Sunflower Blog

!*x*! Computer Printer!*x*!

Everyone develops their own personal relationship with their personal computer, printer, and other hardware. We expect it to work. When the printer is down, it like a company employee has walked out on strike. One for the side of machines.

My first computer came with an Epson printer, and it served me well until I needed to lay down books to copy things. So then I got it a separate scanner, just before the all-in-ones became affordable. The next break down lead to the first all-in-one purchase.

After looking around and reading information on printers, I got an HP. When it died I contacted HP about repair, but they suggested I send the broken one back for trade in value with a new all-in-one.

They delivered. The printer races at a snail's pace towards getting the job done. It's a good job though, so I went printing hapily along -- for about 9 months.

I went along with the trade in deal with the next breakdown, again, and it was my fault for taking so long to return the two broken computers. I got them shipped before the Christmas season, one year.

HP has so many separate division, and nobody particularly cares about anybody else's job. They don't know about model numbers and online purchase and finding the right phone number to finally show up in a database. Needless to say, there was lots of "holding" time involved. My ire rose.

Although I shipped both printers back with the HP ID stickers through UPS, as they requested, they only could verify receipt of one. This is about February by now, and the thought of dealing with the printer raises my blood pressure to a quick boil.

The customer service rep finally says they'll give me credit for receipt of one printer, and cut me a check for $150. for the other printer. I never did figure out their logic, but I was becoming more compromising--"just do something!"

Nothing ever came in the mail. No check. Never. I finally threw in the white flag and surrendered control of the situation. Disgrunted, but copying, I carried on for a couple of years.

The damn things must be set to self-destruct, because every couple of years, here's the printer problem again. After awhile, it's just like waiting for the phone to ring. It's going to happen.

So, I've broken away from HP. I'm going with a Dell that was on sale for a great price. Hope I don't have trouble finding ink. With the favor of the gods, I'll be printing my short story entry for the annual Writer's Digest contest before the end of the week.

It's always when you need one of those mechanical thing-a-ma-bobs, that they break. It's alomst as constant at the theory of gravity.