Learning to service enterprise printers; a whole new ball game

I was always pretty good at working with different machines. From computer to printers, to any other device I had my hands on. I was confident in my ability to be able to pick up most hardware quickly, however that is something that changed when I had to work on my first enterprise printer. It was like I was working in a whole different field.

Now that isn't to say that you couldn't learn how to work on these machines, but if I was called in then it meant something had gone wrong. If something had gone wrong, I didn't have the luxury of spending time to learn a degree in engineering (all big printers being very different beasts from one another doesn’t help).

All that bravado I had of knowing how to fix that Epson photo printer, or small Brother laser printer was dashed quite quickly when I saw the amount of work that goes into getting an enterprise printer to run. I was fortunate that I had Matt, a senior tech, that could essentially diagnose any printer from just hearing it turn on. Even then, it was a very daunting task.

Even now, years after first working on a machine, I still don't know what sort of problem I might be walking into. There are a lot of common issues, but enterprise printers are notorious for having the most absurd issues happen to them. While I don't have Matt on speed dial anymore, having a second opinion never strays too far from my mind.