This post had an odd synchronicity for me given that I just saw Get Smart this weekend and one scene from the movie was about that very thing—someone angry about someone else failing to unjam a copier.
In the last week, I have changed (and was OCD enough to keep track thereof) the bottle on the water machine six times. Each time, I'd arrive, note the foggy, empty bottle, flip the spigot and get a teaspoon or three of liquid and then huff over to the cabinet with the spares and swap it out. I realize that some folks don't want to be schlepping about the (heavy/awkward/ill-favored) five gallon bottles of water, but please at least tell someone. It is not a party foul to empty the machine down past its Baptist Dribble if you take pains to make sure it is refilled.
I am a big guy, so people tend to ask me -- I think I have to do it less when they are just inconsiderate. I am also in IT, so people tend to ask for help with the copier as well. Fortunately the copier is under the HR Department and they do not want IT messing with it. Politics, you got to love it.
.........that special place is adjacent to the place for TP and paper towel dispenser related offenders .......which is just below the place reserved for milk and juice container miscreants.
Serendipity - I've just been pondering Kohlberg's layers of morality. Let's see -- morality as fear of punishment? I suppose most people don't expect to be caught and hung from the paper tray if they don't unjam the machine. -- morality due to expectation of reward? Again, I suspect most people do not expect to get a golden sheet if they unjam the works. -- morality because one wants to be a good person? This is perhaps one we could work on. Good people unjam machines. Sounds like a possibility. -- morality as part of social expectations. This is clearly what we would like unjamming to be considered. We've got a ways to go, but then, this is also one of the higher levels of morality (which means many people aren't there yet) -- morality as social contract. Hah! As a member of this business community, I will unjam machines and do other picareseque random kindnesses and senseless acts of beauty. Yes, that's the ticket. -- morality as principles. Based on principles, I will unjam copy machines? Well, yes, keeping the works going does seem like a basic sort of principle.
Perhaps the right approach is to write about the corner in the 3rd ring of Hell that is reserved for those who fail to unjam copy machines. There the lost souls wail as they are ground slowly over and under and through the heated works, then have small burning chads dropped on them as they pause. And that's just the beginning - you wouldn't believe what the devils do with those used toner cartridges!
Following on MBarker's thoughts about levels of morality, I think we could make unjamming the copier a specific instance of the more general mandate that Grown-ups Clean Up After Themselves.
Yes, along with the photocopier toner replacement-refuse-niks. I worked somewhere once where I went away for a week's leave, came back to find the new toner cartridge sitting on my chair waiting for me. They'd gone a whole week with rotten quality copies because nobody else "knew" how to change it... burn, demon spawn.
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a special place in Hell
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And, I'd get smoodgies on my hands.
(Designated Key-Operator, 3 years running, at my college's library)
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And also the water-machine
*grump*
Re: And also the water-machine
I am also in IT, so people tend to ask for help with the copier as well. Fortunately the copier is under the HR Department and they do not want IT messing with it. Politics, you got to love it.
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-- morality as fear of punishment? I suppose most people don't expect to be caught and hung from the paper tray if they don't unjam the machine.
-- morality due to expectation of reward? Again, I suspect most people do not expect to get a golden sheet if they unjam the works.
-- morality because one wants to be a good person? This is perhaps one we could work on. Good people unjam machines. Sounds like a possibility.
-- morality as part of social expectations. This is clearly what we would like unjamming to be considered. We've got a ways to go, but then, this is also one of the higher levels of morality (which means many people aren't there yet)
-- morality as social contract. Hah! As a member of this business community, I will unjam machines and do other picareseque random kindnesses and senseless acts of beauty. Yes, that's the ticket.
-- morality as principles. Based on principles, I will unjam copy machines? Well, yes, keeping the works going does seem like a basic sort of principle.
Perhaps the right approach is to write about the corner in the 3rd ring of Hell that is reserved for those who fail to unjam copy machines. There the lost souls wail as they are ground slowly over and under and through the heated works, then have small burning chads dropped on them as they pause. And that's just the beginning - you wouldn't believe what the devils do with those used toner cartridges!
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