I sat by the office printer for a year. What I saw was wild

"Welcome to Nexbridge!" blazed in midnight blue across the screen in front of us.

Rebecca was onboarding us with supreme enthusiasm. The HR coordinator was pretty and animated, with a sparkle of optimism in her eyes. I could tell this was her first post-college job, as she'd drunken the corporate Kool-Aid. She went on and on about all the perks of working at this company, sounding like a salesperson pitching a dream.

Three dead-eyed new hires sat at the table with me, as we went through your mundane mish-mash of PowerPoint orientation slides. The meeting concluded with a tour of campus, which I'd briefly seen in my final interview.

I'd just stepped into a new finance role and quickly realized this company invested heavily in the employee experience. The office was beautiful and held events all the time. There were free meals and box seats at local sports arenas. You couldn't ask for much more.

Rebecca led me down a hall and dropped me off at a nice cubicle. It had a giant ribbon across it reading, "Welcome, Sean!" I had to cut it like the town mayor just to enter the cube. A giant welcome bag was on the table, with candy and company swag in it. First impressions matter for new employees in a big way — and this company got it.

It was a welcome change from my prior job, which onboarded me by stuffing me into a corner hallway with a fold out table and my manager essentially saying, "Goodluck!"

After she left, I marveled at the high-end executive chair they'd bought me. I could see just over the grid of black cubicles. Other people peered over like meerkats, talking, or waving their hands in conversation.

"This place feels alive," I thought, feeling good about my fate.

I sat down and looked up, seeing the warehouse style high ceiling that was painted black, with high end speakers mounted and playing carefully chosen electronic instrumentals, which I'm sure were proven to boost productivity.

Then, I pivoted in my chair and looked out my cubicle to see twin Xerox VersaLink printers on the opposing wall. They stood five feet tall and four feet wide, and sat with two green lights blinking, like sentinels quietly observing the office.

In the coming months and year, I would know the pain and distraction of sitting by these machines.

I want you to envision a wildlife photographer, sitting in the bush, waiting for the perfect shot. Sometimes, they wait for months just to catch a picture of an eagle snatching two fish at once out of the river — and go on to win awards.

Sitting by the printer is the opposite of that. It's a salmon rush of frustrating behavior, and bizarre people watching that you wish you could miss.

Our company was large, with about 1000 employees at this office, and a relatively young group at that. It showed. As I worked, I heard a young man say, in his staccato flirty voice, "Hey, A-man-da. Long. Time. No. See!"

I looked over to see the woman preening her hair as they talked, clearly enjoying his attention. I wondered, for a brief moment, if I was working at a cocktail bar.

If only this behavior was intermittent, it wouldn't have been such a nuisance. And look — I can't say I'm 100% productive from wall to wall in a work day. But I was 10 feet from this printer, and could hear and see all the slackery on display, even in my most stressed moments. Each whir and beep of the printer seemed to punctuate my frustration, and herald the arrival of some new employee or nuisance.

For example, the printer had eight slots for replacement paper packets. Yet, every time the printer was completely out of paper, the attending person pulled the huge tray out — saw the eight slots, and still chose to put a single packet in. Within an hour, I'd hear the "out of paper" error buzz, and see the next person fumbling with the machine, while cursing and mumbling to themselves.

Only for them to also put a single packet into the machine, restarting the process again. I'd usually do the hungry printer a favor and refill the remaining packets — for my own sanity and productivity.

A few weeks into this madness, I walked to my cube neighbor, Emily, who shared a wall just south of me. She was a middle-aged woman who worked in accounting. We'd become friendly fairly quickly.

I did an air knock to get her attention, and she took her headphones out.

"Hey Emily, so is it always like this?" I said, while gesturing with my head behind me, to the two printers, as someone kept hitting it like an angry caveman, trying in vain to make it print.

In recognition, she rolled her eyes so hard I thought she might get a concussion.

"I've been putting up with this for two years now. If HR just streamed a camera at these printers, half these people would be fired — for a number of reasons," she said, with exasperation.

We vented for a bit, before I went back to my cube.

Not every employee was like this. It was just that — due to high volume, the bottom 20% of disruptive people were frequently in earshot, or waving their hands in my periphery driving me nuts.

Every time the printer didn't work, they'd look around and see me, the only visible employee in the vicinity, and coyly ask if I knew how to work the printer.

By the end of the year, I was a de facto printer technician. Which wasn't optimal because I'd been hired to be a budget manager. That year — all the TV tropes about the company fax machine came bubbling up, baring the slackers, disrupters, and flirts for me to see.

And some of these employees were actually quite controlled and measured in every other setting in the company. Some were high performers, who did well and said all the right things. Yet there was something disarming about printing that was peculiar to watch. Sometimes, I overheard company gossip — that was useful and relevant to my own job: major clients dropping us, employees being fired, etc.

But the most common theme was the general apathy on display. Of the common phrases I heard most, these were the greatest hits:

• "Working hard —or hardly working?"

• "Is it Friday yet?"

• A deep sigh, followed by, "I am tired."

• "Is it 5 yet?"

• "How the heck do you <insert basic function for printer>?"

I learned to deal with the distractions and flirting — but really grew to resent the general despairing attitude people had for their jobs.

Surely, every person has days where they long to be home and not in the confines of the office. But I'd encourage those of you seeing this to retain some degree of idealism for your career.

That same coordinator I'd scoffed at for drinking the corporate Kool-Aid, actually had the right idea. Believing in a company's mission, phony as it might sound or feel, still makes the day easier to get through and, in my experience, helps enormously with being productive.

As an aside, please be mindful of a shared space. Someone has to sit by the printer. Don't turn them into your tech support agent, or treat that shared space like a bar, and your moment to shoot your shot.

If your whole work week revolves around getting to Friday at 5 PM, like it's the final life raft, you are probably in the wrong profession. Live long and enjoy your job, and don't forget to refill the printer paper all the way.