Felix Atagong
Active Member
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2003
- Messages
- 359
My hell week started last Thursday when at 5 PM a rather nervous girl rushed into my office (or pigsty) asking me where the faxtoner was. When I said that it was probably in the cupboard next to the printtoner she answered that there wasn't anymore left. Hmmm, I replied, who has been so foolish taking all the toner away (normally there are at least 5 or 6 cartridges) without saying anything to anybody? Well that wasn't her problem and it was me who had to find a solution, and fast... Now I sarcastically remarked that I knew the fax was invented by Micro$oft and that replacing a faxtoner asks for a 4-year-university-degree, but finding a toner (for a 'pro' machine) at 5 in the afternoon wasn't exactly in my league.
Do I need to explain that these faxes do a very load PING every 30 seconds starting about 24 hours in advance? I still wonder how people can ignore that sound for a full day? Unless of course they all knew there was no more toner left and nobody wanted to look after it.
But being a pro myself I phoned to our toner guy, no answer, gone home of course, so I mailed him to be a good boy and send us some toner asap. As I was myself on a long weekend the next day (Hi Ho Silver) I forwarded the mail to the girl who does all the office and paper stuff (she was of course already home). Knowing that the average person's Inbox is the same as Deleted Items, I even printed the mail, wrote on it to check with the tonerguy the day after and taped the paper on her PC-screen.
When I left the company I saw somebody busy taking the toner cartridge out of fax A and putting it in fax B (the empty one) so that its memory could be printed. And this had been going on all afternoon. I laughed all the way home...
On Monday I entered work and asked the office and paper stuff girl if she had received the toner. Nope, she said. I asked, did you phone the supplier. Yes, she said. And what did they say? Nothing, nobody answered the phone. So I phoned myself, had the person after 30 seconds on the line, and found out that the toner for that machine would take a week to arrive. Our machines are so professional that the toner has to be fabricated by buddhist monks in a monastery on the Himalaya, or something...
Did anyone try to phone another supplier, I asked? Normally these critters harrass us every day, trying to sell us toner for a Eurocent less than the previous caller, but nobody had thought about that.
We have about 10 company cars, I said, did anybody think of sending one of our sales people, to a supplier, anywhere in Belgium, because what they do all day long is counting their fingers and toes...
People were staring at the floor and the ceiling, except the guy who was still wandering between the two fax machines with the only toner left in the company.
Well, somebody extremely intelligent said, we could phone XYZ in A, he is a client from us and he sells office goods so we could maybe ask...
So ask I said... and yep, this company had the toner in stock and we didn't even had to fetch it, the client-toner-friendly-man jumped into his car and drove it to us... no extra charge... just to help us...
Well that was the first day of the week, starting on Thursday... the rest was hell as well... maybe I'll tell you later
Felix
PS: I also changed the water dispenser in the office that morning as apparently nobody had seen it was empty..
PPS: that isn't exactly in my job description, should you have wondered...
Do I need to explain that these faxes do a very load PING every 30 seconds starting about 24 hours in advance? I still wonder how people can ignore that sound for a full day? Unless of course they all knew there was no more toner left and nobody wanted to look after it.
But being a pro myself I phoned to our toner guy, no answer, gone home of course, so I mailed him to be a good boy and send us some toner asap. As I was myself on a long weekend the next day (Hi Ho Silver) I forwarded the mail to the girl who does all the office and paper stuff (she was of course already home). Knowing that the average person's Inbox is the same as Deleted Items, I even printed the mail, wrote on it to check with the tonerguy the day after and taped the paper on her PC-screen.
When I left the company I saw somebody busy taking the toner cartridge out of fax A and putting it in fax B (the empty one) so that its memory could be printed. And this had been going on all afternoon. I laughed all the way home...
On Monday I entered work and asked the office and paper stuff girl if she had received the toner. Nope, she said. I asked, did you phone the supplier. Yes, she said. And what did they say? Nothing, nobody answered the phone. So I phoned myself, had the person after 30 seconds on the line, and found out that the toner for that machine would take a week to arrive. Our machines are so professional that the toner has to be fabricated by buddhist monks in a monastery on the Himalaya, or something...
Did anyone try to phone another supplier, I asked? Normally these critters harrass us every day, trying to sell us toner for a Eurocent less than the previous caller, but nobody had thought about that.
We have about 10 company cars, I said, did anybody think of sending one of our sales people, to a supplier, anywhere in Belgium, because what they do all day long is counting their fingers and toes...
People were staring at the floor and the ceiling, except the guy who was still wandering between the two fax machines with the only toner left in the company.
Well, somebody extremely intelligent said, we could phone XYZ in A, he is a client from us and he sells office goods so we could maybe ask...
So ask I said... and yep, this company had the toner in stock and we didn't even had to fetch it, the client-toner-friendly-man jumped into his car and drove it to us... no extra charge... just to help us...
Well that was the first day of the week, starting on Thursday... the rest was hell as well... maybe I'll tell you later
Felix
PS: I also changed the water dispenser in the office that morning as apparently nobody had seen it was empty..
PPS: that isn't exactly in my job description, should you have wondered...
