BOFH: The Prints of Darkness pays a visit

On the third day of BOFH-mas the sales guy took from me: 3 MFPs, 2 unasked-for shoves, and a cartridge in a cup of tea...

Episode 8 I bloody hate printers.

Not, controversially, small inkjet printers, which are mass-produced in the developing world, allowing big name manufacturers to be comfortably opaque about pollution and labor laws.  And that's even with their eye watering profits on consumables - that razor companies can only dream of. They're gold if compared to the SME grade "multifunction" printers which litter our building.  

Some are owned by the company, some are leased, and a couple have complicated contracts which can only be cancelled on a harvest moon in a leap year by repeating the word "multifunction" backwards, three times, into rotary dial telephone, after calling the unlisted phone number of a squid farmer in East Bangladesh. And leaving a message.

But all types seem to be as bad as each other when it comes to functionality.

Hardware wise (with a couple of exceptions), the machines tend to be a reasonably reliable print engine with a completely new design of toner cartridge and an under-resourced controller board based on 10-year-old technology - with a couple of expansion ports to bring it up to the 20th (but not 21st) century.

They then partially implement every networking protocol known to man, badly, and release the thing to market.

It wouldn't be so bad if the Company had 30 MFPs of the same make and model, but that never happens.  

This past week we've seen the acrimonious split of the coloured pencil office into the two new entities: "Design and Style" and "Production."  Design and Style got the printer in the divorce and Production got the microwave.   

Production, wanting to twist the knife, put in an order for a newer and fancier version of the same printer, while Design and Style, feeling the sting, put two tins of sardines into Production's microwave - on high for 45 minutes.  

After someone stole all Design and Style's office chairs things really kicked off.

In any case, where there was one printer there are now two, about 10 meters apart. And because the stakes are so small, both parties demanded access control on their printers to prevent "unauthorized use."

Sigh.

Anyway, back to my problem.

Design and Style's printer implements  Access Control via Active Directory or an LDAP server, while Production's printer implements Access Control via Active Directory or an LDAP server.

Yes, I know, it looks the same, doesn't it?

Design and Style's printer will only talk to an ACTUAL domain controller - not Azure, but will happily talk to any vanilla LDAP server. Production's printer will talk to Azure, but will only talk to an LDAP V3 server with several non-standard extensions.

After wasting a couple of days trying to implement a common access control method, I have called the printer company to get their "Implementation Lead" to come out and take a look.

In the background, the PFY has readied his heavy equipment disposal unit – a hinged plate in the floor of the lift which tilts up 7.5 degrees when the rods at the bottom of the plate engage with the base of the lift pit.   A device is loaded into the lift, sent to Basement 2, and once the lift doors open the equipment will roll its way over to the stormwater sump – a large hole with a couple of road cones and some flimsy Danger tape in front of where the heavy steel cover plate used to be. I'm not sure how deep the sump is, but I know for a fact that it can take half a dozen of Design and Style's office chairs without breaking the water line.

You've got to make your own fun in this job.

The Implementation Lead arrives in due course and explains how someone at Head office rewrote LDAP from the ground up – only better – and published it as a standard.  I try to explain what the word standard means, but he remains convinced that their LDAP is the one to rule them all. In the end, though, it turns out that this is a sales trip...

"You could upgrade the older printer with a new controller board - one that can talk to Azure," he suggests, gesturing at a cardboard box that he just happens to have with him.

"Which will cost?" I ask.

He taps away at his phone calculator for a bit and then suggests a number which is about 80 percent of the cost of the new printer that Production just bought.

"You could trade in your old printer," he suggests when I reject his offer. "I've got another of the later models in the van outside."

"Which costs?" I ask.

It's our lucky day! An upgrade, with trade-in, will cost 90 percent of the new printer cost.

Design and Style are keen to go ahead with a new printer - probably only so they can tell Production that their printer was cheaper.

"And I take it you'll need some toner cartridges?" the Sales Lead asks.

"No" I explain, "They've got a cupboard full of them.  Enough to last several years."

"Yeah, but I meant the new cartridges."

"No, it's the same model printer," I explain.

"It's a later version of the same model," he replies. "The cartridges don't fit in the new model, although the new cartridges are backwards compatible with the old printers."

Of course they are.

"So... We've got several thousands of pounds' worth of... useless toner cartridges."

"Oh we can take them for recycling," he offers.

"How kind of you," I say drily.

"There's just a small recycling fee."

"Of course there is," I sigh

An hour later, the new printer is installed and the config is copied over from the old printer. The old printer ready to go, with a King's ransom of brand new, yet obsolete toner cartridges bungie-corded to it.

I ride down in the freight elevator with the printer salesman.

"Oh, we passed the ground floor," he observes.

"Did we?" I ask, stepping back off the floor plate.

...

"Oh!" he says, as he drifts out of the lift.  "I seem to be tangled up in the... "

>Splash<

Still can't see those chairs...

• BOFH: Previous episodes on The Register
• The Compleat BOFH Archives 95-99