Old War Stories With Uncle Jay - "Cheap Ink"

Originally recorded January 31, 2024.

This is one of my favorite "computer user karma" stories of all time. Back in the day, when I was in sales at Tiny Middle, I happened to have been walking through the "triage" area we used to have set up. The idea of this was, if someone brought their computer in to be fixed, we'd turn it on and give a best guess at what it might be, and then call them with the REAL estimate. We weren't out to rip anyone off, the high prices alone would guarantee a nice bill.

A tech there by the name of Fred worked on this older couple's computer, they got a virus or something on their computer. Fred backed up their data if needed, reinstalled the operating system, and all was well. They took the machine home and could not get their printer to work. They brought the machine back and were rather irate.

Fred took a look at the machine, which they brought back in, along with their printer. He hooked it up right in front of them. Windows automatically detected and installed the printer driver with absolutely no discs or driver downloads needed. Truly plug-and-play. Why couldn't the customer do that? Great question, but they find ways to annoy us techs.

With the couple now placated, Fred goes and disconnects the system. He loads it back up in the shopping cart so they can wheel it back out to their car. He put everything in the cart, except the printer, which he did last. He put that in, then checked the bench to make sure he didn't leave anything behind, and found this mysterious black substance. It was ink. We looked around. Indeed, there was ink from the printer, ink in the shopping cart, and a trail of ink leading out of there, which conveniently went outside into the parking lot, to the back seat of their new car.

I opened the lid of the printer, and sure enough, there were "refills" or "generic" or "knock off" ink cartidges in there. I know for sure than an HP branded cartridge would have never done that, but the quality of these remanned cartridges was always suspect, at least back in the day. I love karma like that!

I've switched over to color laser about 8 years ago, at the time of this writing, and have not looked back. While I don't print much, I did print enough that I ran the printer out of toner. I had a choice---way way too expensive HP cartridges, or a set for 40 bucks. I chose the 40 dollar set. The quality isn't quite as good, but satisfactory enough for the price. Best part is that toner is a dry powder. Still makes a mess, and you need a toner vacuum to clean it up. Fortunately, I have 2.

Видео Old War Stories With Uncle Jay - "Cheap Ink" канала jaykay18