• Wonk (unregistered) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    Power Troll:
    Hopefully John got fired shortly afterwards. The fact that a printer test page is on version "42b" is absolutely horrifying to anyone who has tried to manage a budget.

    madarchod, don't repet what i have said. mere fact is that this story is completely incomplete. go read my comment, before you make any.

    copy-cat troll, copies.
  • (cs) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    Power Troll:
    Hopefully John got fired shortly afterwards. The fact that a printer test page is on version "42b" is absolutely horrifying to anyone who has tried to manage a budget.

    madarchod, don't repet what i have said. mere fact is that this story is completely incomplete. go read my comment, before you make any.

    Has trolling this much affected your real life? Like, do you want to make fake typos on your tax returns and act like an indian at the grocery store checkout line?

    ps - what did I copy? My comment is the first that has anything to do with the version number.

  • (cs) in reply to C-Octothorpe
    C-Octothorpe:
    What would be awesome would be to mount a fake camera in a corner (kind of hidden), and write on the cartridge "Yep, that's a camera in the corner catching you stealing me. Just put me back and no one will get in trouble".
    You mean sort of like this? (One of my favorite images ever. I had it up as my desktop background for a while.)

    Amusingly enough, wikipedia has an actual article on fake security cameras. That's pretty great.

  • Peter (unregistered)

    TRWTF is why an office where "no one actually printed color documents at work" even had color printers in the first place.

  • (cs) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    Power Troll:
    Hopefully John got fired shortly afterwards. The fact that a printer test page is on version "42b" is absolutely horrifying to anyone who has tried to manage a budget.

    madarchod, don't repet what i have said. mere fact is that this story is completely incomplete. go read my comment, before you make any.

    How could you possibly not be a troll right now?
  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to nonpartisan
    nonpartisan:
    Anon:
    Evan M.:
    Alright, I finally understand.
    1. There is an electronic document used as the "test page"
    2. The faulty colouring displayed in the article is on page 2 of the electronic document
    3. Manager's open the test document and print it
    4. Because they only need to print the test page, they never scroll down to the second page and look at it on their computer to see that the colours are wrong to start with
    5. Manager retrieves the 2-page test print from the printer, and sees the colours are off on the second printed test page
    6. Assumes that the ink cartridge is out on the printer, doesn't steal it for home use
    7. ???
    8. Profit

    Yeah, that's about what I assumed happened, but this was one of the most confusing and unclear WTFs in a long time. Which is a WTF itself.

    Also, bring back MFD.

    You complain when there are typographical errors and you complain when there's not enough information.

    Alex can't please everyone.

    Is this your first time on the internet or something?

    Also, where'd all the bacon posts go?

  • (cs) in reply to Linus
    Linus:
    The real WTF is that the readers of the WTF has to get the WTF explained to them... You all managers, or wtf?

    Or does the article not make much sense?

  • Fedaykin (unregistered) in reply to anon
    anon:
    I still don't get how this worked at all. Since when do people read the words on a test page instead of just looking at the colors? Like, if a test page printed with a line that said BLACK in red ink, would someone actually be dumb enough to think that cartridge was out of red? And if you're looking for good cartridges, wouldn't you just try every printer until one printed every line?

    I think the image in the article is just poorly conceived -- the real "test" page likely didn't have Cyan, Magenta or Yellow. The idea is that a color printer mixes it's base colors to get the proper color. If one of the inks is out, the resulting color will be wrong.

    For example, to get green you'd mix cyan (blueish) and yellow but if the test page had "Green" in Cyan the user would assume the yellow was out.

  • lolwtf (unregistered)

    Did this article get edited to be clearer, or do this site's readers have the collective IQ of a grapefruit? The version I read at least was pretty clear. Managers print a faulty test page, see that the colours are all wrong, and assume the ink cartridge is faulty. They keep trying this and never do find one that prints correctly, because the test page itself is wrong. They never realize this because the error is on page 2 of the document and they don't scroll down to see it on the screen. So they assume every printer cartridge is bad and buy their own.

