The experience of sales bullshit is repeated every time you buy something. I’ve been keeping my Xerox printer going for a year with horrible streaks, constant jams and the door falling off daily, hoping to use up the existing ink supplies, as the new bits I need cost more than a new printer. The ink in mine came in great big 11,000 page cartridges, and so I wanted to get the fullest use, but the cyan ran out (it continued to work for 8 weeks after it told me to replace it though), then this week the yellow ran out. The cyan reached a critical point and now it will only print in black and white. It’s also jamming three times a day. So off I set to buy a new one. A little research online told me that a similar specification new Xerox cost £349 + VAT (a fraction of what I paid for the old one).
So to Staples. I looked at the printers on show. High-gloss black is the colour of choice for 90% of models. 100 sheet capacity. 150 sheet capacity. Cartridge life 200 pages (or on one, just 65 pages). It’s obvious that like early Kodak Brownie cameras with film, they sell the printers at cost, or a loss, in the hope of selling ink. The biggest they had was a Brother at 150 sheets storage and 2200 page ink capacity. The equivalent Xerox is 530 sheets storage and 6500 ink capacity from solid ink pellets. I thought my Xerox was flimsy (the door falling off constantly aids that impression) but compared to the Brother, it’s built like a tank. I was about to leave when the hovering salesman got to me.
Salesman: Are you looking at printers?
Me: Yes, but I’m not looking for a home one. I want an office one.
Salesman: These are office ones.
Me: Right, but 150 sheet capacity isn’t office size.
Salesman: It’s the biggest you can get.
Me: Office ones take a ream.
Salesman: What’s a ream?
Me: (and this place sells paper!) It’s a block of 500 sheets of paper. You’ve got lots of them over there.
Salesman: (sharp intake of breath) Two thousand pounds.
Me: What?
Salesman: That’s what it costs for a printer like that.
Me: £349 plus VAT for the Xerox.
Salesman: Does it fax?
Me: Fax?
Salesman: All these are fax machines too.
Me: I don’t want a fax machine.
Salesman: Very useful. Fax machines. You can send documents to people over the phone line, you know.
Me: I haven’t sent a fax in ten years. When I had a fax machine, I got twenty faxes a day trying to sell me fork-lift trucks.
Salesman: And scanners. They’ve all got built-in scanners.
Me: I’ve got a scanner. A proper scanner.
Salesman: This one’s got a telephone in it. With a two hundred number memory. And a little LED display so you can see what it’s printing.
Me: I can see that on the computer screen.
I didn’t wander away this time. He did. So online you go. Next day delivery, and yet another retail business gets another nail in its coffin. I know why they don’t sell big Xerox or HP printers … if they did, their ink sales business would be seriously dented.
Peter Viney's Blog 
I had a spontaneous comment I wanted to leave on your site but then I had to go through this bureaucratic rigmarole in order to do so and now I have forgotten my witty riposte and am CROSS. I shall send this message as a test of your system.
By the way, this is a voice from your past.
N xx
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