If you enjoy office humor, you’ll appreciate this list. There are the common places a copier is found. Offices, schools, and hospitals. Then there are the uncommon places. Military bases, prisons, and construction sites. Most are found in a clean air conditioned environment. Some can be found in super hot and dirty places such as a coal fired power plant or in the factory where they make brake pads. Then there are the downright odd places a copier is found:
#10.
Top of the mountain at a ski resort. They did not provide the tech with skis. At least the lift was available to get to the top. We had to walk down the mountain, tools and all.
#9.
On a floating oil rig. If anywhere seems the opposite of an office environment this would be it. Yet, even in such an environment, print-outs and copies are needed.
#8.
At a slaughterhouse. Not just the front office, but out on the production floor as well. It was just as gross as it sounds. I’ll spare you the details. But it was less creepy than the one in the funeral home.
#7.
On a Battleship. How else would they print out jokes and memes at sea? Of course there was one salesman who placed a copier that used a wax process on a ship. It is crucial these copiers be kept level since they have a melted wax reservoir. Needless to say this copier only lasted one voyage.
#6.
Top secret labs. Not just the ones at military bases or government contractors. There are some secret labs hiding in plain sight at office buildings and one even at a strip mall. Part of the service contract requires techs to sign non-disclosures. If word got out what they are actually doing at these places of business they have to relocate due to safety or security concerns. I swear it was the UPS guy who blabbed.
#5.
A Press box on the roof of a local stadium. No idea how they got it up there since the tech had to climb straight up a ladder to the roof. Then walk across wood planks to get to the ‘shack’.
#4.
In a refrigerated warehouse. In such low temperatures, condensation forms around the heat rollers. Also, toner tends to clump up and does not flow very well in such cold conditions. So, apart from the occasional fuser errors, broken toner drive gears, and constant flow of steam emanating from every vent, it worked out rather well.
#3.
In a two-room schoolhouse on an island only accessible by a mail ferry. The ferry ran at 7AM, 12PM, and 4PM. It was a two hour drive to the ferry and therefore a very early day. A repair could take two hours if the tech stretched it. Followed by a two hour tour of an island which had one general store and a few dozen homes. At least watching lobster boats being cleaned was entertaining.
#2.
In a bathroom. How desperate for space does an office get? Instead of the usual interruption of someone asking to use the copier, people were asking to use the other “equipment” in the room. It brings a whole new meaning to the question “Can you hand me some paper?”
#1.
On the back porch of a rural Amish farm house. It had some hay on it and serious humidity issues with the paper. But once they fired up the generator there just for the copier, it ran fine. They got permission from the community to get the copier, and the generator to run it, because there wasn’t any copy shop within 50 miles. The copier was allowed as long as it stayed out of the house and was used for very specific business purposes. Printing fliers of the local pie sale was a big no-no.
The Copier Jam
If you enjoyed that list, there’s plenty more office humor in my book The Copier Jam!
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