a special shoutout to everyone who "works with computers" and therefore is required to fix the electronics of their entire extended family over the holidays
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My late mother’s laser printer is an unstoppable tank that no longer works right only because of driver issues thanks to its manufacturer’s concerns about wifi security. The printer has no wifi capability.
I had a nightmare this week where I was forced to ride around with Elon Musk in his cybertruck as we went from office park to office park doing printer repair. Not sure what I did to deserve that.
My sister recently told me that back in the early 90's, you just plugged a printer into the computer, and the computer printed things, and I refuse to believe that could have ever been true.
You know why that was allowed?
To get the scanner working you had to mess with the Twain drivers. Printing money was pay for days of screaming and shouting!
I have a brother ink printer, just plugs in and works and I'm surprised other people even deigned to come up with (let alone accept) anything worse than that
Our Brother is old and still running, though it has had to be fixed a couple of times. And it just won't print double sided from my partner's computer.
This week I explained trackpads and Bluetooth to one friend and paired earbuds with an iPhone for another. I am 100% an Android user and had no idea how to navigate to Bluetooth settings on an iPhone, but I made it work.
I haven't ever owned a printer, but I got my mom a Mac Mini for Christmas. I needed to print something from her Brother printer and it was the best experience I've ever had. I literally clicked "add a printer" in the settings, the printer popped up, and I clicked "add". Then it worked.
Way way way back, the mainframe had high speed line printers w green bar paper. If you printed a certain file the printer sounded like it was playing “jingle bells”.
i used to translate printer manuals and one time i accidentally set the office printer on fire.
what i'm trying to say is not even people who know about printers can be trusted with printers, they're uncontrollably destructive and vile entities (the printers, not the people).
40 years ago, my uncle knew I was working with Cray-1 supercomputers, so asked me to set the clock on his VCR. Frankly, dealing with the Crays was easier.
Home printers aren’t built to be maintainable—doesn’t fit the business model. For any such printer, the steps are the same:
- Clear any paper jams
- Power cycle it
- Run the head cleaning
- Change the ink/toner
- Power cycle it again
- Buy a new printer
Much better: learn to live without hardcopy.
Scanners, friend.
Proprietary interfaces and software older than your dog.
Cantankerous and ill mannered. That is what they are like on a good day. You sweat hours and hours to just get it turn on. It seems be Okay. You put in the picture to be scanned. It makes noises and lights come on.
2/ The whirring and grinding of gears happens. The image starts to appear in the software. Black from top to bottom. Every. Time.
'Mom, just get a new one. This is from 2001.'
I came into the math lab, and the HP LaserJet III was spitting out pages with ONE CHARACTER on them. The lab monitors had refreshed the tray three times, and it was still spewing.
Apparently the business students tried to print their Lotus 123 homework, but they'd neglected to change the default printer from Okidata dot matrix, to HP LaserJet, and the poor printer was having a stroke.
trying to figure out how to clear the problem without administrative access to the print queue.
DOS was no help, nor was Windows 3.1, so I dug into the VMS help menu. After a bit of reading, I learned how to call up the list of printers across the entire campus, found the one for the math
Pretty much, yes. Outside the US, it usually means that the user is trying to print a document that is formatted for US Letter, when the printer is loaded with A4 paper. This is a giant pain to fix, because you have to either fix the format of your doc's, or tell the printer to print it anyway.
Ahem!:
PC = Paper Cassette
The error means that document is set to US Letter size paper, & that either the paper cassette is some size other than US Letter (typically A4 in most countries), or it's empty.
TL;DR: It's telling the user to load a tray of US Letter paper.
Or tell it to use A4 instead.
I have to print so many documents at work, and the number of times I have to literally demand toner sucks so bad! 😭 And no, I can't switch to electronic documents, unfortunately.
Spouse is retired low level tech guy. Friend is married to a Turing award winner. Guess who fixed her mac when she thought she lost her xmas list & hard disk?
A couple years ago a friend in tech and I as a whim decided.
If we wanted to actually solve a problem, using a subscription model what would it be.
And we came up with printers and ink.
We spoke to one friend in hardware and he almost had a panic attack about how much more complicated it was
This is so on point. My wife has worked in system services for a ginormous grocery chain that's not Kroger, and it's always me, a know nothing about systems kind of guy who is tasked with fixing the glitches in her home computer/printer connectivity. So I've got that going for me.
