So we have a franking machine in the office.

As a company that sends out mostly large parcels of complicated equipment, the machine is used for the fairly limited amount of paper correspondence that goes out. In the instances that it works, it’s kind of groovy, but in far MORE instances, it sits there and chuckles at us while we vainly try to find the right Street Fighter type button combo to keep it from performing maintenance on itself.

A small example:

Frank: PLEASE PRINT TEST FORM.

Me: Oh ffs. *prints test form*

Frank: INSPECTION DUE- REFILL REQUIRED.

Me: But…you just had plenty of ink to print the test form.

Frank: OH YEAH.

Me: But you can’t print the actual POSTAGE.

Frank: YOU GOT IT.

Me: No, seriously, I really need to send this thing. You obviously have plenty of ink.

Frank: TRY PRINTING ANOTHER TEST FORM.

Me: Erm….okay. *prints another successful test form*

Frank: INSPECTION DUE- REFILL REQUIRED.

Me: What the HELL, Frank?

Frank: I LIVE BY OFFERING FALSE HOPE. A HA HA HA! HA HA HA!

Me: You do realize that Royal Mail does on-line postage, right?

Frank: A HA HA HA EXSQUEEZE ME?

Frank’s days are sincerely numbered.