About a month ago, while shuffling through tons of copies of advising materials, my co-worker informed me that the copier was out of toner.

“Already? Geez, that was fast,” I’d said, noting that I’d just replaced the toner a few weeks previous. Without much thought to it, I ordered the toner from this company we have a contract with, which I’ll call “Company Direct,” which guarantees next-day delivery. I ordered two just to have a backup handy.

Anatomy of a copy machine.

A day passed, then two, three, and five. I called the Company Direct people.

Me: “Hello, I ordered some toner. Here is my order number: bla-de-bla-6-6-6″

CD Rep: “Hmm, that’s odd. I don’t show this order on the system. I guess you’ll have to enter it again.”

Me: “Oh. Uh, thanks, I guess.”

So I submit the order again, and lo and behold, turns out the item is now on backorder. Which means it could take even longer to get shipped. Hoo boy. I order it again, this time getting confirmation, and patiently await the arrival of the toner.

As there were tons of copies to be made periodically, I ended up having to use the math copy machine. I suspect karma for this post. Fortunately, though, the copy machine over there is a dream. It is amazing to behold. So fast, so free of misfeedery nonsense, even though it is used and abused by tons of math professors every hour of the day.

So a week passed, and then another week. Though the math people were very gracious about letting me use their copier (and I take back every word I said about them being robotic, they are now patron saints of the office as far as I am concerned!), still, I felt pretty bad about having to use it, oh, every day. Everything from advising sheets to exams for huge courses; I am just happy that my boss didn’t decide he needed an entire 700 page book to be xeroxed, as is his wont on occasion. I brought over our own office’s paper and everything, but my self-conscious self couldn’t help but think that maybe the math people were getting a little tired of us barging in and hogging their beautiful, heavenly machine of duplication. I would, too!

I called Company Direct again. The sales rep wasn’t sure what had become of my order, and said that someone would get back to me by the end of the day. I waited, left for the day, came back the next morning - no voice messages. I called again, complained to this new rep about how I’d been expecting a call back, and the rep apologized. She then looked at my order, and went, “hmm.”

Me: “Is something wrong?”

CD Rep: “Well, your item is on backorder.”

Me: “Yes, but it’s been two weeks. Shouldn’t it have arrived by now?”

CD Rep: “I don’t know exactly, since it’s on backorder. Items on backorder sometimes enter this ‘mystery loop.’”

Me: “Mystery loop?!”

CD Rep: “Yes, I’ll have to contact the backorder dept, and they’ll call you back.”

Mystery loop?? Seriously?

This was last Friday. The weekend passed, I came back Monday morning to find that yet again, no one from the Mystery Loop Crimesolving Team Force had called regarding my case. I called again.

CD Rep #573,280: “So sorry ma’am, I’ll get this figured out for you.”

* on hold for half an hour, the Company Direct music interjected with the CD Rep coming back to say “sorry about the wait, I’ll be back to check on you” (which was nice of her) *

CD Rep: “Ma’am? I’ve discovered what the problem is. You ordered two toners?”

Me: “Yeah, I wanted an extra one. Is that the hold up?”

CD Rep: “Actually, since this is kind of a rare toner, they won’t fill the order until the customer orders at least six.”

Me: “So how was I supposed to know this? The system let me order just two without saying anything!”

This CD Rep was very nice, apologetic, and willing to help me get my toner fix. “But since it is a rare toner, even if you order the six today, it’s going to be until the second week of November before it gets in.”

Me: “Ahh! I can’t wait that long! I work in an office! We need toner!”

CD Rep: “Ma’am, I’m really sorry…” (blah blah)

So I went ahead and ordered the six, got off the phone, and immediately began looking around for other places where I could get the toner. I found a site, and though it was a bit expensive, by golly, we needed our damned toner. A bit of explanation is needed here: since the university has contracts with certain vendors, if we buy anything off-contract, we need to request prior approval. Knowing that this needed to happen, I asked my budget go-to person, who forwarded the question on to the proper authority.

PA: “You can’t find the toner at (other contract place)? What type do you need?”

Me: “Type of toner”

PA: “Oh, those are free. You need to call this company though, the company that actually maintenances your copy machine.”

Me:

Now keep in mind that none of my training manuals ever made reference to this being the case, nor did Belle ever mention anything about having to call this company (in her defense, I don’t think she ever needed to get more copier toner; I think Jodie had probably stockpiled it during her reign of terror). Sheepishly, as I had made a big fuss to the Company Direct person (though I wasn’t terribly out of line, and anyway their customer service routine could stand improvement, like a built-in feature that actually tells your customer if they ordered wrong, dagnabbit), I cancelled the order from Company Direct, and called the proper channels to get that sweet, sweet, rarer-than-pure-heroin toner.

Me: “When do you think we’ll get the toner?”

Other Company Rep: “Well, I’m not really sure what time it’ll get there, ma’am. It’s UPS; I can give you a tracking number for it.”

Me: (ahh christ, not UPS) “I’d just like a time frame - days, a week? Three months? Will my future grandchildren ever get to see this toner?”

OCR: “Oh, goodness, it’ll definitely be tomorrow. It’s overnight delivery to Lawrence.”

Me: “Fantastic!”

Next day comes. It’s 3:00, and still no toner.

Me: “Hi, just checking up on my order of toner?”

OCR: “Yes, let me see if we sent that out. If it wasn’t sent out today, it’ll be sent out tonight.”

Next day comes. Hey, guess what?

Me: “WHERE TONER OMIGOD”

OCR: “I’ll have to call you back on that one, ma’am.”

**** later ****

OCR: “Looks like it shipped already, it should be getting there by today. Here’s the tracking number; hold on, I’ll look it up for you. - Why, it says it was delivered, before noon.”

Me: “Zuh?”

OCR: “Yeah. The note on the UPS site says no one was around to pick it up, so he left it on the porch.”

Me: “Porch? But…we don’t have a porch!”

OCR: “Hmm, that is very odd indeed.”

Me: “Wait a minute…what address do you have on file for us?”

OCR: ( lists address our office was at four years ago)

Me: “Ahh, crap.”

Four years ago, our office was stationed in this ramshackle house next to a frat/sorority bar and pizza place in the student ghetto. We’ve changed our address, but will still get mail forwarded to us by people who didn’t get the memo. Oddly enough, the copy machine place ought to have our current address on file, as they’ve sent out repair people before, and as far as I know, they’ve come straight to our office and not the old house, but…fuck it. I was sick and tired of not having toner. The clouds above loomed ominous with rain, and my toner had been sitting out on the damn porch next to a bunch of drunk frat jokers. I was on a mission, an absurd, rejected-video-game-premise mission, but an important one no less. I was to rescue the toner.

Luckily, I didn’t have to fight off any end-level bosses. The construction workers across the street might have looked at me funny, maybe because I was picking up a suspicious package from a shady, abandoned house. Probably more likely because I was sweaty, deranged and half-feral by that point, clutching my box of godforsaken, office-saving toner in triumph. Flush with victory, I immediately marched over to the coffee shop in the Union, cradling the toner in my sweaty hug-of-death, and ordered me a mocha freeza-whatchamacallit drink. On the misty walk back to the office, I downed approximately 80% of the drink and made myself immensely stomach-sick in the short space of ten minutes.

But I didn’t care, because the toner was mine.

The end. Until we run out of toner again, that is.