no printer at work now, deep thoughts on education

[Zoe Girl]

we have been free spending the last couple years and i work under a federal grant. Not crazy spending but i got a very nice printer and some equipment i needed. Now the printer broke and i got one with a very old cable and usb adapter, i can't find a driver online to make it work. it seems everyone is running me to the next, the school is waiting on tech support to hook me up to their printers, my department said to hook into the school and i can't get a new printer, the tech hotline cannot let me upgrade my laptop to windows 8.1 to try another printer (btw there are 3 in my room between me and my colleague and none are working). we are back to working like we really are under a grant, meaning nothing works. my email is wonky, there is no sound on my computer right now, i have to have the main office run my final step of payroll due to the printer situation, but i am still functional!

So i read an article about a teacher who quit teaching because the work load was so high. Not just the teaching, generally teachers like the teaching part even if it is hard. But dealing with long hours, broken equipment, just the freak out of not being able to make the copies you need for your class and always making it work. the author cited how many hours a teacher in the S works as compared to some western european countries and it is huge. Meanwhile i hear that other countries offer more than we do.So there is a gap for me, and i don't have time to research this.

Any brilliant ideas for working without being able to print? i am trying to recall how i did grad school online with minimal paper use. i have 2 laptops so that may be helpful, sigh

[mtnlaurel]

My smart*#s response:
- Those divine print outs I got in grade school from the machine that is hand cranked....
I loved getting hand outs & we'd all put them up to our noses and take one long sniff!

As a parent moving to a state with less $$ to work with .... appalled at public education.
And we had the LUXURY of being picky about which area to move to. We did our research to the best of our ability.
I keep thinking, "If this is the best in a tri-county area, I'd hate to see the worst."

[ToomuchStuff]

Not sure why you think upgrading to Windows 8.1 will solve your problem? The newer os dropped off several "legacy" printers.
Also, you could probably get more help with things like model numbers (vague references don't help).

Under Linux (not sure if Windows is the same), I can choose to print to a file (and save as a pdf), so I can print that file later.
Are you capable of installing a printer over the network?

[bekkilyn]

There's currently a huge movement by corporations and many politicians to redistribute the money that would ordinarily go to public education and filter it into privatization efforts and charter schools that are largely unregulated as well as other private interests. Then class sizes get bigger and bigger and educators do not have the supplies they need to properly function and then the corporate lobbyists and politicians stand on their soapboxes going, "See, public schools are failures." Public education has been attempting to stand ground against the billionaires dabbling with "reform" and big money politicians, both democrat and republican, who use teachers as scapegoats for all the blame in order to keep people from knowing what's really going on until public education is utterly destroyed as is the goal. I find out about a lot of this stuff from Diane Ravitch's blog http://dianeravitch.net/

Yet, I'm still planning to get my math MAT and continue my plans of getting licensed to teach high school math. I'm very wary of the political climate of public education and the current war on teachers, but education is a topic that's very important to me and still seems much more meaningful than sitting in a cubicle making some CEO rich. We'll see how it goes. At least it shouldn't be boring. :)

I haven't had a printer at home in years and barely printed out anything while working at my former job. If I didn't absolutely need something printed on paper, then I didn't print it. I printed a lot of random things to a PDF file so I could organize that information, but kept it all in electronic files. For the rare document that I really need on paper, I'll currently print it at the public library (though expensive at 25 cents a page) or at school for 6 cents a page. There may be printing options at FEDEX/UPS type stores, but my need for printing is so rare, especially if it's not school-related, that I haven't looked into them. Even an occasional 25 cents per page at the library is still much less expensive than buying a new printer and/or keeping up with toner/ink cartridges.

[Zoe Girl]

YEAH~ the tech guy came over and I have 2 options for printing!! One may break quickly so I will use it sparingly (the in room older printer) but it is so important when I have a parent here and I need to get something for them after school quickly. He also set me up to the teacher lounge copier which is very reliable. Most everything can be saved as a file and sent to another place however payroll will not let me do that at all. I have to have the main payroll person print for me since we require signatures for federal funds. Now I can do that.

About 3 different ways my work got so much easier today., my camp partner is taking care of so much, the soccer organization is doing a lot more support and training for our spring program, the printer support and I need a sub tomorrow and my supervisor is coming out to help us!!

[iris lilies]

Zoe, every time I read "deep thoughts" in one of your titles, I expect to see a post by Jack Handey. hahahaha.

Ya know, Deep Thoughts By Jack Handey (which were not deep at all.) It's an old SNL skit.

[Packy]

Jack Handey, is a real person. He is mainly famous for those one-liner "Deep Thoughts" on that show on NBC. They were superficially thoughtful, but absurd. Kind of like some of the Platitudes and Homilies some of my facebook friends are constantly sharing. Several sharers, I've had to block, because they were sharing deep thoughts a half-dozen times a day. Plus, pictures of the greasy casserole they were preparing, and a constant stream of pictures of their dysfunctional offspring.

[Zoe Girl]

Zoe, every time I read "deep thoughts" in one of your titles, I expect to see a post by Jack Handey. hahahaha.

Ya know, Deep Thoughts By Jack Handey (which were not deep at all.) It's an old SNL skit.

OMG yes! I remember one where he talks about taking his nephew to disneyland and then taking him to a burned out building and telling him it was disneyland. Then not actually taking him to real disneyland because he didn't have time after all. I loved that skit,

[Packy]

They weren't skits, kids. When were they ever skits? They were just a brief interlude, with a Jack Handey quote onscreen, and Jack Himself doing a voice-over recitation of the profoundly confounding Jack Handey Deep Thought. I believe Phil Hartman also did a voiceover introduction at the beginning of each, saying: "Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey". But it wasn't a skit. Not to my recollection. Sorry. Hope that helps you some.

[Zoe Girl]

It does help, we were just having the conversation in my buddhist group about the problems with needing to be right, so i feel less attached to being right now (grin)

[iris lilies]

They weren't skits, kids. When were they ever skits? They were just a brief interlude, with a Jack Handey quote onscreen, and Jack Himself doing a voice-over recitation of the profoundly confounding Jack Handey Deep Thought. I believe Phil Hartman also did a voiceover introduction at the beginning of each, saying: "Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey". But it wasn't a skit. Not to my recollection. Sorry. Hope that helps you some.
ok ok it's wasn't a skit, it was an SNL 'thing."

[Packy]

The problems with your equipment--stuff you need to accomplish your work and the frustration that everyone experiences--those are prime ingredients for "Job Burnout"". I could go on at length--as I often do--about how employers decide that staff is cutting into the profits by having too much "stuff" and that the waste is all their fault. So, the company owners start skimping on the ingredients--like a pizza chain trying to "save money", and they end up with high turnover, low morale, less production. I've been there. Seen it. Doesn't make sense, but it happens a lot. Also, about the "skit" situation. I'm glad you two were able to man up, and admit that "skit" was a bad choice of words. "Bit" would have been better, don't you think? Maybe the board could have a special forum for "Deep Thoughts", but I sincerely hope not. There are enough of them on F-Book, as it is. Thankk Mee.