Okay, so I’m stuck in an office with the fax machine in it. Not only do I have to listen to the fax machine sing its little arias all day, but I get the cream of the Accounting crop coming in to ask me about the faxes ALL STINKING DAY!
“Did my fax go through?”
“I don’t know – is that the confirmation sheet lying there by your hand that you could look at and see if your fax went through?”
“Did my fax come in?”
“I don’t know – is it in the pile of faxes that are sitting on the fax machine? No? Then it probably didn’t come in yet.”
“Did someone take my fax?”
Huge, heavy sigh. “Yes, someone came and took your fax. We are all out to get you, didn’t you know? Did you miss the memo that came around?”
“Are these all the faxes that have come in?”
“No, I have the rest of them in my desk. I oly give them out to people I like. You’re not getting any.”
“Why doesn’t this machine print the confirmation the same each time?”
“Because it doesn’t like the looks of you. Next stupid question, please.”
“Can you watch my fax for me and phone me when it goes through?”
“Yes, I am physically capable of doing that. I’m not going to, though, because I am actually doing other work.”
“Can you phone me when faxes come in for me?”
“Yes. But I won’t. Challenge yourself – try to remember to look for your faxes yourself when you walk by my office every 10 minutes.”
“Can you deliver the sent faxes to the people that sent them once they go through?”
“Actually, no, I can’t, because it never occurs to people to put their name in the “Sender” portion of the fax cover sheet. And I don’t want to do it, either.”
“Can you send this fax for me?”
“Yes, I can, while I’m feeling sorry for you that you can do up a cover sheet, get the fax together, walk into the room with the fax, then can’t be bothered to make the effort to stick the fax in the machine and punch a few buttons. Sucks to be you.”
“Why isn’t this machine working?”
“You see that message blinking on it that says “Out of paper”? You could go way out on a limb and do something crazy like, oh, I don’t know, maybe reload the paper tray.”
And so on, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.