I just sent this to a buddy who works in IT and is in exactly this situation. Making it more interesting, his parents are in a retirement community and they love to tell their friends how good he is at it, so they are after him as well.
I spent more than an hour trying to get "scan to email" work. No luck though, I think the printer doesn't support TLS 1.2 and stopped working due to that. (It has worked in the past)
I also preface all interactions with "I don't like fixing things, don't ask me to do it. If you insist, I'm charging $50/hr + $10 hourly storage even if I'm not working on it, which is very affordable or you can shut up."
I charge my family so that does not happen anymore. I also hold computers forced on me hostage until payment is made. I'm relatively inexpensive but I charge two hourly rates: storage and labor.
this is me with my Android phone. i'm a lifetime Apple person - but as i once explained to my former boss, who was a Windows guy - it's not a religion with me, it's more like a 30+ year marriage where you can't stand each other anymore but can't imagine ever living with anyone else
Yeah, I dodged that whole obligation by working with computers -- but not Windows computers. When I was a Network Admin, I "worked with networks", but not home networking equipment. 😎
My son 11 yo: "Dad you don't understand, it just doesn't work." Me: "Just let me check". Reinserts plug reboots machine. Now it works. Honestly folks the number 1 way to fix hardware and network problems is rebooting.
This made me laugh so hard. My poor husband is a computer programmer, and he gets called on a lot to help family members fix anything and everything electronic.
I am one of those... of course, but only very reluctantly. "No, do not type the url into the search bar." "File explorer. Yes, yes you do have that. The folder on the bottom of your... why did you open email?"
Well, spent about half an hour trying to get her to answer a FaceTime call on her iPad instead of her phone so she could screen share, then settled for talking her through switching cameras on her phone so she could show me the screen, then she had to go😵💫
Oh yeah. New tablet: "Okay, now at the bottom, in the middle, press the circle." "There's no circle." "There is. Look near the bottom, in the middle." "The middle of what? Wait...I think I hit something. Now there's a pop-up." "What does it say?" "It just popped up." "No, what does it say?" 😵
Can I just say. Tech company instructions or rather lack of it are a freaking disgrace. Oh we included a web connection or a qr code or require an app. How about a nice instruction booklet that tells me how it works?
Me: *does bioinformatics.*
Family: 'Why can’t we cast this 18-minute slideshow? Also, will a 2GB thumb drive work?'
Me: *pulls head out of the cloud, laughs in command line.*
Used to be that a "good provider partner" would hunt big game or gather all the awesome fruit. These days, your Good Provider Partner is the one who can set up the wi-fi, configure your new phone, and manage an OS reinstall. :) #LoveMyGeekHusband
Hubby lives to do it. He loves it. That’s why he became a computer scientist. That said, he will not deal with apps. Set up the network, put the robot vacuum on it, etc.
In my family its “works in an office” and also I own “one of those phones” so I am called on to set up and or fix any phone that is not hard wired to the land line socket in any home in the county. Don’t get me started on printers.
I am retired from the software industry and live in a 55+ community. People are constantly asking for my help for a variety of reasons. Love being of service.
I wrote software requirements for telecommunications industry and for some reason my family/friends thought that should mean I understand hardware. That’s what tech support was for.
Hey, you un grateful entitled brat, we fed, clothed and financed your trendy wardrobe in high school. Give back a little or we will start posting your zitty teen years photos and tagging all your friends.
To be fair, the promise of playing a new game was a big incentive for us to learn how to fix our PCs.
But it takes a lot of work to research problems and to experiment until you find a solution.
If a kid knows how to fix a problem, cool, but they won't want to invest effort into finding solutions
My 12yr old grandaughter set up her new gaming laptop in about an hour. I set up my new sonos speaker and added alexa in about 15 mins, having read the terrible reviews about how doing so was impossible!
My hardware recommendation was always “buy one that someone besides me will fix.” Except for the three Windows computers my wife owns. I’ve been using a Mac so long I’m useless there.
