When you *really* need a blank image...



  • A few weeks ago, I picked up a large format (36" wide) inkjet. Wanting to use it immediately (on a weekend) I went in search of "D size" (34x44 engineering, 36x48 architectural) paper - either sheet or roll....

    Even in New York City (where you can usually get anything at any time), nobody was open that carried this large size paper. Even the print shops such as Fedex Office and Staples would not sell me blank paper.

    But I dont give up easy...I made a blank jpeg of the appropriate size and headed off to a local print shop (who I had previously called, but they did not "sell paper") to get 5 copies made. The clerk called up the image, and  the exchange went like this:

    Him: "there is no picture here!".

    Me:  "Of, course...now please print it"

    Him: "But the paper will be blank"

    Me: "Yes, that is what I want"

    Him: "Why don't you buy some blank paper, it would be cheaper"

    Me: "Can you sell me some blank paper?"

    Him: "No, We dont sell paper".

    Me: "Since I need this today, please print me five copies"

    Him: "But the Paper will be Blank".

     Fortunately the manger walked over, saw what was happening, and gave me 5 sheets of paper.



  • Hahaha.  Did he charge you?



  • ROFLMAO! I can sympathize with the clerk. That is not something that you would typically expect. I also would not be surprised to see a new topic at some point in the near future from some guy in NYC posting the WTF about a customer wanting him to "print 5 blank pieces of paper". ;)



  • @TheCPUWizard said:

    Him: "there is no picture here!".

    Me: "Of, course...now please print it"

    That sounds like a part of a kōan. What is the image of no picture?



  • Clever workaround to a problem that really shouldn't exist.  Send them a consulting invoice for setting up their new paper sales business.

    Two questions:

    1) With paper that large, if you had printed 5 blank pages, would there be a greater chance of some subtle warping in the paper that would jam up your new inkjet as soon as you tried to re-use it?  I've never had good luck with running a page through the printer a second time.

    2) What were you doing that required such gigantic printing?



  • @Justice said:

    2) What were you doing that required such gigantic printing?

    Maybe he wants a life-size picture of Goatsee.



  • @TheCPUWizard said:

    A few weeks ago, I picked up a large format (36" wide) inkjet.

    Does it come with animated gif ink? I've been looking for one of those so I could print a Harry Potter newspaper for my niece.



  • @Justice said:

    1) With paper that large, if you had printed 5 blank pages, would there be a greater chance of some subtle warping in the paper that would jam up your new inkjet as soon as you tried to re-use it? I've never had good luck with running a page through the printer a second time.

    I think the point is that he was hoping the clerk would be capable of independent thought and just hand him the sheets. Actually running them through a printer would be even more of a WTF than the store was already committing by not selling the paper...

    @Justice said:

    2) What were you doing that required such gigantic printing?

    We have one of those printers at work. We use it to print our own posters. (With appropriate paper in it.)



  • 1) No problem with "warping" what so ever. Warpage typically occurs when the paper has to go through a circuitous route, or if the ink densityy is high. One of the main reasons I bought the printer is that Fedex (et.al.) charge for collor prints assuming you are printing a picture (filling the page with ink), since I do line drawings the ink density is typically around 2% - this means that 50 sheets printed at FedEx is equivilant to purchasing the printer and having supplies for over 200 pages.

    2) Both "D" (34x22) and "E" (34x44) sizes are great for UML diagrams, single sheet "posters" of the product backlog (over 100 items with a very wide line - so every field fits on a single line), functional diagrams, sooo many things. Smaller sizes of "C" (22x17) and B" (11x17) are also extremely useful, and cna be handled as individual sheets [I got the 34" wide rolls that Monday).



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @Justice said:
    1) With paper that large, if you had printed 5 blank pages, would there be a greater chance of some subtle warping in the paper that would jam up your new inkjet as soon as you tried to re-use it? I've never had good luck with running a page through the printer a second time.

