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Admin
Don't tell, the IP address is reused and the protocol used for the complaints just happens to be accepted as print requests. Someone keeps submitting what they think are HR complaints but are actually print requests.
Admin
I was going to write a grouchy comment about how I'd love to trade long tangents about our protagonist trying to catch up with random people that never come up again for the actual resolution, but it kind of works in a meta way, like the story was printed by the faulty printer
Admin
Where's the punchline? Where's the WTF? Was it the air dryer thing? That much to read for just "someone blew hot air into an old printer"?
Admin
The punchline is that it's an IP configuration issue. The old server for complaints supposedly happens to have the same IP as the printer and the form supposedly just happens to work as a print request leading to the submissions being printed. And this being HR they naturally treat it as printing gibberish as that is how they treat complaints.
Of course, this is all completely unrealistic. Even if such an IP clash did happen the odds that what ever system is in question would just happen to generate print requests is... just no.
And of course everyone knows HR reads all your messages. Even the ones you don't send to them. They would newer ignore something like this. That is their job as corporate gestapo.
Admin
Not totally unrealistic. Maybe there was a server that hosted a web form where employees could "anonymously" enter complaints, to be sent to HR. That server was not decommissioned, but simply forgotten, but some people maybe had it bookmarked or remembered its name or address. Now this server generates print requests and sends them to a specific host name or IP. The article says:
“Don't mention it. Anyway, the printer. Your ticket said it was new? Looks pretty darn old to me.”
“It's new over here,” Tony explained. “They just it brought down and set it up for us.”
We can assume that this particular printer has been the HR anonymous complaint printer. So the printer either had a statically configures IP, or by DHCP, it got the same IP it had before at its old location (same MAC - same IP). And that's why it still could receive its "surprising" print jobs, and it would of course print them, along with its (now) normal workload.
Of course, everything a user, be it in HR or elsewhere, doesn't expect, is to be categorized as "gibberish", same concept as "doesn't work", "is broken", "can't find my" and the like.
Admin
Not unrealistic at all. A printer will simply print whatever is sent to it. There is very little (if any) protocol involved in whether it is a print job or not. The protocol is simply in what the printout looks like. Plain ASCII text will print without any issues.
You used to be able to print a file by simply copying it to LPT1. Any control characters would potentially cause some gibberish to be printed, but the text would likely print out ok.
Admin
You know, there's an old maxim in communication: know your audience. The people who come to this site are mostly engineers, developers, maybe the odd manager... people who are accustomed to communicating in an efficient, direct manner.
Coming here for a quick laugh and finding someone's amateur noir manuscript spewed out on the screen like so much gibberish from a malfunctioning printer is not particularly entertaining.
Admin
You lost me at “blah blah needs a GFCI to run properly.” No. No it doesn’t. Those are what we put near water sources to prevent things like hair dryers from electrocuting someone to death. Please, if you don’t know what you’re talking about, leave technical details out of your stories.
Admin
Actually, it's quite possible that the anonymous online form system was intended to print out like this. Possibly even to that exact printer. If it was a quick solution being built as a test, knocking up a web app which printed out the reports immediately was probably easier than getting a database or other file repository. Especially if it meant it could be put up without official IT involvement.
Done "right", the web app would keep accepting the submissions, and routing it to the printer queue. Which would then either print, or hold and eventually discard the jobs when the printer was offline or just out of paper. Now with the printer back online, the complaints are getting printed again.
Is printing directly from a web form a good idea? No, not even on an intranet. But it's not as dumb as many other ideas that get put through. Heck, there are printers that will just print emails sent to them - and you just know that some tech-phobic exec somewhere has got IT to set up his email like that, because he doesn't like reading them on the screen. (Probably marks them up and gets his secretary to reply for him...)
Admin
"Even if such an IP clash did happen the odds that what ever system is in question would just happen to generate print requests is... just no." I disagree. Back in the dark ages, I wrote a CGI script that would take a web request and print a mailing label. (This was long enough ago that bots and DOS weren't a big problem of course.)
Admin
I had perplexity whittle this down to a TLDR:
Here’s a tighter, quick-read version:
A freezing winter morning, a tech support worker gets a ticket: HR’s “new” printer is printing gibberish. On the way, he runs into Aggie, a former mentor turned manager, and schedules a coffee that probably won’t happen.
