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Evil computers sense you’re in a hurry and mess with your head

And printers play silly buggers for fun

That's it, you bastard machine

Print.

Error 51: Consult service manual.

Let’s see what happens if I try to print from my wife’s computer… ah, it says it can’t find the printer. Like the plumber, I have begun talking to broken things, except in my case, I have been shouting: “Print, you stupid bastard!” Now I find myself berating my wife’s computer too. “What do you mean you can’t find the printer?” I scream, pointing to the far corner of the room. “Look, it’s over there, dickhead!”

The cat has wandered into my office to see what I am doing. He looks up at me. He looks at the printer. He glances at me again, then leaves in order to return to rip the silk curtains to shreds. Oh, how I wish I was a stained-glass craftsman or my cat.

Print.

Error 51: Consult service manual.

You know, this printer has an attitude problem. As you might expect, I don’t own a service manual for the device so I can’t consult it to find out what Error 51 means. But, of course, the printer knows that and is just saying this in order to piss me off.

Actually, it’s worse. By reporting an error message that only an engineer will understand and by referring to a service manual that only the engineer has access to, my printer is effectively talking behind my back. No, it’s more blatant than that: it’s deliberately talking over my shoulder. It is bypassing the thicko in front of it to talk to someone it deems more worthy of its tender attentions. It’s like the chauvinistic executive who, when introduced to Virginia Rometty, says: “Move over, sugar-tits. Where’s your boss?”

Drastic measures are in order: I unplug everything connected to the office and, my plans to catch the train now abandoned, storm off to the living room in order to SMS today’s client with excuses and apologies while watching a recorded episode of Humans.

An hour later, all the machines are back on again and the printer sulkily agrees to print my documents after all. I can tell it’s in a sulk because, even though it is printing again, it does so while flashing up the occasional “low toner” message.

My print job hangs halfway.

Error 51: Consult service manual.

Then my computer loses its internet connection. My wife’s computer is perfectly happy, though. I turn back to my computer and call it names. I then notice that some of the blinking lights under my desk are not blinking as they should be. Is it my Ethernet cabling’s turn to be an arse?

After swapping the cables around between ports in every conceivable permutation, and swapping out some of the cables entirely, I accept defeat and enable Wi-Fi on all devices. Then I calmly unplug the Ethernet switch from the mains… and kick the fucking thing out of my office, down the fucking hall, through the fucking kitchen and into the fucking garage for fucking refuckingcycling.

I hope the printer was watching. ®

Alistair DabbsAlistair Dabbs is a freelance technology tart, juggling IT journalism, editorial training and digital publishing. He generally has good luck with computer kit and this is why he finds it so fascinating that it only begins seriously misbehaving when he is in a hurry. At all other times, computers work flawlessly. As he asks, how do the bastards know?

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