Strange Sightings From The Field

Submitted by John James

Over the past few months, I have had occasion to visit my local car dealership service center several times. Auto shop waiting rooms not being the most interesting environments on my list, I would wander the floor and check out the newest vehicles and chat casually with the office personnel while my car was serviced. One day I noticed a label printer sitting off in a corner with a large black zip-tie harness around its casing. My curiosity got the best of me so I asked the office manager why they had bound their printer this way.

As it turns out, this is the second printer of its kind they’ve had over the past few years… and this is the second time the plastic locking mechanism broke. This time, rather than go through the trouble of having the printer repaired or replaced, they simply strapped on a big black zip tie to keep the printer closed while in operation. Not an ideal solution, to be sure, since every time they need to change the paper roll or ribbon, the zip tie must be cut off and replaced with a new one.