Machine

Super computer nothing! I just used probably the coolest machine at BYU. Maybe I'm just sheltered from the mystery and majesty of modern machinery miracles, but I think that the copy machine monster in the TMA office is amazing.

The girl who normally is at the front desk had to take a leave of absence until the middle of December, so the rest of us are having to cover front desk hours while she's away. My first day was today and it was nerve racking to have everyone asking me questions and making random requests. The worst was when a professor came in, dropped a 30 page packet on my desk, and said "I need 30 of these. Double-sided. Stapled in the upper left hand corner. Be back in a few. Thanks!"

What? 30 copies, of a 30 page double-sided packet, stapled...huminawha? How was I supposed to do this without a ton of fiddling, trial and error, and a few muttered cursings? Right then a lady in the office walked out and I asked her for the copy code. "Oh sure. What are you copying?" I recited, "30 copies of a double-sided 30 page packet to be stapled in the upper left hand corner." "Okay. Do you want to learn a trick?" I was expecting her to take out a post-it note, write "don't be lazy" on it and stick it to the front of the packet to copy and leave it for the professor to do herself. But instead she went over to the monster, put the stack of papers on a tray up top, pushed a few buttons, cast a magic spell, and out came double-sided, stapled packets! I was stunned. How does it know?! So I grinned a large grin, sat back in my comfy office chair, and blogged about it. Lovely.