jr conlin's ink stained banana

i'm an engineer. i hate problems. When presented with a problem, i am trained to find the most efficient direct solution and act upon it quickly.

There are times i'm reminded that others don't have that same outlook.

"Is anyone else having problems with the printer? There's like 50 documents queued up."

"Yeah, i've been using the other printer."

"Wait, did you go to the broken printer and see what's wrong?"

"Yeah, it says 'stopping job'."

"Ok, so who sent a message to IT asking them to look at clearing the queue on that printer?"

"Uhm… well."

"You. i nominate you. Send a message to IT with the printer's name and have them flush the queue and reset the printer. Then send another job to make sure it's working."

And before you ask, yes i would have sent the message myself if it wasn't for the fact that i was visiting that area and it's more effective for IT to have had someone local who works with them to fix the problem.

When you're in an emergency situation and nobody is acting, you're encouraged to take charge and delegate tasks. It's amazing how often that strategy also seems to work in non emergency situations.