Billosaur's Journal: Pet Peeve #2: Printer paper

In keeping with Pet Peeve #1, we have this follow-up installment, which is similar in nature: printer paper. When you work in an office with shared printers which get heavy use, there is always the problem of the printer running low on paper. Most printers nowadays have a visual indicator which shows you the amount of paper left in the tray, and there is always the ubiquitous blinking light that comes on when the paper tray is empty.

Now what makes this peeve especially heinous is not just that people use up the printer paper without replenishing the supply. What really gets me is when I load the printer, invariably a quarter of it is instantly used printing out jobs that have been queued for god knows how long! What's worse, apparently these printouts were not terribly important, since the owners did not go to the printer, see that their printout did not come out for lack of paper, and then load the paper themselves!

Not to go all tree hugger here, but I think people print reflexively nowadays. They don't really need the printout, but somehow they can't shake the idea of converting documents to paper. I mean, seriously, do you print out code, ever? I used to until a few years ago, then I realized I was just wasting time and resources. I don't print out web pages I find interesting, but email myself the links; assuming the link stays good, I can refer back to it any time I wish.

So the next time you go to print something, ask yourself if you really need it on paper, or if this is just a holdover reflex from the days of line printers and green-bar.

saving web pages

[nizo]

Aside from saving the link, if I think the link will disappear I will print the pages to a postscript file, and then convert it to a pdf (easy and free under linux; probably the same in Microsoft Windows World).

Re:

[Captain Splendid]

Actually, on Windows, I can skip [primopdf.com] the postscript step ;)

The $ fix

[tqft]

Get IT (is that you?) to produce a monthly report on how much the printer was used by who. Stack uncollected printouts. Let management do the math and fix the problem. Works best if they do a lot of colour printing.

Re:

[Red Flayer]

Let management do the math and fix the problem.

Something foesn't seem quite right there... something about management and math... or maybe something about preferring to let management handle something like paper consumption.

I can just see having to fill out a supply requisition form (on paper, of course) in order to request a ream of paper to refill the printer.

I have the same problem with coffee, the fax machines, copiers etc at my office. What we do is squawk fairly loudly about the "coffee bastard" o

Re:

[tqft]

It's not so much math as bottom line - we have managers and Senior Commercial Analysts who use a calculator to work out 10% of something. But they know the difference between profit and loss and can see unnecessary costs when you put it under their nose.