Plotter trouble

The big plotter broke this morning, due to the paper getting jammed, because people pile up their drawings on the top of the machine, until it gets too heavy for the paper to come out at the back. Usually we can clear the jam and cut the paper out, but this morning one of the metal plates that takes the paper in had warped, and the front would not shut again. When anything mechanical happens we have to get the engineer from OCE to come and fix it. We pay for a twelve hour service, so it should be fixed the same day, but I have to phone the internal service desk first. The service desk type in all the details on the system, then give me a ticket number. Then they pass on the message to our IT department. Depending on the priority level, IT then have to phone me to ask what the problem is with the plotter, because the description that the service desk write down is useless. Then one of the guys from IT will come up and see if it really is broken or if he can fix it. Then when he’s looked it over he will call out the OCE engineer. So that wastes 3 or 4 hours, and the engineer will either come late on in the day so that nobody is around to explain the problem, or often which machine needs fixing. Usually he will come the next day and he won’t have the part we need, so we have to wait another three or four days for the part to come over from Germany and then for the engineer to come and fit it. So our 12 hour repair service takes more like a week.

The IT eventually called me at 11.25 to ask for the printer number and serial number, having phoned the service desk at 8.30.