The Voice
We saw the signs warning us before Christmas break. Then we took our three-week break from school and forgot about those signs. But when we saw them again in the computer labs, “Effective January 3 — Students must pay for printing,” we were devastated. We were lost. And frustrated. And maybe a little angry.
That’s because it was just so easy to print whatever we needed and go about our merry way. We could print as much as we needed.
But not anymore. Now we have to buy a little print card in the computer labs and pay for our print jobs. How unfair is that? How inconvenient is that? It’s just so much more difficult and time-consuming than the old way.
Of course, now we’re all moaning and groaning and throwing tantrums in the computer labs. Don’t we always when there’s a new way of doing something? It was nice to have that privilege to print off anything and everything we wanted.
But we must have taken advantage of that privilege.
How many times did you have to wait for your print job because some guy practically printed a whole novel, using at least 200 sheets of printer paper? How many times have you been waiting for your print job and the printer starts beeping and flashing that the printer is out of paper?
(Because three people before you also printed novels.) How many times
did you print your resume or a research paper, and there was a tiny thing that bothered you, so you printed the resume or paper again…and again…and again. How many times have we wasted sheets and sheets of paper by printing something until it’s absolutely perfect?
It seems like a really big deal to get one of those print cards. Who has time for that? Well, it’s really not that complicated to get a print card. In case you are boycotting the labs and haven’t stepped foot in them this semester because of this new printing policy, let us tell you, it’s not that bad.
All you have to do is make sure you bring a one-dollar bill to buy a print card that will buy you ten prints. The print card vending machine doesn’t take quarters or give change. (So don’t bring quarters or five-dollar bills–you wouldn’t believe the number of students who were in such distress and agony last week in the labs because they didn’t have one-dollar bills.) If your card runs out of value, you can add more money to the card. All the computers in the labs are numbered. So when you print something, take a look at the number on the computer you’re using, and then go to the main computer next to the printer. On the main computer, all you have to do is select the number of your computer and swipe your card. Ten cents will be removed from your card for each page printed. And that’s all it takes.
After everyone gets adjusted to this new way of doing things, The Colonnade staff think it may actually be more convenient and faster for students to print things. People are less likely to print novels when they have to pay for each page of the novel. The waiting time for everyone will probably decrease.
And people are less likely to waste paper like we all did in past semesters. This saves Georgia College & State University some money that will hopefully go towards something else that will benefit us. And, of course, we’re saving trees.
It seems like it’s an awful thing to happen, but it’s not so bad. There are bigger things to moan and groan about in life than having to pay for printing. Don’t you think?
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Jan 17 2003. Filed under Our Voice.
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