    I think the point is that he was hoping the clerk would be capable of independent thought and just hand him the sheets. Actually running them through a printer would be even more of a WTF than the store was already committing by not selling the paper...

     

    Well sure, and courtesy of manager intervention he had great success, but retail clerks don't usually have the authority to exercise good judgment.  So printing 5 blanks is a way to get the paper while still keeping to whatever asinine rules govern the store (say you have a page counter on the printer, and if it doesn't match up with the sales records then someone gets yelled at).  People have done weirder things to get around dumb policies.

    At any rate, the question was really about paper quality at those sizes, since re-using 8.5 x 11 paper is an excellent way to jam up the printer.



  • @Justice said:

    Actually running them through a printer would be even more of a WTF than the store was already committing by not selling the paper...
     

    Not at all. The paper is on a roll (I believe they are using 450 foot rools) that is already loaded into the printer. Running the paper through the printer (via "form feed") and haing the printer use the automatic cutter is the right way to go. Unloading the roll, putting it on a (wooden?) table, accurately measuring the length, manually getting a (near) perfectly straigth cut, [rpeat 4 more times], reloading the paper back into the printer and going through an alignment cycle....now THAT would a have been a real WTF!



  • @Justice said:

    Well sure, and courtesy of manager intervention he had great success, but retail clerks don't usually have the authority to exercise good judgment.

    Oh please. People aren't stupid, and stop assuming they are.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @blakeyrat said:

    @Justice said:
    Well sure, and courtesy of manager intervention he had great success, but retail clerks don't usually have the authority to exercise good judgment.

    Oh please. People aren't stupid, and stop assuming they are.

    I think you've got that backwards.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @Justice said:
    Well sure, and courtesy of manager intervention he had great success, but retail clerks don't usually have the authority to exercise good judgment.

    Oh please. People aren't stupid, and stop assuming they are.

     

    Read it again.  I didn't say the clerk was stupid.  I said that clerks don't usually have the authority to exercise good judgment.  There's a big difference between not knowing how to solve a problem and not being permitted to solve the problem.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    @Justice said:
    Well sure, and courtesy of manager intervention he had great success, but retail clerks don't usually have the authority to exercise good judgment.
    Oh please. People aren't stupid, and stop assuming they are.
    I think you've got that backwards.

    Stupid is as stupid does....People do stupid things...QED...



  • @Justice said:

    I said that clerks don't usually have the authority to exercise good judgment.  There's a big difference between not knowing how to solve a problem and not being permitted to solve the problem
    Most certainly. I can recall a number of occasions when a retail worker truly put forth an effort to bend their workplace's rigid rules to allow me to do something sensible, yet a bit out-of-the-box.

    ...Such as the Best Buy Geek Squad worker who dug and dug to find a way to let me purchase a length of their behind-the-counter "regular" Cat5e cable rather than the Gold Plated Super Monster Awesome Ethernet cables that Best Buy keeps out on the shelves. I think he ended up charging it as a repair to a non-existent machine -- either way, I got it on the cheap.

    [Why Best Buy? I was doing computer work for a friend in an unfamiliar city a few years back, and didn't have any other option.]



  • @TheCPUWizard said:

    ...

     Fortunately the manger walked over, saw what was happening, and gave me 5 sheets of paper.

     

    Hooray! Someone who understands good customer service. There are lots of stories on this site about crap service, it's great to see this manager solving a customer's problem in a quick and sensible fashion.

     


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Justice said:

    2) What were you doing that required such gigantic printing?
     

    He already said:

    @TheCPUWizard said:

    I went in search of "D size"...




  • @Justice said:

    retail clerks don't usually have the authority to exercise good judgment.  So printing 5 blanks is a way to get the paper while still keeping to whatever asinine rules govern the store (say you have a page counter on the printer, and if it doesn't match up with the sales records then someone gets yelled at).  People have done weirder things to get around dumb policies.
     

    "Now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules."

    "You want me to hold the chicken, huh?"

