The printer was hole-punching my printouts at work (on the wrong side of the page, to boot). I was mystified by why it was doing this.
I tried changing the print settings.
I tried restarting my computer.
I tried restarting the printer.
I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the printer driver.
I tried that rain dance I learned middle school.1
Nothing worked.
I went to call the help desk, expecting the agony of having to cater to their pedantic troubleshooting guide. I started to imagine what they might ask me, and began to mentally reply to their invisible questions, “Yes, I did that… Yes, I tried that… No, that didn’t work either.”
I was dreading the thought of another 30 minutes wasted. I decided to get one more data point by verifying with my coworker that he had the same issue.
His words of wisdom: “Oh, the printer must be loaded with the wrong paper again.”
“The wrong paper? Again?”, I thought to myself.
I quizzically walked back to the printer and furiously opened all the trays in an attempt to locate the non-compliant source.
And there it was. The paper punched for a three-ring binder.
0I made this up, but I should have tried it ↩