The area network copier is located just outside my cubicle. So I see a high amount of foot traffic of people collecting their printed documents. One of the reasons why I have a noise cancelling headset is to ignore the constant drone of printing documents.
There are a few things that attract engineers. The number one attraction is free food. Like rats they sniff it out from all corners of the building and as soon as the munchies are gone, they disappear. It should be noted that it does not matter what type of food it is as long as it’s free, salad and vegies included, but are usually the last to be consumed. Number two on the list is a broken Xerox machine. Engineers cannot resist trying to fix a copier. It drives the Xerox repair folks crazy. Their first comment is usually “who tried to fix this?” and next comment is “Those *#@$& engineers”.
A normal employee will come by, look at the listed fault, and try to follow the trouble shooting instructions. After a few minutes, they give up and go find another machine. An engineer will come by, open up the copier door and start taking the machine apart. And they will spend from 20 to 40 minutes doing this. If unsuccessful, they will go away, but come back an hour later and try again.
Now at no time will anyone bother to read the numerous signs posted instructing them what to do when the machine malfunctions. And neither will anyone bother calling the posted repair number. It is only when the admin accidentally strolls by and notices the machine is down. The only other person who will call is typically a woman who has a husband that tries to fix things at home. She will mutter something like “my husband does this all the time and I have to call the plumber to fix what he messed up”.
Of course the repair technicians they send out are another story. They tend not to read the reported problem and proceed to tear the machine apart with all its parts spread out in front of my cube entrance. Apparently they get paid by the hour. But at least it all gets put back together and the copier is in working order again.
The correlation here is that I am the same way at home. If something is broken, I proceed to take it apart. And half (?) the time, it does not get fixed. Gayle gave up long time ago and lives with the list of half finished fix it projects. I on the other hand I continue to collect tools to finish the projects.
Which brings me to the general category of men. Working on numerous Boy Scout Eagle projects over the years, I have observed that men are obsessed with their tools. We collect tools. And the status of the tool collector is determined by his collection of the brand name tools. Makita, DeWalt, Craftsman are the top of the line. Ryobi, Black and Decker are in the middle, Harbor Freight is at the bottom. But as I found out at the last project, there are a lot of closet Harbor Freight junkies out there. A HF recently opened close by in Torrance. I confess that I take pride in my Makita tools, but also confess that a good portion of my collection is from HF. My thought process is that if I’m only going to use it once in a while, why pay four times the price. In reality, it just works and it’s just cheaper, especially with a coupon. Did I mention that I love my Makita drills and saws?
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