Printer Sensitivity Training

Printer Sensitivity Training (PST) was a concept I developed when beginning my first corporate job as a Technical Support Analyst (PC Tech) for Loeb & Loeb, LLP in New York City, NY back in 1993.

Ultimately, my entire day was running around installing toner cartridges, cleaning up toner spills, unjamming paper, fixing busted printers, troubleshooting why different paper trays weren't being recognized and dealing with upset and stressed out legal secretaries and attorneys. Fun stuff!!!

This blog discusses my approach and strategy for turning around a living nightmare into a very manageable working environment which then enabled a future "permission-based" relationship for successfully rolling out new systems and technology. Read on...

What was happening? Users were:

Slamming paper trays into the printers
Shaking the toner cartridges
Spilling toner all over the floor (and themselves)
Spilling toner inside the printer
Seeing a long vertical line on the pages
Leaving the tray in the printer skewed, which created paper jams
Having multiple pages pulled in at one time
Not being able to select the correct paper tray
Getting really upset and stressed out beyond belief
Hoping I would come around and install the toner cartridge for them

Interrupting negative emotional states

I had just worked through my "Personal Power" audio-tapes by Anthony Robbins.

One basic takeaway I learned, was that in order to effectively communicate with an upset person, one has to first interrupt their current emotional state and steadily bring them back into a peak state of success.

A law firm can be a stressful place with a lot of money, power and outcome at stake. Ultimately, the printer is the final piece of the process flow and can bear the brunt of negative emotions and feelings by the user.

My job was to build dynamic rapport with each user, whether they were: legal secretaries, admins, mailroom, summer interns, paralegals, associates, partners or even clients. My strategy was to creatively use humor to interrupt their current state, for example, "OK... Lead me from the point where the printer was working up to when you broke it!" By being creatively silly I was able to make them laugh and let them be more objective about what was really happening.

The technical issue could be a printer jam. The user unfortunately was expanding the scope of the problem by adding "meaning" to the problem because the print job was now associated with wasted time, pressure, deadlines, profits, lives, delays, extra work, etc.

Having integrity of follow-through and communication

It is not enough to build rapport. It is a requirement to build trust by holding yourself to personal standards of integrity. For example, if you say you'll stop by at noon, then stop by at noon precisely, or communicate beforehand to adjust an appointment. Always leave notes attached to the monitor saying that you had stopped by to do whatever was needed. If a part has to be replaced, then redirect them to another printer and keep them in the loop on the repair turnaround time.

Because the user is living in a world of variance and chaos, the support staff must become a solid foundation upon which the user can "bounce off". People feel more confident when they know that someone is there to hear them and give feedback -- if you don't have a solid inner foundation, your technical and human response is not adequate enough for them.

Time to resolve problems

If you create rapport, demonstrate integrity, build trust, keep in communication, and fine-tune your follow-up, you will be given adequate time to appropriately and completely resolve the problem. This is a huge gift in the world of providing support -- being given time to think and prioritize. If trust is built then you can: change their behavior; give them new skills; create an appreciation for technology; and they won't be on your case to respond to everything immediately. At the law firm I steadily weaned senior partners from a 2 minute response to a 4 hour response

Technology is fundamentally designed to work -- so, why doesn't it sometimes?

The following is an examination of technical problems with a comment on user behavior and suggestions for how to resolve and then proactively minimize future issues:

1. Slamming paper trays into the printers

The problem is at some point either the paper tray will break or the tray will be pushed too far into the printer chassis and something will come loose inside. My pet peeve with manufacturers is that they state they, "tested the product 100,000 times in really bad conditions", but the fact is that if users are too hard on their equipment it will steadily decay and then break at some point.

A big factor here is that users may not have an appropriate awareness of the tolerances of technology because they may assume that they can be rough with everything they use -- slamming shut a cellphone, slamming a car door shut, etc.

If there is any emotion, distress or anger attached to the action of inserting the paper tray then future problems abound.

A suggestion I have is to make continuous contact with the tray while closing it -- keeping your hand on the tray and give it a steady, relatively slow (but assertive) push and allow the chassis to gently push back on the tray indicating it is fully in place.

2. Paper Jams from tray inserted skewed

This problem happened a lot with the HP IID and IIID Series where the tray sticks out after being inserted. The problem is that the user typically was using one hand and just shoved the tray in and let go. Because the tray is not centered evenly, the paper gets pulled too much on one side and then jams.

The best solution I have is to always use a two handed steady (but assertive) push and follow the directions above for #1.

3. Paper not being picked up by rollers

This typically is not a user problem, but just happens over time when the pickup rollers get too smooth and don't have enough traction on the paper going through the system.

Only permanent solution is to do printer maintenance where you take printer apart and replace various rollers. A quick fix is to take some sand-paper and rub on the large pickup roller that you see when you take the paper tray out. Of course, this is a real quick-fix and won't last long.