  • Worf (unregistered) in reply to lolwtf
    lolwtf:
    Did this article get edited to be clearer, or do this site's readers have the collective IQ of a grapefruit?

    It's more like the way the human mind works - the colors aren't noticed' You see all the words and the colors and the human mind makes the assumption that they match. It actually takes a lot more time to process the fact that the colors don't match (Stroop Effect). Given that most people have skimmed the article, it's perfectly natural to have missed the fact that the color of the text and the text doesn't match. Perhaps had Alex decided to make the image super big so you had to scroll through it to continue would it be more noticable.

    Heck, if it said "Green" in black followed by a square of the "test color", then it'll be less likely to be overlooked.

    Even if the managers glanced at the 2nd page of the doc they would've missed it unless they looked closely.

    And those Mavica cameras rocked - when buying an 8MB card cost $50 or so, you could pick up one of these cameras, and just use a box of discs that cost $10. And if you were super rich you bought a 32MB card for $200. That was one of the reasons people bought them - you were spending $500 on a camera anyways, do you want one using $100 cards or $1 ones? Plus, with most card readers using serial or parallel ports (really lucky guys had USB1.1 cameras) which required complex software to use properly, it was easier to just pop the disk out of the camera and into the PC and copy it using Explorer.

  • Brent (unregistered) in reply to Peter
    Peter:
    TRWTF is why an office where "no one actually printed color documents at work" even had color printers in the first place.

    Obviously, it's because the managers demanded them. How else would they get colour cartridges to steal.

  • RandomUser423707 (unregistered) in reply to trtrwtf
    trtrwtf:
    My work here is done... On behalf of the Bacon Marketing Advisory Council, I thank you all for your time.
    Mmmm... Bacon M.A.C. (& Cheese)
  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    Rick:
    I worked at a company where our laserjet cartridge kept getting replaced with an empty one. I solved the problem with a Sharpie(tm). "Stolen from xxxxxx"

    This kind of stupidity may work in your company, but in my company stationary is free for all. Lot of manager take home print paper so their children draw on it. Then they bring back drawing and hang it in their cubicles.

    One manager I know had children drawing on back of invoice report someone in team had print one week ago.

    stealing paper is a little different than stealing very expensive ink cartridges

  • ChaudronSale (unregistered) in reply to lolwtf

    If I was to see a test page that printed red where it should print cyan, I would'nt assume that the cartridge is faulty, I would assume that the printer is faulty. It would also not take very long before I realised that a printer prints 2 pages when I was expecting 1.

    I don't think that such a scheme would hold very long in real life, hence I don't think that what you understand is the explanation of the WTF. But then, I don't see what is. Either this story is a poorly built fiction, or it's a "wtf" in that the person thinking has owned it's managers got owned himself by his stupidity. Anyway, it falls flat.

  • John Ashby (unregistered)

    OK, Let me explain for those of you who don't understand. Taking a random color word + a random color + a random missing ink = Totally confused managers for weeks. Most importantly he can't call you a complete b*****d for messing him about as he is trying to hide the missing ink in the first place. They learn't their lessons.

  • nick (unregistered)

    Why does Firefox 4.0.1 think thedailywtf.com is a JPEG image? The Content-Type is clearly text/html.

  • JeffW (unregistered)

    I'm wondering how in the 1990s printers managed to order things through a company discount program. Were managers able to buy self-aware printers back then? What happened?

  • Gunslinger (unregistered) in reply to anon
    anon:
    I still don't get how this worked at all. Since when do people read the words on a test page instead of just looking at the colors? Like, if a test page printed with a line that said BLACK in red ink, would someone actually be dumb enough to think that cartridge was out of red? And if you're looking for good cartridges, wouldn't you just try every printer until one printed every line?

    What people are missing is that it didn't work. The stealing stopped when they stopped sharing pictures.

  • Gunslinger (unregistered) in reply to NameNotFoundException
    NameNotFoundException:
    This makes no sense. If the cartridges were out of color and the managers didn't look at the second page on the screen, how did this stop them from taking the cartridges? And why did the managers require a test page anyway, and what was on the first page? TRWTF is the article itself, I guess. Somebody please fill me in.