In HR, he finds a senior exec trying to “fix” the printer by blasting it with a hair dryer. He stops him, diplomatically redirects him to another printer, and checks the machine—surprisingly, it still works fine.
The real issue shows up when users print: instead of documents, the printer spits out pages filled with anonymous HR complaints like “I don’t feel safe working with Cheryl.” Test prints come out normal, so the problem isn’t the printer itself.
Comparing notes with coworkers, they realize the printer is likely pulling data from an old, supposedly retired system for anonymous HR complaints that’s still lingering on the network. Now they’re off to trace where those messages are coming from.
To be continued.
Admin
Thank you. I like a good yarn, but the OP screams for TLDR;
Admin
Work had a printer that would randomly output a page that just said "Help Me". Apparently it was a known issue with that model. I laughed every time I would walk by.
Admin
Or just put them at the breaker and then you don't have to worry about single outlets. A bit more of a pain when it triggers, but it protects the whole thing. My wife was saved once thanks to one of those, laptop charger had exposed wire and she didn't think that would be a problem... Plugged it in, breaker popped, far away from any water sources...
Admin
Delete that comment yourself and don't come back with reposting LLM slop again. If you don't know how to read or don't have the patience, have your LLM shorten it. And that's the end of it. Do not post it here.
Admin
Ironically you're criticizing the content as 'slop' in a knee-jerk fashion, resulting in the production of a low-quality comment.
Admin
That's what "To be continued" means - you haven't got to the end of the story. More will emerge in the next episode (assuming Ellis doesn't give up entirely given some of the comments here especially by those who like revealing the murderer before others have finished the reading the story)
Admin
It's not quite unrealistic.
There are printing protocols like IPP which will make it hard that any protocol will accidentally emulate it. But other printing protocols are more rudimentary - lpr/lpd for example are basically "netowrk serial ports". That is, the protocol is just a serial line and you send printing commands by connecting to lpd and sending them verbatim. It allowed networking printers without learning the printing protocol - the printer will get the bytes you send to lpd as you sent them.
And old printers will often just accept pure ASCII on their inputs and print them directly. You have to remember the old DOS "PrintScreen" button literally copied the DOS text buffer to the parallel port and your printer will just print it out directly. I believe lpd will output an EOT to indicate an end of input to let the printer know no more input is forthcoming so it can feed the page out.
So that leaves two options.
First, the printer IP was for HR use only for suggestions - that is, every suggestion sent goes to just that printer. The IP got recycled so the daemon handling the HR complaints used a different printer than it was supposed to.
Second, the HR complaints are being sent to the printer IP over the lpr/lpd port due to laziness on the developer's part so the printer kept getting old school ASCII text which it kept printing as a page as if it was a dumb printer.
Admin
The story has so many tangents I didn't understand anything and it never seemed to get to the point. Glad the comments helped clarify all that.
Admin
It sounded more like the anonymous print outs were already happening before the printer was moved. Someone decided that the printer should be relocated but didn't change its IP nor updated the the application's configuration to send elsewhere (or print to PDF, etc, or stop printing altogether.)
Admin
Why all the hate? Just because the story has some fluff?
I don't get it. From the war stories I presumed most readers here belong to the Old Guard, who are still able to read a text, that is longer than two sentences. Not understanding longer texts seemed to be an issue with the younger generations, if you believe what the internet says.
I enjoyed the story, including the tangents with the protagonists of the previous printer story. "To be continued." I should hope so.
Admin
Me too. Like, I don't believe any of it. Especially that the gestapo would ever let something as juicy as a fake anonymous reporting box lapse. But it was a fun read. In fact, stories like this are the most fun thing to read on this site. A lot of the other stuff can get quite dry.
Admin
I'll add my voice of support. That was an interesting read and a nice change of pace. Looking forward to the next part.
Admin
I'd like to clarify that "To be continued" was added after I made my first comment. I actually checked the Wayback machine to see if I just missed it, and no. When I wrote it, the story abruptly cut off just when things started to get interesting.
Still not fan of a good ~1/6 of the text being dedicated to the hero trying to catch up with some random friend, not only is it a tangent, it's one whose subject matter is borings.
Admin
tl;dr
Admin
some fluff? I drowned in it
Admin
Maybe the "random friend" will be a major protagonist in the second part of the story? I certainly hope so.
Admin
Hear hear! The DailyWTF has a proud history of long form posts with literary embellishment. Ellis has brought back this tradition with a womping good tale.
Admin
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