As a graphic designer my former coworkers and my family think I'm IT 😡 I stopped helping them once I realized I was just enabling their ineptitude to learn how to use their own devices with my free labor lol #ScrewEm 😆
That beats packing them up at the police station because they stopped in the middle of an intersection and wouldn’t drive on, completely lost not recognizing it because they think it’s 1956 and all the stores are different
Repeat after me: "You don't have a virus. Viruses are old hat. You likely have malware. I won't know how to remove said malware unless I see your browser history."
I work with computers but I'm also a bullshitter and like to make things up so my family never believes me when I tell them what is wrong with the computers.
I am getting tired of family members (you know who you are) who Google for days for sneakers & call out,"Lizzi" when phone volume is soft, phone stopped ringing, document is all in bold...
Mostly I resist the urge to say, "have you heard of Google?"
Looking at some of the comments here, I'd honestly rather help my family/friends with their computer issues, then have them waste money bringing their computers into "Geek Squad" and get ripped off with unnecessary services that... I can do at their home. Pay me in pizza for all I care.
That’s my husband. He’s the only engineer I know who will help outside of work. He bought his parents new computers so he could fix them remotely. Living in Silicon Valley I have a lot of friends who are the ones you mentioned. Growing up I watched the computer and internet come into existence.
Because printer are evil and the bane of our existence. Hell is being forced for all eternity to support an office of 10,000 Windows machines of all releases, from Win95 to Windows 11, on 1 printer that support was dropped 10 years ago.
Most retailers in the U.K. now allow printer less return. Take phone to the depot / post office corner shop, they will print out after scanning QR code. Easy peasy!!
HA! You remember the fate of that printer. Every geek I know has seen that movie, my wife is amazed how many of my friends love that movie, and can relate. DEATH TO MALFUNCTIONING PRINTERS!
Every time my mom's printer screws up, I ask her if she's tried throwing it out the window yet, but she just won't listen. This has been going on for years, and she prints *everything*.
this attitude is so exasperating. fix your aunties printer already. how can all these theoretical devops guys managing automated clusters of thousands of nodes not be able to fix an issue on a network of 3 devices. it’s a ridiculous premise
So, serious answer: Of course I fix my Aunt’s printer or whatever, I’m not a monster.
But! the reason that automated cluster is manageable at all is because of excellent tools that are actively developed by the people working on them every day.
Consumer electronics simply have very poor tooling precisely because they’re intended to be managed one or two at a time, rather than by the thousands. They aren’t designed to be automated, so it’s all point and click. So they are always frustrating and tedious, and it’s a different skill!
Also — we like to have our holiday too. 🤷♂️ My extended family includes multiple lawyers but I would be mortified to have them consult on a legal issue at Christmas. It’s not what the gathering is for.
more akin to auto mechanic uncle being asked to help change a kids bike tire. a small favor that nobody would begrudge. enough elitism from the computer guys!
Sometimes, they ask. Sometimes, I just see them struggle - even if it's just this weird 8-step pirouette they go through every time - and I HAVE to do something.
Got more exhausting when I had three kids of computer age, though.
I remember how couple of years ago, people expected me to fix computer stuff. Now it's more about repairs of appliance's electronics. For example this winter I repaired two gas boilers for heating. And it makes sense because it's expensive stuff and the repairmen don't want to deal with old devices.
It's the same here, you cannot do it in a commercial way if you aren't qualified. But you can ofc do it as a help from a friend. No one cares and cannot punish that.
2nd thing I did when walking into Christmas was connect my brother's Outlook on his new desktop w/forgotten password. 1st thing I did was make a drink! Love my family!
“My game won’t run!” “The stove still says 9 pm!” “My new phone won’t connect to the WiFi!” “My console wants its fractal basin boundaries adjusted!” Nooo problem…
Me watching my elderly parents asking me how to cancel a subscription they accidentally signed up for on their Apple account and religiously scanning their laptops for malware downloaded via Yahoo News clickbait sites
i’m not even good with computers i’m just young and raised on the internet so i get to help my grandma when her tablet is slow (she has 67000 tabs open)
I put everyone on Linux Mint. My 80 year old mum can use it. Helps with the scam phone calls too, as they tell her there's something wrong with her windows, she has a good laugh.
I bought an iMac for family once because they had so much trouble with their Windows PC.
They never had trouble again until the Mac was ready to be replaced.
