The Kink in Kinkos.

I've been having to get a lot done at Kinkos for work because we just moved into new offices and our printers aren't set up yet. It's fairly simple, I just need to print out some of our information and have it bound, and yet, of course, these Kinkos workers think I'm speaking another language. What typically sets out to be a 20 minute trek to the printing haven turns into hours of technological difficulty torture.

I lobbied my boss today for our own binding machine.

It's shocking to me also how unbelievably expensive this stuff is! Of course most locations don't let you plug in your own computer to print, so I have to put my credit card into this machine that seems like its swallowing it whole and sending it across the street to be used for online scams. At 90 cents a minute and snail paced internet I watch the dollar number increase faster than the pages load.

The printers always jam and I find myself standing in the awkwardly large empty space in the middle of the store, angry rap music coursing through my body, on the verge of threatening the copy machine a la Office Space.

Today I have been bombarded with empty promises and worthless encounters. I had to print my stuff 3 times in order for it to come out clear, and then the copy machine wasn't working so the guy made me email my stuff to him so he could print it on the 'special machine' in the back that normal people can't use. Luckily for me though, he didn't realize when I stormed out with my printed pages and only paid for the time I spent on the computer - his binding job was forcefully on the house.

I do feel a little bad about it, but honestly that company is so corrupt with its pricing that I feel like I got out of paying for a parking ticket in Philadelphia.

Each trip for a dozen packets bound ends up costing me over 100 bucks and hours of frustration. More than a trip to Whole Foods. Of course I get refunded by work, but those hours are going to cost thousands in botoxing wrinkles down the road - and you gotta think long term.

So we are going to buy a binding machine, which, though the lovely simpletons at Kinkos seem to be able to work while bitching at their baby daddy on a handsfree, looks like the earliest version of the computer chip to me. I know it will take me weeks to figure this thing out, but I'm determined to never venture back to that world of awful again.

I feel like this blog is turning more into a rant...I will do my best to focus on more imporant rich kid issues, like how to buy things on sale etc.