We find Selben working with Whatif, showing her how to send calls to voicemail. Again.
Selben: Then you hit transfer, enter the number, hit star, the number one, and then hang up.
Whatif: But what if I just want to transfer the call?
Selben: You hit the transfer button and hang up.
Whatif: But what if I don’t hit transfer?
Selben: …What else would you hit?
Whatif: I don’t know, you’re the IT guru!
Selben: I would just use the transfer button.
Whatif: What if I want to change my password?
Selben: Your password?
Selben started looking through his notes for the phone system to see if the phones had a password.
Whatif: On the AOL mail at my house.
Selben: Your… huh?
Most conversations with Whatif often drifted in odd directions like that. Selben did his best regardless—she was very nice, just not the brightest. After completing the task, he was asked to check out the multifunction printer by conference room two. Unfortunately, though that printer was identical to the one near conference room one, it was notorious for having problems. Most techs had stopped bothering to add specific notes to any tickets involving it, and only writing “Mal Diablo” on the tickets. This current issue was no different, so Selben rolled up his sleeves and took off his tie to check it out.
Mal Diablo was an industrial piece of aging equipment. While it could only produce gray-scale, it had a copy function and could pump out 140 pages per minute and had the accessory to copy special binders without removing the pages. At least, it wasn’t supposed to remove the pages.
As he removed his tie and rolled up his sleeves, Selben saw the red flashing light on, also known as the evil eye of Mal Diablo, its light flashed in a series of patterns indicating what evil brewed inside. After deciphering the code Selben was able to figure out that Mal Diablo was out of paper! A quick trip to the storage room for the ten reams of paper Mal Diablo hungered for, and Selben loaded the hungry beast back up with what it desired. After clanking shut the plastic drawers, now full of their wafer-thin delectables Selben wiped the sweat from his brow and pressed the ‘Okay’ button. After some disturbing clunks and gear grinding Mal Diablo settled and his flashing eye of evil turned green – a sign that he was now sated.
As Selben began to clean up the plastic and trash that he had generated from the 10 reams of paper, Armani rounded the corner – he was on a call with “Someone Important” and was loudly laughing. Armani tossed his binder into Mal Diablo haphazardly and hit the ‘Copy’ button – immediately the edge of the binder got caught and the yellow light indicating a jam started flashing. Armani looked annoyed and bored pointed at the printer and rolled his eyes at Selben, who still had his arms full of trash from his recent efforts.
Selben: Let me just toss this stuff and I can help you with…
Armani: Yea okay Mark, no no – I’ll fax them in a sec, this IT guy is just staring at me.
Selben: Just a sec…
Armani threw his hands in the air, he was the most important person in the world you know. Selben continued down the hall 15 feet to throw out the trash. As he closed the lid of the trash bin, he heard a very womanly scream. He turned back down the hall to see Whatif’s fluffy sleeve getting pulled into the jaws of Mal Diablo while Armani just stood there screaming, hitting the cancel job button over and over.
Armani: I’m wearing a tie!
Selben: Unplug it!
Armani: But, but!
Without further hesitation Selben ran and slid to the side of the cursed printer and yanked the power cord out of the wall, bringing the printer to a halt.
When Armani didn’t immediately get help from Selben, he flagged down Whatif. While she atttempted to get the binder into the copier correctly, her sleeve had gotten caught, and had slowly been getting pulled into the printer. Fortunately, she wasn’t injured, aside from her sweater. Armani panicked, but didn’t try to pull her free from the printer, as he was scared his tie might get caught in the printer as well. There were signs throughout the office warning everyone to not wear a tie while working over the printer. The next day that same warning was updated to include no long-sleeves either. Because a written sign beats common sense any day.