The copier repair person knows who to blame

We have a new copier here at the Teeny Tiny Law Office. As befits our straitened circumstances, the machine is less expensive than its predecessor; as befits our smaller quarters, the machine is also smaller than its predecessor.

But, as a new high-tech piece of office equipment, smaller and cheaper does not mean less complex. Open the front panel on the machine to view the paper path and you will probably be reminded of an M.C. Escher print. The new machine can do anything the old machine could have done, and more: We can print in color, if we want (although that can get costly fast), and we can print from our desktop computers, if only we had a shared network. Which we don't.

The machine has worked well enough since we've been here. It jammed on me when a copy job I was running emptied an already depleted tray 1 and didn't smoothly pick up with tray 2. The on-board computer diagnosed about 17 places where paper might be lurking and, sure enough, when I could finally figure out the diagrams, and open up all the hidden compartments, I found all of them.

Now in order to open up the right hand side of the machine, where paper is originally taken up from the trays, I found that I did have to shove the machine a little further away from the window. The trays where copies emerge thus became uncomfortably close to the low-rise, two drawer metal file cabinet we have for our common papers, electrical cords of unknown origins and miscellaneous shipping materials. But I made sure that the two were not touching. I tried to move the cabinet a little further down, too, but it's a heavy little bugger. (Who knew empty FedEx envelopes would weigh that much?) And I couldn't move it too far anyway because I'd be running over the cords for our part-time assistant's (once a month is really part-time) computer. And if I went more than a couple of inches, I'd have no hope at all of getting the door closed ever again.

Did I mention the room is small?

Anyway, everything seemed all fixed, settled and done until the other day when my colleague had a rush job to do.

I suppose saying "rush job" is redundant in context.

Paper jams can not occur unless you're in a hurry; some day scientists and engineers will prove this for you skeptics out there who've never worked in an office.

Our tenant helped my colleague out for awhile; they found most of the paper jams, but they eventually gave up. My colleague stepped out. That's when I stepped in. (I don't think all three of us could have stood by the copier at one time anyway.) Together we found the last stubborn holdout piece hidden in the works. By then, my colleague had called Ricoh to schedule a service call. He asked if he should cancel it, based on our success, but I said, no, let someone come out and look because a new machine like this shouldn't have these problems, even on rush jobs.

I wish I'd been able to be here when the service person arrived (I had an appointment in the suburbs yesterday morning). Apparently the wonders behind the M.C. Escher print are quite marvelous to behold. And there was some readout there by which the service person was able to establish exactly what the problem was, and who caused it.

You already know, don't you?

The receiving trays on the copier weren't touching the metal cabinet when I had moved the machine -- but the trays go up and down depending on the size of copy job. It went down just a millimeter too far because of the size of my colleague's job and -- beep! beep! beep! -- paper jam.

It was all my fault. As usual.