    "I want you to hold it between your knees."



  • @da Doctah said:

    ...

    "Now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules."

    "You want me to hold the chicken, huh?"

    "I want you to hold it between your knees."

     

    That movie was AWFUL! (I can't belive it won best picture; 1970 must have been a shitty year for movies!)

     



  • @esoterik said:

    That movie was AWFUL! (I can't belive it won best picture; 1970 must have been a shitty year for movies!)

    Patton won Best Picture in 1970.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @esoterik said:
    That movie was AWFUL! (I can't belive it won best picture; 1970 must have been a shitty year for movies!)
    Patton won Best Picture in 1970.
    You don't recall that scene from [i]Patton[/i]? Maybe you should go and watch it again.



  • @Xyro said:

    @TheCPUWizard said:

    Him: "there is no picture here!".

    Me: "Of, course...now please print it"

    That sounds like a part of a kōan. What is the image of no picture?

    If the forums could have featured posts, I would vote for this one to be featured.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Renan said:

    @Xyro said:
    @TheCPUWizard said:

    Him: "there is no picture here!".

    Me: "Of, course...now please print it"

    That sounds like a part of a kōan. What is the image of no picture?

    If the forums could have featured posts, I would vote for this one to be featured.

     

    Given how-- loose-- the css handling is, I'm honestly surprised no one's figured out how to do this yet.



  • @Scarlet Manuka said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    @esoterik said:
    That movie was AWFUL! (I can't belive it won best picture; 1970 must have been a shitty year for movies!)
    Patton won Best Picture in 1970.
    You don't recall that scene from Patton? Maybe you should go and watch it again.
     

    That's if you're talking Oscars or Writers Guild. They both lost the Golden Globe to Love StoryFive Easy Pieces tied Patton for Best Film at the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards, and beat it outright at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.



  • @da Doctah said:

    ...

    That's if you're talking Oscars or Writers Guild. They both lost the Golden Globe to Love StoryFive Easy Pieces tied Patton for Best Film at the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards, and beat it outright at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.

    Well my memory failed me, but that movie was still AWFUL!



  • @esoterik said:

    Well my memory failed me, but that movie was still AWFUL!

    The worst award-winning movie is The Graduate. Sure, it's well-made and has a great soundtrack... but the story of the movie is basically: guy starts dating girl, guy sleeps with girl's mom, guy keeps sleeping with girl's mom, girl finds out is devestated and skips town, guy breaks up with girl's mom and moves to the same place as girl, guy stalks girl in the most creepy fashion possible, girl starts to marry someone else, guy breaks into church and abducts her.

    It's the worst story ever. Squicky, and just plain morally wrong. The theme of the movie? "Stalking works." So if you're "in love" with a girl (but not so in love that you have the willpower to not sleep with her mom) the thing to do is follow her around everywhere until she's about to get married, then yell and scream at her until she joins you.

    That movie made me want to take a shower. And baby boomers LOVE it!



  • Wow, The Graduate sounds like it might possibly be worse than the Twilight saga! THAT IS PRETTY BAD.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Blakeyrat, obviously you've never gone into a Wendy's, ordered a meal with two sides, said you weren't all that hungry, so you wanted to skip the side, only to be told--by the manager, no less--that they can't do that, and they'd have to charge you the a la carte prices for the individual components of the meal. Yes, this actually happened to me--the cashier literally could not process that I did not want the second side, so she called the manager over, who told me I could not get the meal if I only ordered one side.

    "Jobsworth" isn't just a term you see on Britcoms, it's a way of life.



  • @FrostCat said:

    Blakeyrat, obviously you've never gone into a Wendy's, ordered a meal with two sides, said you weren't all that hungry, so you wanted to skip the side, only to be told--by the manager, no less--that they can't do that, and they'd have to charge you the a la carte prices for the individual components of the meal.

    ... I'm actually pretty sure I've never gone into a Wendy's, period. So... good guess!


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