Frustration; When New Things Don't Work

    I am sure I am not alone in getting upset when a brand new thing, right out of the box, fails to work properly.  That was what happened to me yesterday.  I had bought a brand new laser color printer online and it arrived in record time.  I was so happy to have received it in just 5 days instead of the usual 2 or more weeks.  I set it up and tried printing a blurb for an upcoming art show.  

    I went to “Print” on the menu and everything was centered and nice on the computer screen, so I clicked again to send the document to my new printer.  If you look at the photo above you can see what the printer spit out.  It was vertically skewed, with a big blank space on the top and a cut off paragraph on the bottom.  I thought the printer’s paper carriage must not be set right for the right size paper, so I checked, everything was set as it should be, so I looked in the manual, and couldn’t see that anything was amiss in the settings, so I tried printing the page again, and again there was an empty space on top and the bottom of the text was cut off.  

    Many times I pulled out the paper carriage, and checked the adjustments--all fine, I re-read the paper carriage part of the manual and the “Trouble Shooting” section; everything seemed set the way it should, but again and again, the bottom of the resulting printed page was cut off.

    Finally in frustration I called Technical Support and after some waiting with the phone to my ear, an actual person came on the line.  It was someone called Joan who lived in the Philippines.  I explained my problem, and over the hour that followed she had me make several adjustments to the printer software.  None of these solutions worked.  

    I was becoming more and more convinced that the problem was not the computer software, but rather some mechanical problem with picking up the paper properly.  Finally she gave up and had me send her a copy of my receipt from buying the printer.  It sounds like they are going to send me a new one, and I will have to send this one back.  While this will involve more hassle for me, I will to do it if it means getting a printer that works, but after all the problems I have had with the one I got last time, I am  feeling pretty unsure about my purchase.  

    If I have problems with the next one, for sure I will return it and get my money back, but that of course will mean more hassle.  Sometimes my life seems way too complicated.

You can see my paintings at:  www.davidmarchant.ca