Why your printer doesn't work
A technology company operating out of Stockholm has developed what it believes will be a whole new concept in printer technology.
"Most commercially available printers have an inbuilt fear of paper and an inherent antipathy towards ink," says Edvard Persson, CEO of Draugr Technologies. "Ask them to print out a document and they will spend about ten minutes receiving data, another fifteen cleaning the print head, eight minutes telling you to wait for no specified reason and then ultimately they will inform you that the document cannot be printed because there is a paper jam.
Paper jam
"There is no paper jam, of course, but that won't stop the printer repeatedly telling you to clear it. You're then stuck in a stalemate - you obviously cannot clear a non-existent fault, but neither can you cancel the print job, since the machine will steadfastly continue its attempts to perform your instruction in spite of all your attempts to stop it.
"Short of taking an axe to the thing there is nothing you can do to persuade it to desist. And even then there's no guarantee - reduce the bastard machine to a thousand splintered fragments and each of those pieces will still retain the memory of the task you gave it to perform, even though there was never any intention of actually carrying it out in the first place."
Unequal to the task
Researchers at the company have spent the last four years trying to resolve the problem and have come to the conclusion that most modern printers are simply unequal to the task of coaxing a 0.342mm thick sheet of material through a roller and simply surrender before they even attempt such a Herculean feat.
The plain fact is that, despite all the miracles that modern technology has achieved, no one has worked out how to put a piece of paper in one end of a printer and get it to come out the other without fucking losing it somewhere in the middle.
Frustrating
"It's frustrating," says Persson, "and we feel your pain. We've spent many, many hours shouting, cursing and screaming at equipment, but all to no avail. Turns out that printers are actually quite sensitive souls and react negatively to abuse.
"We have therefore initiated a programme to help empower our equipment and bolster its confidence. All of our printers undergo many hours of therapy before we release them onto to market, making them better able to cope with the stresses and strains of office and domestic life.
"By the time it reaches the customer it should be fully adjusted to its role as a printer and able to carry out that function without constantly issuing feeble excuses like the cringingly inadequate, badly designed, woefully engineered, shoddily constructed, criminally overpriced, laughably under-powered, pitifully ramshackle, embarrassingly shabby piece of junk that it really is"
Congratulations on purchasing your new Printy Inkbuddy 4000!
The Inkbuddy 4000 is the perfect addition to any office, study or dining area and we are confident that its modern design and elegant lines will provide hours of endless pleasure.
In the unlikely event that you actually want to use it for printing, we recommend that you observe the following instructions for the best results.
Insert paper into feed tray, ensuring that it is aligned with the paper guides, and select print on your PC or device.
Please do not load more than three sheets into the feed tray at any one time as this will confuse the printer and invalidate the warranty.
Wait for approximately three minutes while nothing happens, then press print again.
Press print two or three more times just for luck. The printer will then suddenly draw two sheets of paper from the feed tray at an angle. These will then immediately become crumpled and jam the machine. Remove paper and start again.
This time, put only one sheet into the feed tray, press print and hold onto it as it is fed into the machine to keep it straight. This will ensure that it is drawn smoothly into the printer before becoming entangled in the internal roller and jammed under the print head.
At this point a number of lights will probably be flashing and you may see an error message displayed on the screen. These will be of no help whatsoever.
Open the rear access panel and remove any jammed paper. Open the side access panel and remove any jammed paper. Open the front access panel and remove any jammed paper.
You will by now have removed roughly four times as much paper as you fed into the machine in the first place. If the printer is still registering a paper jam error - which it will be - open the secret access panel and remove the remainder of the paper.
Note: the secret access panel is not present on all models. We are not at liberty to tell you whether it is present on your machine, or where you can find it.
If the printer is still registering a jam, apply moderate pressure to the exterior casing. You may find it helpful to issue a series of encouraging statements, expressions of mild frustration or oaths.
If the previous steps have failed to yield positive results, you may wish to consider upgrading to the Inkbuddy 5000 which boasts a scanner, dual paper feeds and a slightly longer power cord.
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