    They didn't look at the second page on the computer, only at the printout.

  • (cs)

    Thread summary:

    1. Confused posts
    2. Explanations
    3. Bacon
  • Gunslinger (unregistered) in reply to ContraCorners
    ContraCorners:
    article:
    (managers) could simply go around to the various office printers and discreetly swap-out their used cartridges with the printer's less-used cartridge.
    I call bullshit. What manager knows how to replace an ink cartridge?

    Aye, that's the real WTF.

  • (cs) in reply to Gunslinger
    Gunslinger:
    ContraCorners:
    article:
    (managers) could simply go around to the various office printers and discreetly swap-out their used cartridges with the printer's less-used cartridge.
    I call bullshit. What manager knows how to replace an ink cartridge?

    Aye, that's the real WTF.

    Both of you underestimate the power of what being a cheap bastard can drive a person to do (i.e. learn to change an ink cartridge).

  • Mike D. (unregistered) in reply to neminem
    neminem:
    C-Octothorpe:
    What would be awesome would be to mount a fake camera in a corner (kind of hidden), and write on the cartridge "Yep, that's a camera in the corner catching you stealing me. Just put me back and no one will get in trouble".
    You mean sort of like this? (One of my favorite images ever. I had it up as my desktop background for a while.)
    The most awesome thing about that pic is how the camera's L-bracket is just shoved in between the pipe and the wall. The second most awesome thing is that the camera has been on that wall longer than the paint.
  • booger (unregistered) in reply to toshir0
    toshir0:
    The year was 1998, and digital photography was ...

    ... In those days, "e-mail” was a pastime of nerds and ...

    On which planet do you live, again ?

    NERD!!

  • (cs)

    A broken behavior plus another broken behavior equals good behavior??!?

  • PRMan (unregistered) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    Power Troll:
    Hopefully John got fired shortly afterwards. The fact that a printer test page is on version "42b" is absolutely horrifying to anyone who has tried to manage a budget.

    madarchod, don't repet what i have said. mere fact is that this story is completely incomplete. go read my comment, before you make any.

    Yeah, but he said it in English...

  • easu; (unregistered) in reply to Gunslinger
    Gunslinger:
    anon:
    I still don't get how this worked at all. Since when do people read the words on a test page instead of just looking at the colors? Like, if a test page printed with a line that said BLACK in red ink, would someone actually be dumb enough to think that cartridge was out of red? And if you're looking for good cartridges, wouldn't you just try every printer until one printed every line?

    What people are missing is that it didn't work. The stealing stopped when they stopped sharing pictures.

    Yup. reminds me of a story (which I sahall now relate): Lots of accidents on some road (I think in America). Authorities had brainwave to reduce speed limit. 1 year later stats showed that accidents significantly reduced, and local Authorities claimed it was down to the speed reduction. Some years later it was realised same stretch of road had high crash rate Closer investigation revealed fuel shortage at about the time speed limit was reduced - proabably meaning fewer cars on the road. Everyone lived happily ever after The end.

  • Murtaza (unregistered)

    To everyone who said "I dont get it!" it is quite clever actually. The IT guy created that page so that when any manager printed it out, without seeing the digital document, whether it was printed from a full cartridge or a low one, the manager would think the cartridge colors are down, because of the mismatched word colors.

  • (cs)

    What happened to my comment? It was fairly lengthy, fairly witty and in no way insulting or anything. Why was it deleted?

  • 'Lex P (unregistered) in reply to Severity One
    Severity One:
    What happened to my comment? It was fairly lengthy, fairly witty and in no way insulting or anything. Why was it deleted?

    Because it was in no way insulting.....

  • Le Forgeron (unregistered)

    I think most of comments get it wrong:

    John was helping the stealing manager(s). (hey, that's what hierarchy is made for: get support from your base)

    It was on the second page because the spooler could keep an electronic version of the first page (and it only kept the first page due to disk restriction, or may be a bit of privacy ?) for investigation by the accounting staff and the big boss: If manager A was printing "Gone with the winds", the cover would give him away. (spooler keep first page & user/computer info).