4. Too many sheets being picked up at once

Several reasons I've found here:

Relative humidity in the air can cause printer problems -- not much you can do with this but to keep printer in a cool dry environment.

The user didn't do a quick fan of the paper when inserting paper into the tray. Some reams of paper even have a suggested "this side up" arrow -- if so, follow the directions.

The user placed new paper over old paper and didn't even up all the sides in the tray.

The paper tray may have too much tension on the upward force on the paper and the pickup roller grabs too much. For some reason, we don't think about getting new trays often enough -- I've solved many issues with a new tray.

5. Printer is just way too fast!!!

Things were relatively slower in the early 90's with the HP IID and HP IID, then some genius came out with the HP IV which processed 16 pages a minute or something. I think the HP IVSi was chugging 45 pages a minute. Of course, if all the above items are not taken care of you will have paper jams -- they just happen quicker!!!

6. Toner issues -- Should I use a remanufactured cartridge (to save money)?

I don't recommend remanufactured cartridges. I know some bean counter thought it was a great idea, but the typical lure is that you got a cheaper cartridge with greater printing capacity.

Here are the gotchas:

-The quantity of toner typically will exceed the OEM maximum hopper requirements and you will get toner spills inside the printer

-The quality of the toner may be different than OEM and you may get smudges. I remember that one company advertised "darker" toner

-The photoreceptive drum may not be replaced often enough (this is where the money is in the cartridge) and theoretically should only be re-used three times maximum on a reman. How can you guarantee that and how do you know if you will get a cartridge with scratches on the drum?

-The thin wire going the distance end-to-end may become loose over time and it needs to be taut

-You don't know the history of the cartridge -- it could have been used prior by some angry user powering it into the chassis!!

7. Toner issues -- care and handling

The following are some tips for proper handling and insertion/extraction of toner cartridges:

-Open the new toner box, take out the toner (typically in a sealed foil bag) and - while cartridge is horizontal - slit bag open on one side with scissors.

-Remove toner from bag and place cartridge on table -- keep it horizontal and keep bag

-Open printer so the top part is on a 45 degree angle and gently extract cartridge -- and keep it horizontal (see a pattern yet??)

-Place used toner in bag and seal shut with tape -- now you see why you only slit bag open on one side...

-Pickup new toner cartridge and, while keeping horizontal, pull the tape out from the side firmly and assertively to completely remove tape - take care to not break off the plastic handle piece from the tape. This releases the toner into the hopper and will also release onto your clothing/floor if you don't hold the cartridge horizontally.

-"Bathe" the toner in the hopper evenly by holding each of the long sides of the cartridge in front of you and gently rock back and forth up and down at 45 degree angles. You can add unnecessary swaying arm movements to the left and right to have fun with this process. This is actually an important step because the toner becomes even in the hopper and you have more toner life and less chance for lines on the page.

-Gently... I said gently... insert the cartridge into the chassis and make sure everything goes in evenly and completely. Ideally use two hands.

-Close the printer lid gently in two phases -- first phase to just slightly open and then a gentle final push to close the lid. If you slam the lid down in one motion you will get a toner spill and probably break something.

-Make sure printer is back online

-Take sealed foil bag and place back into box with packaging material and affix the return label on box and give to mailroom/UPS guy/whatever.

8. Why do have a vertical line on the page?

This could be because toner has attached itself to that wire that runs the length of the cartridge. There should be a small brush in the printer that you gently insert into the cartridge and then run back and forth to clean the wire. When done, replace brush back into its housing inside printer chassis because you will lose it. Gently bathe the toner, keep it horizontal and insert cartridge evenly... etc.

9. Why when I insert the "Legal" tray does it still think I have the "Letter" tray installed?

This could be because you have been power-slamming the tray into the printer chassis. There are small plastic protrusions on the tray that make contact with micro-switches inside the printer -- these depress specific switches which then tell the printer which tray is installed. If the tray is slammed in too hard then the plastic stoppers on each side of the printer come loose and tray contacts the micro-switch too hard, which then becomes confused. Note: The plastic stoppers cost a quarter each and the labor is about 1 hour at $125.

10. Courier font looks too light on the page, even with a new cartridge

Believe it or not, when we went from the IID/IIID to the IV, the font engine somehow made Courier much sharper looking. Typically, law firms like boring mono-spaced fonts because of pleadings, etc. The secretaries thought there was a problem with the new cartridge because the new courier font gave an impression of being too "light" on the page.

Summary

So... if you are willing to do the above you will create a positive printer experience for users where you have:

-Radically reduced printer jams
-Users changing their own cartridges
-Longer life on printers -- techs can charge $125/hour for repair labor plus parts
-The beginnings of good relations where you can now steadily integrate more systems and new technology and be received warmly