14 min read

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3 days ago

There are two types of people in the workplace: those who fear printers like demonic relics from a forgotten age, and those who are lying about it.

This is the story of one such printer.

Its name was HP-LaserJet-4000-FU2.

The day started like every other Monday: dread, coffee not hitting hard enough, and a login screen that judged me silently.

I was five minutes into trying to remember my fourth password this week as ‘WelcomeBack123!’ had apparently been compromised by my cat stepping on the keyboard…when a scream, from Accounting of all places, shattered the corporate air.

No one walks toward a scream from Accounting. No one.

That’s how you end up doing someone else’s spreadsheet for the next six months.

But today, curiosity won out and my will to live was already hanging by a single Ethernet thread, so, I peeked in.