    The name not matching the colour is irrelevant: if a raiding manager was to see the seven colour, the printer was raidable. At best, if a colour was missing, the mismatch made it less obvious for the unsuspecting manager (and version 42b gives it some "old standard" look, old enough that a manager does not want to engage in a comittee process to reform the enterprise-wide page 2: that would seem a waste of time, as he might find in the end that there was a real rational for such page, and therefore his comittee has wasted a lot of time (= money) on his budget for nothing)

    "If you cannot get ride of them, embrass them", might have been the survival rule of John.

  • dude! you're getting a pwn3de! (unregistered)

    I wonder about the people complaining about managers on this page.

    Aren't you capable of finding a job where fewer thieves with more smarts work?

    I have been. It wasn't hard. It did require that I actually give a crap about my job and the people I worked with.

    As for the WTF - not really seeing any WTF about it. Seeing "person thinks they outsmarted some people they don't like." Not seeing "left the job for another with better people, have better quality of life. Did not pwn myself on the daily wtf years later."

  • Jibble (unregistered) in reply to ezra abrams
    ezra abrams:
    I think the WTF is that the names deliberately don't match the colors, but the managers were to stupid to understand that - they thought if the saw "RED" in black color, it mean't the colors were gone, so they would go somewhere else...

    Since when do managers read words on paper?

    The resl trick is much more subtle - they want the managers to steal the empty cartridges. Imagine printing the page on a printer which has no (eg. cyan). What words will you see and in what colors?

    Of course it wont work because: a) Managers can't follow techie instructions b) After a couple of failures they'll go back to the old system of stealing randomly.

  • WTF? (unregistered) in reply to dude! you're getting a pwn3de!
    dude! you're getting a pwn3de!:
    I wonder about the people complaining about managers on this page.

    Aren't you capable of finding a job where fewer thieves with more smarts work?

    I have been. It wasn't hard. It did require that I actually give a crap about my job and the people I worked with.

    As for the WTF - not really seeing any WTF about it. Seeing "person thinks they outsmarted some people they don't like." Not seeing "left the job for another with better people, have better quality of life. Did not pwn myself on the daily wtf years later."

    Was that supposed to make sense? Because FYI, it didn't.

  • Machtyn (unregistered)

    I'm still curious about the "It's 1998 and only nerds used email" comment. My mom had email in 1995. Most students at my local state university used email for classes in 1995. 1998 was when AOL was getting into full swing for the majority of people - they used email. The nerds were staying way far away from AOL and using local ISP, playing with IRC - using it to steal music, and setting up quake servers that ran team fortress or whatever.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Machtyn
    Machtyn:
    I'm still curious about the "It's 1998 and only nerds used email" comment. My mom had email in 1995. Most students at my local state university used email for classes in 1995. 1998 was when AOL was getting into full swing for the majority of people - they used email. The nerds were staying way far away from AOL and using local ISP, playing with IRC - using it to steal music, and setting up quake servers that ran team fortress or whatever.
    I've had an e-mail address since 1993 and I don't consider myself to be a "nerd", I was simply an earlier adopter of the Internet and e-mail was part and parcel of that. But I wouldn't pay too much attention to the filler in these articles, the editors make up a lot of rubbish to bulk them out.
  • trtrwtf (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    I've had an e-mail address since 1993 and I don't consider myself to be a "nerd", I was simply an earlier adopter of the Internet and e-mail was part and parcel of that. But I wouldn't pay too much attention to the filler in these articles, the editors make up a lot of rubbish to bulk them out.

    1993 makes you an early adopter? Only if you mean you signed up for AOL early in the morning.

