'The company is losing thousands of dollars every single minute': Printer room worker forced to train their lazy replacements who refuse to listen, costs the company "tens of thousands"

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Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Aug 20, 2023 12:00 PM EDT

Printers have been the bane of many office workers' existence since the dawn of the printing age, with networking issues, mechanical failures, and permanently low toner/ink levels making tasks that should be easy and simple incredibly frustrating instead.

Back in ye olden days of the 1990s, this print room worker managed the printing room of a shipping operation, operating the company's large and finicky dot matrix printers.

If you've ever worked in a traditional warehousing or shipping joint, you're probably familiar with dot matrix printers; these printers use the (often) blue and white lined paper with sheets that are interconnected and have holes down the sides that can be torn off. They're still commonly used for pack lists at distribution companies and other similar entities.

But, back in 1990, the machines printing these were more primitive, much larger, and probably more prone to failure, requiring a worker or two to manage the machines and keep things operating and running smoothly.

This worker received detailed training when they started, working as a two-man team with another worker in order to ensure there was no downtime during required printing times. When their coworker handed in their duo, the pair attempted to train a new hire who proved to be too unmotivated. 

For some reason, this led the company to lay off the print team altogether and bring in two other nepo-hire workers from elsewhere in the business. It was easy to see why someone was eager to get rid of these two workers since they, too, proved to be incredibly lazy. Despite the worker's best efforts to train them, the pair refused to listen to anything; this would set the company up for massive and expensive failure a short time later…

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  • 01

    "These printers were temperamental [...] and if the paper jammed, the printer did not automatically stop printing. It would just keep pushing/jamming more and more paper into the machine until, if left untended, it would break down."

