Printer Problems

I hate printers. I've always hated printers. Because they don't work. They never work and everyone knows it. It's just that no one will admit it because we think it would be admitting technical ineptitude. but it's not. Printers really don't work.

They're a huge waste of paper, because you need to take at least six attempts to print anything, and the ink is toxic and there's all the waste of the ink cartridges. Not to mention the expense of the ink! Printers are pretty cheap these days, but that's because the manufacturers know you'll spend a fortune on their branded ink.

Printing was the bane of my existence all through high school. I would get my homework assignments all typed up, spell-checked and formatted perfectly in an hour, and then spend the next 5 hours trying to get it to print right. I'd stay up till 3am trying to get the paper to stop jamming, the alignment to work, the pages straight, and I'd end up arriving to school late the next day, bedraggled, sleep deprived and stressed with a note from my mother asking for an extension till the next day, because we couldn't get the assignment to print. I think I got extensions on every single assignment I ever had to hand in.

So I resisted getting a printer my whole adult life. We never really needed one until now, and for the rare occasional time we needed to print something, it was no problem to go to town for that.

That was fine with me, but this month I enrolled in a course that requires me to print out assignments. The printing requirements were somehow in the fine print, and I might not have taken on the course if I knew I'd need a printer. Oh well.

So I bit the bullet, did a bunch of shopping around and research. Looked at printer costs and features, compared ink usage and power usage, and read endless reviews. I decided confidently on a Canon Pixma 620. It might not be the best choice, but it was the best thing I could find with the information I had, I found a good price for it, and I ordered one.

So far so good.

It was delivered the following day, which was nice. Of course I had to pick it up in town, since we live in a rural area where couriers fear to tread. I got it home in it's box, and opened it up.

So far so good.

I was happy to see that it co-ordinates perfectly with my laptop; shiny silver bits with glossy black trim. It took about 2 hours to get it all unpacked, and set up, with the software installed on my computer. I did a couple of test prints; one document and one photo, just to see that it worked. I was amazed that it did. no problems, wireless and everything.

So far so good.

Then I went to bed. But when I got up this morning and turned it on, I got an error message. The damn thing wasn't working. I went right through the step-by-step trouble shooting instructions and the whole manual. Eventually I gave up and called tech support.

Of course, the printer has been deemed faulty, and I have been instructed to box it all up and send it back. They're sending a replacement.

Typical.

This is my karma for hating printers I suppose. But they deserve it!