X is for Xerox

Sometimes your job forces you to acquire some odd skills.

The year I started at my current workplace, I was employed in two capacities:

First, I was the assistant to the librarian and my duties were to give media classes to Grades 1-3 and to assist with library maintenance. Secondly, I was to assist the school secretaries with their administrative tasks, and the one machine I became very intimately acquainted with was the Xerox machine.

Every single day for almost five years, there was something I needed to photocopy. Classroom activities, parent communication and circulars, examination papers – you think of it, I duplicated it. I spent so much time in that small room, I became able to detect malfunctions by the smell and sound alone, and the sound of the machines became like a soothing lullaby.

I don’t think I ever want to look at another photocopier ever again.