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    via Mufid Majnun
  • 02
    Font - Laid off and replaced by 2 lazy, privileged waffles LOC I used to be in charge of the printer room in a rather large company. We shipped a shit ton of product every day, and everything shipped had to have the accompanying printed label/documents. Nothing can even be loaded onto the trucks without this paperwork. Now this was in the olden days of the 90s, so we had seven massive, 4-foot tall dot matrix printers that did all the work.
    via u/ActualMis
  • 03
    Font - These printers were temperamental bastards, and if the paper jammed, the printer did not automatically stop printing. It would just keep pushing/jamming more and more paper into the machine until, if left untended, it would break down.
    via u/ActualMis
  • 04
    Font - Running the printer room was a 2-person job. When I started I trained for 2 full weeks with the two current printer room employees (one was being promoted, I was replacing him). It was a rough f'n two weeks, let me tell you, getting the hang of the job, the various things you had to learn, do, etc. One thing that made it even more complicated was the fact that each printer had it's own personality with it's own problems. Another was the fact that a problem in one printer could have a diff
    via u/ActualMis
  • 05
    Font - The job would be quiet for 45 minutes straight, during which we did routine maintenance and such, but was really slow and quiet and restful. Because this company processed it's shipping orders in batches, once an hour. And then boy, on the hour, every hour, the batch of orders would go through and thousands and thousands of orders would come spitting out.
    via u/ActualMis
  • 06
    Font - Now, if you were on top of things and kept everything running smoothly, the orders would print out very neatly and quickly. But if you didn't know what you were doing, if you didn't maintain things just right, you'd get a back up and things would go to shit very, very fast. And when one machine went down you had to fix it FAST, before the next one jammed, because guaranteed those machines would jam up multiple times on every batch print job.
    via u/ActualMis
  • 07
    Font - So I've been working the print room for several months, and things were great. Then my coworker gave his 2-weeks notice. We tried to train my replacement, but he was incredibly lazy and got fired fairly a few days after the end of his training. Which left me in the printer room alone.
    via u/ActualMis
  • 08
    Font - Then the bosses inform me that my "position" is being phased out, and I am going to be replaced by two employees transferred from a different department. So not only am I losing my job, but I have to train my replacements. And I desperately needed a good recommendation from this company, so I couldn't just quit or half-ass it.
    via u/ActualMis
  • 09
    Font - I quickly learn that both of these transfers are lazy and useless. They'd been with the company for decades, had friends in the head office, and knew their jobs were safe. I'd show them how to do something and they'd flat out laugh and say, "Yeah, I'm not doing that". Every day I'd be trying to train them and they would ignore me, chat with each other, leave to go sit in the cafeteria. Leaving me to do a 2-person job alone. Luckily I was good enough to handle the workload, but it was anno
    via u/ActualMis
  • 10
    Font - Mindful of the fact that I needed a reference of this company, I kept extensive notes on each day's progress. I clearly documented every single instance of the replacements refusing to learn, even listen to my instructions. I also followed up daily with my direct supervisor, and he knew what was going on. And my notes went into the company files and were passed up the line. Despite my scathing reports, head office did nothing.
    via u/ActualMis
  • 11
    Font - Now it's my last day. This is the day the training process assigned for letting the newbies work alone, with no help or supervision allowed, to see how well they handle the job and the pressure. I was, in writing, forbidden to help them or answer any questions. As I expected, things fell to shOpretty much immediately, minutes into the first batch of orders. One of the biggest printers jammed, and the clueless twats had no idea how to fix the printer jam. Because they ignored me every time
    via u/ActualMis
  • 12
    Font - So they turn to me, and demand that I fix things. I'm sitting on a desk, coffee in one hand, an apple in the other, and smile and say, "Yeah, I'm not doing that". So one of them is yelling at me while the other is basically thumping uselessly on the printer like a gorilla that just found a candy machine. Then a second printer jams.
    via u/ActualMis
  • 13
    Font - Paper starts spilling out of the back of the first printer (which, if you knew the job, was a really, really REALLY bad warning sign). "Well, I'm going to go to the cafeteria, good luck!" I say as I stand up. As I'm leaving a hear a third printer cccrrrruuunnnch and jam up.
    via u/ActualMis
  • 14
    Font - I went to my supervisor and let him know what was happening. He said he not only expected as much, he had predicted so repeatedly to his superiors. He once once again specifically forbade me from offering any help. So I went to the cafeteria and read my book for a little over an hour.
    via u/ActualMis
  • 15
    Font - Then my supervisor comes to me to let me know what happened. The entire printer room is down, every single printer either jammed up or actually broken. The company is losing thousands of dollars every single minute. One of the shipper/receiving supervisors finds me, all in a panic, begging me to get the orders printed. "Sorry, I'm not allowed to do that," I replied. Now several people are running around outside the cafeteria, all in a panic, running from place to place to figure out why t
    via u/ActualMis
  • 16
    Font - The chaos took HOURS to resolve. And I wasn't allowed to fix the problems. Any time someone started giving me a hard time, my supervisor would intervene and show the memo from the bosses stating that I was forbidden to help in the printer room that day. I spent my entire last day at work drinking coffee, chatting with coworkers, and reading my book. The whole fiasco ended up costing the company tens of thousands of dollars.
    via u/ActualMis
  • 17
    Font - Everyone_dreams Sucks they did that to you. Way to go to your boss for letting it all go up sho creek to show the higher ups how dumb this was. MUA 3.5k ActualMis OP Reply Share Thank you. I'd like to say the higher ups learned their lesson, but the replacements just got shuffled off to some other department. 1.9k ●●● Reply Share
    via u/ActualMis
  • 18
    Font - TolverOneEighty Such a satisfying story! Hope you got that reference too. 833 ActualMis OP 766 Reply Share Thank you! Yeah, the references were great. They were really good about it. Reply Share Ok_Leadership_7297. ●●● 133 They didn't try to get you to stay after that? Reply Share
    via u/ActualMis
  • 19
    Font - SuDragon2k3 I had accumulated enough leave to take two months off. I gave the bosses enough time and they sent me a body to train in the ways of making big reels of paper into small reels of paper, and how to load these small reels onto The Machine That Must Always Run. This was the start of December as I was taking January and February off. Guy wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but the basics aren't rocket science and there would be others there who knew the job, but had their own
    via u/ActualMis
  • 20
    Font - I got him up to speed, despite losing a week due to him getting sick, and went off to my break sure in the knowledge my position was covered and production would roll on. I found out when I returned that he'd lasted one day after the Christmas break, damaged the paper splitting machine, got the shio and walked out telling nobody. 132 Reply Share
    via u/ActualMis
  • 21
    Font - Atmaweapon74. You saying "Yeah, I'm not doing that" back to them was cheff's kiss. ↑ 230 Reply Share
    via u/ActualMis
  • 22
    Font - eisbaerBorealis The whole fiasco ended up costing the company tens of thousands of dollars. *Homer Simpson meme* It's cost them tends of thousands of dollars SO FAR. 63 Reply Share
    via u/ActualMis

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