I braced myself.
"Now. As you know when you print a case from Westlaw it comes out at the printer by my desk. That you know, so I don't have to tell you that part. OK. Now. Do you know why when you print something it's processed by tray 1? O-N-E? 1? Do you know why?
"It's very curious because only your print jobs come from tray one and every one else's come from trays two or three. So I was just wondering if you knew why your jobs are coming from tray one. It's just very curious, you see. Very curious indeed why yours would be in tray one and everyone else's in trays two or three.
"You know the clerks from last year, they never printed anything from tray one. They had all their printing from tray two or three ALL YEAR. That's how it worked for them. That's what they did. So I was just curious. If you knew anything about that. Because it's very strange what's happening in the printer up by my desk. Very strange and curious."
"Well, Ilene," I said, "I'm not sure why mine are coming from different trays. I don't know. All I do is hit print doc then stand alone printer. I don't know how I could have any impact on which paper tray the printer chooses. I just don't know."
"Well, Brian, did you ever put any paper in tray one?"
I thought about it for a second. "Yeah. I filled all the trays when it ran out of paper. I thought I was supposed to."
"Oh." Ilene looked very sad. "Oh, see, there's the problem. That's what did it. We don't put paper in tray one. We don't put paper there at all. So when you put paper in the tray one, it started using that paper. That's why."
"Well, why don't we put paper in the first tray? Those printers usually shift automatically from tray to tray when they're empty. I just thought filling all the trays would keep us from having to fill it as often. That's all I thought."
"Well, We don't fill tray one, so that none of the print jobs get done from tray one. Because if there is paper in the tray the printer will use the paper. If there's no paper in tray one then no jobs get printed from tray one and that solves the problem."
"Yes, but I still don't understand. What problem? What problem are we solving by not putting paper in tray one? What problem is that?"
"Look, Brian, there's no problem. I'm not angry or anything. I was just confused about why your jobs were being processed from tray one. That's all. It's not like you can be disciplined for this or anything. There's no problem."
"Disciplined? What are you talking about?"
"No, we won't discipline you for this. You're new, you didn't know the rules. That's ok."
"Ilene," I began, "you're making no sense to me. How about this. How about if I don't put any paper in tray one. How about if I consider tray one to be off limits. How about that."
"Brian, that's all anyone is asking. That's all." She patted me on my head and turned to leave. "Oh, and happy birthday!" I heard her call out as she disappeared down the hall.
Posted at 12:23 p.m.
previously on Sooner � next on Sooner
last five entries