Years ago we named our team printer "Christine" after the car in Stephen King's novel of the same name. Christine the printer was temperamental in some of the same ways, favoring me when it came to her somewhat capricious performance, just as the car showed fierce loyalty to Arnie.
When other teachers got error messages, I got fast, clean copies. When Christine jammed, which became increasingly common, I could usually fix her in a jiffy. Perhaps it helped that she was located in my classroom, and maybe it was that the irritation of constant interruptions never bothered me much, but although I put in many help desk tickets for attention to Christine over the years, I was never frustrated by the printer situation.
Oh, she was never murderous, although there were many who wanted to beat on her, but then again, I was never threatened in her presence either. Who can say what she might have done to protect me?
And now, we'll never know. After 10 years of inconsistent service, Christine was unceremoniously replaced this afternoon while I was at a meeting. The new printer seems nice-- much smaller and faster and quieter and hopefully more reliable to all who use it-- but I have to confess to a bit of twinge when I walked in and found Christine had left the building.
When other teachers got error messages, I got fast, clean copies. When Christine jammed, which became increasingly common, I could usually fix her in a jiffy. Perhaps it helped that she was located in my classroom, and maybe it was that the irritation of constant interruptions never bothered me much, but although I put in many help desk tickets for attention to Christine over the years, I was never frustrated by the printer situation.
Oh, she was never murderous, although there were many who wanted to beat on her, but then again, I was never threatened in her presence either. Who can say what she might have done to protect me?
And now, we'll never know. After 10 years of inconsistent service, Christine was unceremoniously replaced this afternoon while I was at a meeting. The new printer seems nice-- much smaller and faster and quieter and hopefully more reliable to all who use it-- but I have to confess to a bit of twinge when I walked in and found Christine had left the building.
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