random thoughts – Day 1,197 – (Tuesday) – 45 minutes

It was an office day so I could more easily attend an early afternoon non-profit meeting. The peace and quiet helped me to plow through some of the stuff on my list and cross things off, which is always a good feeling. Less good was dealing with our temperamental (psychotic) office copier that has me fantasizing about smashing it in a field like in the movie Office Space.

I needed to print six copies of a sign. Ideally, these would be on slightly heavier paper. The paper sizes the printer wants to use don’t match paper we use or even anything I’ve heard of. It ignores the choices set for which tray and any specialty paper. Consequently, today, in addition to the “Yellow cartridge low” message, it declared an imaginary paper jam from the manual feed tray.

The copier lives between a thick wooden column and a metal pole, with barely enough space to open the manual paper feed tray. To deal with a paper jam, it requires pulling the machine out to access the paper feed. It weights a ton and requires more than one person, or at least more than one of me. Once the machine was rolled out, the door fully opened, and the appropriate levers flipped so the machine could recognize there was not actually a paper jam, the copies were finally produced. It had taken about 45 minutes and several muttered swears.

Shattuck Street.

The meeting was a quick walk from the office, down Shattuck Street under a cloudy sky, past a building with iron work above the first floor, past some lamp posts with hanging flower baskets. In about as much time as it took to fight with the stupid printer and get six copies, we had made the decisions that needed making for an event, I picked up an item won in a fundraiser event last fall, and then I was back at the office. And I didn’t have to swear once. 

After work, the weather was favorable, the grass wasn’t soaked, and the mower was hauled from the shed. In another 45-minute triumph, the yards were mowed. It’s interesting the different ways that 45 minutes can pass. Fight with a printer, plan an event, mow a yard. All in a day.