Tag Archives: bad luck

If It Wasn’t for Bad Luck – Part 2

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printerI know you’re wondering why I still believe, when it comes to electronics, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.” I think you’ll understand after you read this.

I like HP products because they’re supposed to be simple, easy to set up and easy to use. To me that says, “This is something I can do on my own.”

When I was at Costco last week, they were having a sale on HP printers. I thought, “This is my lucky day: $60 off a $169 printer. This is for me.” It was an especially good deal because it was actually an “All-In-One”. Besides printing, it could fax, copy and scan. I was going to have state-of-the-art everything!

When I got home, I opened the box and looked at the first few pages in the Quick Start Manual. It was an “Ah Ha” moment. I realized I was in way over my head. But, not to worry, fortunately my husband loves challenges like this.

Michael didn’t even look at the Quick Start Manual. He told me he didn’t need to. Everything was quite simple and he’d have it, “All set up in about half an hour.” Well, half an hour came and went and then an hour and… You get the idea. It was all plugged in and sitting on the counter. It just wasn’t printing!

The next day he phoned Costco. He talked to several people. They were all very nice. He was on the phone with the last man there for over an hour, maybe two. Who’s counting in a situation like this? Nothing would print. Finally the man gave Michael a Case Number and connected him on a special Costco line to HP so we wouldn’t have to pay extra for the advice we were going to get.

There were a number of phone calls. Michael tried this and that. HP sent him to a different person several time. Bottom line, at the end of the next day the printer had yet to print.

Finally, and in defeat, the HP consultant said, “It’s a hardware problem. Take the printer back to Costco and get another one. It’s not working.”

So he returned the printer to Costco, and this time, before he left the store, he insisted on opening the box and trying it out there.

It worked. He brought it home. Plugged it in. Made a few adjustments and it’s just like the saying goes, “Plug and play.”

So, after going through all this, I still believe, when it comes to electronics, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.”

If It Wasn’t for Bad Luck

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When it comes to electronics, I often think of that old saying, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.”

For some time I’ve been thinking about buying a new printer. My old HP Photosmart worked fine until I bought a new laptop. Actually, it worked great. Whenever I wanted to print something, I’d go to the File Menu, click on Print, decide if I wanted black or color, how many copies, and click Print again. That was it. The printer would start right up and in less than a minute I’d have my copies.

Last fall I bought a new MacBook Air and that’s when my troubles began. I’d click on Print, choose black or color, the number of copies, click Print again and nothing would happen. I mean NOTHING. The printer was as silent as a tomb.

I’d start over again. First I’d click on my wireless connection to be sure I had a strong signal. Then I’d click on the Print box. It would say things like, “Printing page 1.” or “Not connected to printer.” It didn’t really matter what it said because nothing would happen.

I would restart my computer. Then I would restart the printer. After that I would start over with the Print menu. I would try clicking Pause and then Resume. Nothing helped.

But sometimes, when I was having a lucky day, after 5 or 25 minutes, the printer would start to make noises like it was waking up from a deep sleep. Then it would grunt. Finally, and I could never figure out what I had done to make this happen, the printer would print.

I phoned Apple. They told me the printer was several years old. My laptop was too advanced for it. But, not to worry, HP would soon come out with a patch that I could download and my printer would go back to printing like it had before.

That was last fall. This is now June. HP has yet to come up with this patch, and frankly, I don’t think HP’s going to. So, much as I hated to get rid of a perfectly good printer, I decided to bite the bullet and buy a new, state-of-the-art one. After all, the man at Apple said that would solve my problem.

Come back next month to find out what happened when I bought my brand new, state-of-the-art HP printer and you’ll understand why, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all!”