I'm someone who set up an entire help desk and short cuts for Photoshop at a company with people expected to use Photoshop for about 5-10 minutes a day.
At least 3 times a year, it's "have you tried turning it off and turning it back on again?". Funny how often that fixes a problem and how often people call me before trying it.
I was helping my mom set up her new computer yesterday, of course I am going to need to sign into the websites she uses. "Okay let's get outlook set up" "oh now you're gonna ask my password for that, I don't know"
Say the folks who did not pay for their 5-6 year undergraduate college degrees, their brand new car upon graduation, their first 2 years rent once employed and are still on their parent’s car insurance and cell plans, amiright?
My only credential was a job replacing cell phone parts for 6 months, but when my grandparents broke their laptop in 2013 they came to me to transfer their data and figure out how to read the Microsoft Works spreadsheets they kept on floppy disks. I guess the duty is inherited.
One of my electronics tech instructors spent a couple of classes teaching us how to troubleshoot and fix stoves, washers and dryers because families would expect that fancy education to make us into appliance repair techs.
Over the years that has saved me $$$$ in repairs and replacements.
An online account for a printer.. The printer I bought 2 years ago and have used twice and refilled with brand new $60 ink 3 months ago to print one page once again is broken and printing weird dots and lines and complains about low ink.
Not just family, but at work too. If you show any very basic troubleshooting or computer aptitude, then you will suddenly become the building IT person.
Huh No... Just no! Never call the stuff you work with "computers" call them servers, machines, mainframes, anything... But never computers. Do not allow for that "connection" to make... You will thank me for it
Things got a lot easier once I got my dad to stop using Internet Explorer or downloading literally anything his best friend sent him.
Once those two were accomplished, I gave him written instructions on how to use CCleaner and System Restore, and no longer had to do phone tech support for his comp.
i particularly enjoy fixing their iphone issues because i've never owned an iphone and they're a complete mystery to me, but i sit in front of a computer all day so that must mean i'm qualified.
(i used to translate electronics user manuals, so i can usually find the instructions and figure it out)
Ha!
I sent my daughter off to university for a four year computer course and it still falls on me to deal with everything...
Currently can't persuade a Bluetooth keyboard to connect to anything. :(
They just assume all young people even slightly competent with an electronic device know everything about computers. I was spotted texting “really fast” and in the next sentence was asked to fix someone’s phone 😭
Story of my life! “ dang it grandma! That’s the TV remote, not the telephone “ lol
Or my favorite…..
Did you restart it and or google the issue before freaking out thinking the world was ending then frantically asking me for help so you can watch cat videos!!! lol
I mean, I'd be fine if the computers were 30 years old and in a data centre in Swindon. But modern stuff? Well, have you tried switching it off and on again?
The pain is real. My parents are now moving one mile away which is better than two hour phone calls and photos trying to troubleshoot modems & routers. Love them though 💙
And another shoutout to medical professionals who have to "c'mer and look at this mole" for a concerned uncle... or because you've done professional photography are the family choice to take all of the holiday photos. I can't imagine what a caterer goes through...
I appreciate you. Having to do a restore to factory state of an iPad because no one was sure of the passcode and we were up to 20 delays between attempts to guess. But now need to download 5 GB of iPadOS updates to my MacBook across the piece of we string that is the backbone of the internet here.
Then you say, “I just work on such and such models” or “you need a new hard drive, so might as well get another computer”. Or you could just disable the first one and yell, “whoops! I wonder what that was”. Good luck.
What about those of us who don’t work with computers but, happen to be the only one who knows what type of screwdriver to use to open the battery compartment on every single toy and gadget!
Yup yup. I got to setup an iPad for Mon and my wife’s new MacBook Air. Also, fix a login issue on an Apple TV. It’s cool though. I still enjoy it, even when not being “paid” an it gets done to my specifications.
It's been over 7 years since I started working as a system administrator. Now I'm a chainsaw operator/tree walker and I still have to fix all the software/hardware messes my family has. On the one hand, it allows me not to forget, but on the other hand, I'm a bit tired of having a double career 😂
My bro was a marketing VP at IBM. While he was out, his wife used his work laptop to look up some stuff (this was probably 30 years ago, and WIN 3.1). She had so many windows open, the computer froze. I walked her through ALT/F, close. Window after window. Tedious.
