For Want of a Nail

For Want of a Nail

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

I know, I know I'm being melodramatic here, but how many times in a office do things grind to a halt because the copier doesn't work--and no one knows how to fix it or even change something as simple as the toner or the paper?

Or again, a machine that should be so simple to operate just flummoxes you?

Office machines just keep getting more and more complicated, and it should be the other way around. What ever happened to the computer industry's long-ago promise that computers (and what are copiers and faxes except dumbed-down computers?) would be as simple to use as toasters?

I was just trying to fax some receipts. The fax machine seemed to work. I mean, this is a software problem as much as anything. The machine seemed to be doing something, I just don't know what it was that it was doing, and I wasn't getting any visual confirmation. No receipt. No readout on the little monitor that my receipts were being transmitted and I would get a check in the mail.

And then, no receipt of the fax. Just some cryptic message that said check paper size. I did. Okay. I checked. I did what you commanded me to do. I'll do a bit more. I'll add paper, thinking maybe there's a sensor going hay-wire. Nothing.

There are all kinds of buttons, but the only partially logical button is the cancel. To hell with it, I'll cancel and if that doesn't work I'll just refax it somewhere else and just flood the vendor with faxes.

But that seems to work, because lo and behold, the machine starts spitting out receipts of sent faxes, dating from back at the end of February. So people have been just faxing and not fixing the machine. Great. I guess I'm missing something about office etiquette. Just don't think of your fellow worker; just keep the machine limping along.

On one of the most decisive days of the presidential race, the biggest thing on my mind is the stupid fax machine. Tip O'Neil was right: all politics are local.