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View Full Version : Petty stuff but it drives me bats



Tradd
12-13-18, 10:49pm
There is one gal in my office who has been here perhaps 18 months. Eastern European immigrant. Only a few years in our industry.

This is probably petty stuff, but it’s driving me bats.

Multiple times a day she pulls documents off the printer, pulls her stuff out, and puts everything else back on the printer with pages everywhich way. Some are facing up, some are facing down. Stuff out of order. I’ve caught her red-handed many times over many months. I’ve politely asked her to please make sure everything is facing the same way and in order. She doesn’t give a flying fig. I spend a lot of time putting things to rights when I’ve taken stuff off the printer.

A lot of time shipping documents have to be in the order they were printed out in, otherwise matching them up is difficult. There have been times when I’ve just pitched the lot and reprinted. Takes a lot less time.

Today it was especially bad and I marched into manager’s office. I told her I’d repeatedly nicely asked gal to please make sure everything was in order and she’s still doing it. I’m wasting time. She said she would take care of it. We’ll see.

Often when we pull stuff off the printer we will pass it out to the few other people who use that printer. All in small area. The same gal will pull a stack off the printer, take her one page, and dump the rest in my in box. She’s a lazy witch. The stacks she drops in my in box? Some of it is hers, some other people, one thing on top mine. I’ve told her repeatedly to stop giving me other people’s stuff, but again, she doesn’t care. People will ask me why their docs ended up in my in box. I’ll tell them so and so can’t be bothered to go through the stack. I’ve told her my in box is not her dumping ground.

I now refuse to take anything of this gal’s to her desk. It gets put on the table next to the copier.

She’s sort a golden girl. We’re supposed to take turns with one off shipments and rate quotes. Too often lately she’ll pull the “I’m too busy, can’t do it” thing, yet if the other girl and I tried that, we’d get a talking to. She uses her young son as an excuse to rush out of the office early whenever possible. Whines she has too little vacation time and complains I should give her some of mine (I get nearly a month as a result of being there 12 years and barely took half, if that, this year).

She can’t seem to do anything herself when it comes to customs issues. Refuses to do hardly anything herself. Nearly threw a fit today when I told her to call customs when an airline couldn’t see the customs clearance. It was done correctly but something was weird on the airline’s end. I gave her the number for customs and told her what to ask. If I wasn’t there, she’d have to do it herself.

Supervisor was out sick today. If she’s back tomorrow, I’m pulling her aside and unloading this on her. This crap is ridiculous.

Tammy
12-13-18, 11:31pm
We have a printer system at work that doesn’t print until you scan your badge. So multiple people can send print jobs at once, but nothing prints until they stand in front of the printer and scan their badge. I love it.

Tradd
12-13-18, 11:38pm
We have a printer system at work that doesn’t print until you scan your badge. So multiple people can send print jobs at once, but nothing prints until they stand in front of the printer and scan their badge. I love it.

Wow! I would love that!

herbgeek
12-14-18, 8:51am
A lot of time shipping documents have to be in the order they were printed out in, otherwise matching them up is difficult.

So how would she even do what you are asking, once she has removed her print job? How would she know the "right" order?

for what is worth, every where I've ever worked, the printer is a free for all. If you want something private, or not to be disturbed, you find a time when other people aren't using the printer. Or you get your own printer. They aren't that expensive. It seems that since your group is doc heavy, this might be something to ask you boss. I would just ignore someone asking me to take time to get other people's jobs in order- particularly if it was difficult to know what the order should be.

iris lilies
12-14-18, 9:53am
If I understand this correctly, and I am not sure that I do, in response to herbgeek: i would expect everyone to make an effort to put all prior print jobs in an orderly stack. Then, other people could come and find their printed pieces, having to sort their jobs from others,but still having confidence their psges are in order.

as for getting your own printer—-hahaha!

Haha....not that expensive....hahaha

haha

ok, sorry, dont mean ean to be rude, but when you work in an environment where IT runs the show you have networked printers. End of story. You don’t get your own printer ever. Maybe human resources dept gets their own printer because they have confidential information but no one else does!

SteveinMN
12-14-18, 9:54am
every where I've ever worked, the printer is a free for all. If you want something private, or not to be disturbed, you find a time when other people aren't using the printer.
The delayed-printing system Tammy mentioned may be available even without new or different printers. We had such a system at two other places I worked; one required punching in your department number (for chargeback); the other let you set up your own "PIN" so you could designate that print jobs were held at the printer until you got to the printer and entered your PIN; then the job printed as soon as the current one finished.

