Reactor leak in tray 2 · 2008-04-07 16:44
I work with some of the biggest brains in the industry.
A harmless, stupid joke I played has resulted in a reflection of the chronic skill shortages plaguing IT departments in this country. Or perhaps a state-wide dietary fibre deficiency.
With HP printers it's possible to remotely reconfigure the little LCD screen to display a message of your choice. Using this list of messages, I modified this script to pick a message at random and display it on the communal printer. I also added a few pearlers of my own including the classic REACTOR LEAK IN TRAY 2 ("...continues to baffle users to this day." - hah!).
As nothing surprises me anymore, I was not in the least bit shocked or amused when someone who I had shared the joke with forwarded me the following:
Hi Service Desk, Printer ABC123 located in the widget area in XYZ is displaying the following messages: Radiation Leak Need a Mint? Insert $2.00 Obviously someone has configured this printer to display these messages, some of which we find amusing. But, the Radiation Leak message is NOT. Some people think that this message is valid and are quite concerned. Could you please reset the printer to display the correct messages.
These are people who are surprised to find that subversion supports non-locking checkouts! Surely thou art a witch with such magic!
Thus concludes today's rant about the quality of the geekiness at my work.
awww shit. i just had myself a good laugh over this bit. nice work man. i should borrow that script and apply it to printers everywhere in the company i’m working for now…
— factory_peasant 2008-04-22 14:57 #
Glad to see you’re still around dude!
http://wlazlo.net/code/hpsetdisp.pl
Enjoy :-)
— Matt 2008-04-22 17:52 #
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