Good thing about being a female computer person at this time of year is most of my family doesn't really believe I know what I'm doing with the computers anyway. 🙃
I leaned into it after being put on the spot over Christmas lunch once! Trying to pull files off a relative's fucked-up PC while everyone else relaxed. Stumbled on some hideous porn and a virus ruined my USB stick (they insisted there were no viruses and had no external media of their own).
The real kicker was a teenage relative lecturing me about how viruses don't go onto USB drives while I struggled to fix the mess he'd helped to make of the computer and tried to not have the younger kids around get an eyeful of the porn. I forgot I had a degree in computers from that day forward. 🤣
Convince them to get Apple products. They’ll resist at first but soon they’ll thank you and it will be easier and less necessary to fix their problems.
You’ll still need to deal with Apple’s godawful settings app but at least it’s not Windows’ 400 settings apps written over 35 years.
My father-in-law was calling me once a month to help him with his windows computer. When he refreshed I got him to get a Mac, and my tech support calls went to nearly zero. Best sales job of my entire life.
It's their own damn fault for ever having told anyone that they work with computers. In my entire 35+ year career in bit twiddling, I either told people that I was a sheet metal worker or that I did industrial housekeeping.
We had computers in the house in the 80's. Dad is still mildly tech inclined, but both he and mom still have to come to me for help. My mom in particular just refuses to actively learn/has a learning disability and can't, and so it usually means I also get screamed at as I help!
I "work with computers". I resent being asked for advice on cloud computing, AI, what printer to buy, and how to get someone's voice assistant working. I don't have a clue how any of them work, so leave me alone. Thanks.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-BD33rz-4k
You know why that was allowed?
To get the scanner working you had to mess with the Twain drivers. Printing money was pay for days of screaming and shouting!
It is as if by magic and they don’t screw you with a toner lockout either
This week I explained trackpads and Bluetooth to one friend and paired earbuds with an iPhone for another. I am 100% an Android user and had no idea how to navigate to Bluetooth settings on an iPhone, but I made it work.
I'm shocked
So I’ve got that going for me.
what i'm trying to say is not even people who know about printers can be trusted with printers, they're uncontrollably destructive and vile entities (the printers, not the people).
- Clear any paper jams
- Power cycle it
- Run the head cleaning
- Change the ink/toner
- Power cycle it again
- Buy a new printer
Much better: learn to live without hardcopy.
Proprietary interfaces and software older than your dog.
Cantankerous and ill mannered. That is what they are like on a good day. You sweat hours and hours to just get it turn on. It seems be Okay. You put in the picture to be scanned. It makes noises and lights come on.
'Mom, just get a new one. This is from 2001.'
Username: ********
Pass: ****************
>_ DISMOUNT QUEUE SYS$PRT241
> completed
>_DEL QUEUE SYS$PRT241
> completed
>_MOUNT QUEUE SYS$PRT241
> completed
>_SHOW QUEUE SYS$PRT241
>Printer SYS$PRT241 online and waiting for jobs
>_LOGOUT
>Goodbye.
MSKermit: exit
C:\
Yes, all self-taught, out of necessity.
I came into the math lab, and the HP LaserJet III was spitting out pages with ONE CHARACTER on them. The lab monitors had refreshed the tray three times, and it was still spewing.
I logged in and checked the
/ 1
Apparently the business students tried to print their Lotus 123 homework, but they'd neglected to change the default printer from Okidata dot matrix, to HP LaserJet, and the poor printer was having a stroke.
So in usual hacker fashion, I started
/ 2
DOS was no help, nor was Windows 3.1, so I dug into the VMS help menu. After a bit of reading, I learned how to call up the list of printers across the entire campus, found the one for the math
/ 3
She used to go to swap meets (flea markets) to buy, repair and resell printers for some extra cash.
Today she has a great corporate IT job.
PC = Paper Cassette
The error means that document is set to US Letter size paper, & that either the paper cassette is some size other than US Letter (typically A4 in most countries), or it's empty.
TL;DR: It's telling the user to load a tray of US Letter paper.
Or tell it to use A4 instead.
(when my thousand dollar Canon was having roller bar issues, I wouldn't have been able to get a new roller bar)
Yes, I programmed them. It was just inputting a series of numbers to make the tower send the correct signal.