  • (cs) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    nonpartisan:
    Anon:
    Evan M.:
    Alright, I finally understand.
    1. There is an electronic document used as the "test page"
    2. The faulty colouring displayed in the article is on page 2 of the electronic document
    3. Manager's open the test document and print it
    4. Because they only need to print the test page, they never scroll down to the second page and look at it on their computer to see that the colours are wrong to start with
    5. Manager retrieves the 2-page test print from the printer, and sees the colours are off on the second printed test page
    6. Assumes that the ink cartridge is out on the printer, doesn't steal it for home use
    7. ???
    8. Profit

    Yeah, that's about what I assumed happened, but this was one of the most confusing and unclear WTFs in a long time. Which is a WTF itself.

    Also, bring back MFD.

    You complain when there are typographical errors and you complain when there's not enough information.

    Alex can't please everyone.

    Is this your first time on the internet or something?

    Also, where'd all the bacon posts go?

    It appears you don't do Dilbert.

    HAND.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to trtrwtf
    trtrwtf:
    Anonymous:
    I've had an e-mail address since 1993 and I don't consider myself to be a "nerd", I was simply an earlier adopter of the Internet and e-mail was part and parcel of that. But I wouldn't pay too much attention to the filler in these articles, the editors make up a lot of rubbish to bulk them out.

    1993 makes you an early adopter?

    Yes, as I consider "early adopters" to be the first 10% or so and there were considerably less than 200,000,000 internet users in 1993. What exactly is it you don't understand about this? Does math make your wittle head go owwie?

  • trtrwtf (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    trtrwtf:
    Anonymous:
    I've had an e-mail address since 1993 and I don't consider myself to be a "nerd", I was simply an earlier adopter of the Internet and e-mail was part and parcel of that. But I wouldn't pay too much attention to the filler in these articles, the editors make up a lot of rubbish to bulk them out.

    1993 makes you an early adopter?

    Yes, as I consider "early adopters" to be the first 10% or so and there were considerably less than 200,000,000 internet users in 1993. What exactly is it you don't understand about this? Does math make your wittle head go owwie?

    No, I always figured someone adopting a mature, stable, widely-available, and widely-used technology was something other than an "early adopter".

  • Bub (unregistered)

    STIRF!

    What do I win?

  • Mick (unregistered)

    There once was consensus on such uses of radon

  • Mandatory Bacon Day (unregistered) in reply to trtrwtf

    I didn't see the bacon post that was referenced. Are we censoring bacon? Second on bringing back MFD.

  • silent d (unregistered) in reply to C-Octothorpe
    C-Octothorpe:
    Thread summary:
    1. Confused posts

    2. Explanations

    3. Bacon

    • Profit??

  • Mandatory Bacon Day (unregistered) in reply to 'Lex P

    You spelled all the words correctly and used proper grammer. You must be new here.

    captcha:jumentum 'Israel refuses to dismantled settlements on the West Bank, citing increased jumentum.'

  • Mandatory Bacon Day (unregistered) in reply to 'Lex P

    'You spelled all the words correctly and used proper grammer. You must be new here.'

    Oops. I hit Reply instead of Quote. Managerial skillz ftw!1!

  • Mandatory Bacon Day (unregistered) in reply to Mandatory Bacon Day
    Mandatory Bacon Day:
    'You spelled all the words correctly and used proper grammer. You must be new here.'

    Oops. I hit Reply instead of Quote. Managerial skillz ftw!1!

    Holy crap am I stupid. If only there was a 'preview' button...

  • PinkyAndTheBrainFan187 (unregistered)

    Oh my goodness, you're all fucking idiots. In future, if you don't understand something, keep your dumb fucking mouth shut.

    It's mentally distressing watching you all pawing around trying to work this out, like a group of bears who just found a digital camera.

  • Bob (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that the Managers were the only ones that were trying to steal office supplies, and no "non-managers" would be possibly doing that. rigghhhhhhttt....

  • st0815 (unregistered) in reply to ScottN
    ScottN:
    My parents had one of these up until late last year and swore up and down it was just fine. I kept reminding them that the quality of this pics are horrible but they wouldn't listen to their techy son. It wasn't until they were made fun of from it with their peers down in FL at gatherings that they finally spent the $200 on a nice camera of current technology.
    Shouldn't the techy son have bought them a new camera before that?

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