Not all printers or printer driver software can do this, but if it's a particular interest, it might be worth looking at the printer manufacturer's Web site to see if the existing printer driver (or a different version) might do this.

Tradd
12-14-18, 10:59am
Talked to supervisor this morning. She had also noticed everything I had concerns about. She’s talked to the gal about the printing issue before, with no change. Supervisor said she will talk to the gal this morning.

Tradd
12-14-18, 10:59am
Yes, Iris was correct.

jp1
12-14-18, 9:37pm
We have a printer system at work that doesn’t print until you scan your badge. So multiple people can send print jobs at once, but nothing prints until they stand in front of the printer and scan their badge. I love it.

That's the system we also have. I agree. It's fantastic. It's also good because people who need to print private things (like HR) can use network printers. And even better, I can go to any of our offices around the world, get on the network and print stuff if I need to because my badge will work on any printer company-wide. Not that I go to any offices other than Seattle and LA, but I could...

Yppej
12-15-18, 1:36am
Is she used to a Cyrillic alphabet? The Cambodian immigrant in our office is always giving me mail with every other envelope or two in the stack upside down. I talked to her nicely once about it, no change, and figured maybe she is used to another alphabet and doesn't pay attention. It is annoying.

Tradd
12-15-18, 2:07am
Nope. Roman alphabet. She’s been in the US for 10 years.

Rachel
12-15-18, 7:50pm
This would get under my skin too!

lhamo
12-15-18, 7:56pm
Is there anywhere near the printer where existing jobs could be placed for pickup? It does not seem too much to ask to simply lift the stack off in order and put them in a designated location. I would be annoyed by having to walk people's jobs to them repeatedly -- especially as it easily could become a habit of outsourcing labor to other more considerate colleagues.

Tradd
12-16-18, 8:06am
There is a table right next to the copier. Gal in question won’t use it. I’m leaving her stuff in that table now.

Tradd
12-16-18, 8:09am
It felt very nice to actually be validated when I talked to supervisor Friday. She agreed I had been civil to coworker asking her to handle print jobs with out getting them out of order, using my inbox as a dumping ground, etc.

Zoe Girl
12-27-18, 3:56pm
I think it is great, talking to a supervisor is always a risk in some ways.

iris lilies
4-2-19, 1:56pm
I thought of this thread yesterday as I was standing at the public library‘s copy machine.

All of the computers in the library are tied to this copy machine. So I was standing there making photocopies and intermittently other people’s IRS forms , legal forms and etc. were coming out of the pipeline and I had to touch each piece of paper to take my own stuff out and I thought wow this is such a cluster FK.

And I was glad that I was retired And had time to do this. I am taking advantage of the library’s free copies. Each library user gets 50 free copies each month.

Teacher Terry
4-2-19, 2:03pm
Printers are only 40 and more convenient.

sweetana3
4-2-19, 2:03pm
I think ours are 25cents a page. 50 free would be great but it is a huge library with 6 floors having computers on them so it could be a real mess.

herbgeek
4-2-19, 2:21pm
I used a library in Florida a few months ago, and your job would only print when you entered a code, or flashed your library card at the printer. So you could queue it up whenever you wanted, and not worry about prying eyes getting into your job.

iris lilies
4-2-19, 5:24pm
I think ours are 25cents a page. 50 free would be great but it is a huge library with 6 floors having computers on them so it could be a real mess.
Well, with our central library that is huge, there were several clusters of network printer stations so not everything in the building went to one copy/printer. Yesterday I was at a small branch library.

rosarugosa
4-2-19, 7:26pm
Herbgeek: That is what we had at work the last couple of years before I left and it was great.

Simplemind
4-2-19, 8:07pm
We all had printers on our desks along with a huge printer/copy machine that was cranking out copies 24/7. Nobody left their projects on the printer. If you were printing something you needed it and took it immediately.

jp1
4-10-19, 6:51am
I used a library in Florida a few months ago, and your job would only print when you entered a code, or flashed your library card at the printer. So you could queue it up whenever you wanted, and not worry about prying eyes getting into your job.

This!

Our printers at work do this with our badges. I didn't realize how awesome it would be until we had it. And now i can go to any of our offices anywhere in the world and use the printer just by using my badge to log in to it.