Pound of Toner

I wish this picture could communicate to you the volume of toner I spilled at 4:30 in the morning.  Trying to run proofs for in-house clients and I am the only one in the office.  It is 4:30 in the morning and I am in good shape to be geared up for the clients return.  I have the proofs running in back and I am trying to sort out the exhibits for the filing and I realize the machine has stopped.  I go back to find it needs toner…….

I have never changed the toner in this machine.  It is a Cannon, there are empty boxes of toner on the floor and the boxes say cannon.  I don’t see any others, and they are right there on the floor  (three small boxes in the back of the picture).  I found the unopened box that matched and started following the instructions on the machine.

Did I mention it was 4:30 in the morning and my reasoning skills were arrested, no? It was 4:30 in the morning and the fact that the toner in my hand didn’t really match the toner coming out did not fire.

“open door”  done; “pull out cartridge” done; “pull tape from new cartridge” pulling, toner falling four feet to the ground in a silent upside down volcano of black toner,  done!

So the toner was the wrong cartridge, that is now apparent.  The toner I had in my hand goes to a different cannon.  The kind where you put the new toner in, pull the tape and it is designed to slide completely open so the toner can completely empty into the machine.  Or, floor.

Only part of it spilled, I managed to stop the spill as soon as it registered which was pretty darn quick.  I stood there (or backed up slowly) holding the cartridge and watching this fine plume of toner spread out and cover every inch of the room, in between boxes, under the counters, under and on the machine.  It didn’t stop moving for quite some time, it was pretty awesome.

So what would be your first move?  Mine was to back up walk around (ha) the spill, go get my phone and take the above picture.  I then walked around the suite to come in the other side of the room where there was vacuum.  I plugged it in, to be sure any exhaust was facing away from the main spill and with the attachments start to vacuum it up.  I got an amazing amount of it up, but not nearly all of it.  The vacuum bag now full I went looking for another one.  I tried sweeping.  I tried paper towels, dry, I didn’t want to make mud after all.

Thirty minutes later, it is now 5:00 a.m.  I am no where close to having the proofs run, I actually cant find the toner for the machine.  Johnnie is due to the office in one hour.  I have never in my life until this morning in an exhausted state of mind had that “girl needs rescuing” feeling. I took my toner covered feet and self back to my desk to figure out the exhibits.  My brain was not working and I really had to try and concentrate and was having major issues with cognitive thinking.

Johnnie walked in at 6:00, he was greeted by a harried covered in toner exhausted girl who greeted him with “Oh I have a huge problem.”  He had a really good laugh at my situation, which I was still laughing at, and he jumped right in to “save the girl” or “fix the situation” or  “I’ve had sleep I know what I’m doing mode.”  Got the toner changed, the proofs ran and when the first clients arrived at 6:20 they would never know the back room was completely covered in a coating of black toner.