As an entry level worker, you know the copier. It’s that clunky, tan, 80’s relic in the hallway by the bathroom. It’s that unavoidable part of your morning routine, making organizational documents for the higher-ups. And it’s that permanent fixture in your nightmares, as well.
Why? Well, depending on its mood, the copier can either be your friend or foe. Let me explain.
Friend: You’re young. You’re hip. You’re down with all the new technology. So, just a few quick clicks and you’re collating, stapling, printing on both sides… book style, calendar style… It’s Nbd for you, generation Y-er. That copier’s your bitch.
BEEP BEEP BEEP
Wait. What?
BEEP BEEP BEEP
Did you hear someth-?
BEEP BEEP BEEP
Oh shit. I guess that brings me to my next point.
Foe: Your bosses are on a deadline. They need 100 copies of this packet pronto and you’re just the man for the job, you copier stud you. Well, that is… you’re just the man for the job, until the copier jams. Then, I suppose, the man for the job would be a copier repairman.
But, unfortunately, your workplace doesn’t have a copier repairman on staff and, as the resident lowest man on the totem pole, you’re expected to behave as such. What’s that? Your ivy league education didn’t prepare you to get elbow-deep in copier grease? That’s too bad.
And so, we all sit and pray for the holy grail of the entry level: an intern, to whom we might outsource all of our most menial duties.
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Today’s legend has these very parameters: an outsourcing entry level worker, an intern and a copier from hell. It comes to us from a coworker of mine, who escaped the entry level long ago, but has clearly not forgotten where he came from. His timeless story is copied below:
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“I was working the Assignment Desk one morning and we had some peripheral relative of a Congressman interning there. So, when we had to turn out the Assignment Grids, I passed the job to him. And sure enough, like clockwork - the thing craps out like, 70 copied & stapled grids into the job. I'm unaware of any of this and just happen to be walking in that general direction, when I hear an "Ohhhhh FUUUUUUUUUUUCK" from around the corner.
I walk out and it's the intern on his knees with his head in his hands, staring into the opened-up bowels of this piece-of-shit copier. Turns out he'd found the jam in the main central doohicky of the machine, but wasn't sure what to do. So he'd grabbed the only tool he could find - a plastic fork - to try and fix the jam. But the doohicky was already so damn hot from 2x-side copying, stapling, and collating 70 12-page grids that the fork instantly MELTED INTO THE DOOHICKY. Now not only was the bureau waiting on his grids, but he'd just transformed a giant piece of company equipment from a frustrating, habitually-jamming nuisance into a completely unusable waste of space.
We had to call in the boys from the copier service to come clean that shit out. And, afterward, all of the entry levels and interns got a note from the boss, making clear that no one was to stick plastic utensils into heavy machinery that was warm to the touch.
Fuckin' entry level.
That kid's probably a state senator now."
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