"Smart" machines that are as dumb as a post.

It used to be that if you wanted to photocopy something like a receipt, you'd plonk the receipt in the copier and hit "go" and out would come a piece of paper with a copy on it.
Not any more. Unable to sense document size is what came up this morning. No matter what I did, it wouldn't even scan the receipt. So I defaulted and put a piece of paper behind the receipt and tried again. Document size sensed 8.5 x 11 it reported, scanned the copier screen and gave me a nice warm piece of blank paper.
?
Try again, same thing - blank piece of paper. So I turned my original around 90 degrees and tried again. Document size sensed 11 x 8.5. Good sign, but again, a warm, blank piece of paper.
WTF?
Try again - same thing.
At this point I notice that the copier has in fact been changed over the weekend and this new one apparently needs the paper aligned with the right side of the glass, not the left like every other copier on the planet. So I slide the paper over to the right and try again. Document size sensed A3. Please load paper.
WTF??
It seems that because part of the receipt was sticking out over the edge of my paper, the copier thought the original was larger than it really was. So I took my receipt out, folded the end over and tried again. Well - after 2 minutes dicking about trying to get it to cancel the A3 copy, because the stop/cancel button doesn't actually do anything. I ended up cycling the power.
Finally I get a copy of the receipt.

So here's my question - with the original on the left side of the glass, the "smart" copier reported that it sensed the correct document size, but then went on to scan the right side of the glass where there was no document. And this is supposed to be helpful how, exactly...?

That's 5 minutes of my life I'll never get back. It would have been quicker to scan the damned thing in at my desk and send the bitmap to a network printer.

Comments

Myra Langerhas said…
You'll get that 5 minutes back. Some day. Good luck

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