If we wanted to actually solve a problem, using a subscription model what would it be.
And we came up with printers and ink.
We spoke to one friend in hardware and he almost had a panic attack about how much more complicated it was
It’s demons.
I actually do!
I've spent countless hours trying to explain how to set them up correctly.
No one listens.
I've written internal help articles on how to do it and why it's important to do it correctly.
People ignore them.
I built print servers that worked.
New people ruined them.
You'll need my advanced class if you want pictures with the words.
“Oh, I remember hearing about that. Apparently they hadn’t paid their donation to Donald Trump.”
I'M SORRY GRANDMA, JUST BECAUSE I MANAGE ADVERTISING ON 100 WEBSITES DOESN'T MEAN I CAN FIGURE OUT WHY YOUR WIFI KEEPS DROPPING CONNECTION.
i hate that i've kind of turned into the dad now 😹
https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
My grandma has a locked down android phone where she can't change settings on.
Everything possible has remote access so I can solve issues within minutes rather than travel through the entire city.
You have to travel through AN ENTIRE CITY?! To see your grandma?! During the holidays?!
Will this nightmare ever end?
My dad asked me to fix his computer once (the memory chip was fucking fried idk how he pulled that off)
Family: 'Why can’t we cast this 18-minute slideshow? Also, will a 2GB thumb drive work?'
Me: *pulls head out of the cloud, laughs in command line.*
But it takes a lot of work to research problems and to experiment until you find a solution.
If a kid knows how to fix a problem, cool, but they won't want to invest effort into finding solutions
“Hey can you recommend me a good laptop?”
“Dad?? I work with databases not hardware”
So felt…
I am getting tired of family members (you know who you are) who Google for days for sneakers & call out,"Lizzi" when phone volume is soft, phone stopped ringing, document is all in bold...
Mostly I resist the urge to say, "have you heard of Google?"
Turned out to be a password issue. I told her she needs a new astrologer too, as Mercury was actually in prograde.
Then I print the return label.
Every. Single time.
Can someone just make a thermal return label printer?
Best decision I’ve made.
But! the reason that automated cluster is manageable at all is because of excellent tools that are actively developed by the people working on them every day.
- 1 tv
- 1 smart watch
- 2 smartphones
Got more exhausting when I had three kids of computer age, though.
"First, who's ex. Second, who wants to come with me to go get my router so we can move forward without kicking off a divorce or two."
The iPhones were cheap compared to the time dedicated to explaining how to do everything on them. That was the real gift.
They never had trouble again until the Mac was ready to be replaced.
I never get so lucky.
Then her brother married a woman who worked in IT and I vanished like Homer into the shrubs.
😭😭
Over the years that has saved me $$$$ in repairs and replacements.
Me: “What kind of computer do you have?”
Customer: “It’s kind of beige”
They want you to fix their shit, get your accounts and antivirus, and make a bloody mess of your place.
at least people don't bother me while im working, mostly
Fuck you, Mom. Stop distracting me from my phone. Where is my Christmas dinner?
If w can’t use it what fucking good is it?
And please stop using AOL! Haha.
Was product manager for a web-based application in the gambling industry.
We were trying to get a big name to use it and give feedback, but he couldn't get it to work.
Finally convinced him to do a screen share.
He was using the AOL browser and 800x600 resolution.
Once those two were accomplished, I gave him written instructions on how to use CCleaner and System Restore, and no longer had to do phone tech support for his comp.
(i used to translate electronics user manuals, so i can usually find the instructions and figure it out)
I sent my daughter off to university for a four year computer course and it still falls on me to deal with everything...
Currently can't persuade a Bluetooth keyboard to connect to anything. :(
Only hang up is convincing my mom to go along with it😭
their phones have notifications enabled and have volume up already. we confirm by texting them both.
grandpa at least had his message notifications off…
Or my favorite…..
Did you restart it and or google the issue before freaking out thinking the world was ending then frantically asking me for help so you can watch cat videos!!! lol
Getting something to actually print requires some level of prayer.
Collective groan arises from table.
Is he technical? oh hell no, it’s just because he works for a tech company.
You’ll still need to deal with Apple’s godawful settings app but at least it’s not Windows’ 400 settings apps written over 35 years.