A large manufacturing space that has been converted into a cube farm for several dozen office workers has two printers, says a pilot fish working there. “One day,” he reports, “I sent a job to the printer that’s closer to my cube, waited a few minutes, then walked over to get the printout. There was a hand-lettered sign on the printer that said it wasn’t working.
“Since we have desktop notification software installed, I wondered why the IT folks hadn’t sent out a notice. But I didn’t give it much more thought than that.
“Two months later, the printer is still broken. However, a notification pops up on my computer: One of the ‘men’ on the foosball table in the break room had snapped off! Less than ten minutes later, another broadcast was sent out stating one of our IT guys had repaired the foosball table.
“Another two months go by. The printer is still broken. I have to submit an unrelated help ticket, and I notice the scrolling banner in the help tool. It’s still assuring everyone that the foosball table has been repaired.”