped,” says fish. “One day while the IT staff was out to lunch, I heard the phone ring and no one was manning the help desk, so I fielded the call.”
The caller is the office manager, and she’s complaining that her printer won’t print. Fish doesn’t have a class for a couple of hours, so he decides to see what he can do and heads to her office.
Turns out the fix is simple: The printer is out of paper. Fish explains this to the office manager, who asks fish where she should get paper from. Fish shrugs — that’s not his department.
OK, says office manager, but how do I load paper into the printer? Fish goes to a different printer and grabs the top sheet of paper, then shows the office manager how to open her printer’s paper drawer and put the paper in.
He closes the drawer. The sheet prints. The office manager is happy, and tells fish she’ll have one of her staff get more paper later.
Fish grabs lunch, teaches his class and returns to his office — where the IT manager is waiting for him. The office manager is furious, IT manager says. Her complaint now: The printing process is so slow that it’s useless to her, and she wants fish to return and fix the problem pronto.
“When I returned to her desk, I asked her to show me the problem,” fish says. “She sent a multipage document to the printer. She then went to the printer and opened the paper drawer and inserted one sheet. When that sheet printed, she inserted the next sheet. She said she never had to do this before and the process was unacceptable!
“I put a stack of paper in the drawer and left with the printer running.”
