Printer Problems Revisited, Resolved

I thought I had better point out, in brevity, a few truths about deskjets, bubble-jets, and laserjets (all trademarks) first, before I progress to discussing a singular case.

1. A printer does not function the way the user thinks or expects it to function. It functions the way its designers conceived it to. This is the first truth. Refer Truth#2 for more clarity and confidence to perform your printing tasks
2. Print a test sheet–> Cut off power during the print-job–> If you’ve done this right, the sheet is now lodged in almost all of the rollers within the printer–>Bring in the electric chain saw and perform a vertical section–>By inspection, you are now enlightened and no longer handicapped by Truth#1
3. Truth#2 is uneconomical but fun.
4. Fun is frowned upon by superiors

Singular cases come in handy now. A colleague walked up to me with a printed sheet, mostly text and wished to print on the reverse. His problem being that the reverse was a continuation of the front and it needed to be uhm…well…right side up. A back-to-back job in printer jargon. I could quite understand his predicament. I took the sheet from him and held it against my face, printed side up and asked him which way he wanted to shove it in and why. I followed his line of logic and it seemed right. I would have done the same thing. I then instructed him to load the rack in the exact opposite way as opposed to what he rationally proposed. It worked.

Analysis:

Awareness of Truth#1 is critical because it forces one to reconsider the entire line of reasoning that preceded actual execution. What however, is worrying is that it took a meeting of two people to get a print-job done. A task that should need minimal or no thought at all and definitely no more than one person. The case also shows that inductive and deductive streams of logic can be twisted on the head and make anyone look like a fool. It brings to light a stream of rarely used logic – The Hunch. In fact, it isn’t a stream at all. It is a droplet, that one bit of crystal that initiates the process of crystallization of super-saturated solutions. The hunch is applicable in many situations – sports, stock-markets, shopping decisions, finding directions, intelligence and espionage, and even war.

While singular cases cannot altogether condemn traditional inductive-deductive reasoning and glorify hunch-ing, it certainly is something to build on and take notice of. Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink is on the same lines. He (Gladwell) makes you take notice of hunch-ing through cases and experiences. A mere print job is full of insights.

“Be yourself. Everyone else’s taken.”

ANON.