Printers are every IT person’s thorn in their side. There have been a few people and kids that have inquired about pursuing a professional career in IT because they have a growing passion for computers. Lots of times it stems from gaming which is really good in that we need more people in the IT world and the gaming industry is host to a lot of creative individuals that make new things for fun. Building their own portfolio without even realizing it some of these folks get offered good positions just after spending a little bit of time getting a few certifications. This is all really good really fun there are good people in the industry but there is always one thing that get everyone printers.
If it isn’t someone talking about how their computer can’t connect to the printer or can’t print at all then it’s the printer that just won’t connect to the network. Simple networks can have the printer connect with an ethernet cable to the gateway or connect over the wireless network. Becoming more regular is the ability to have multiple networks or applying segmentation to the home network. This as you can imagine will make home networking that much more complicated for your printers. Maybe you connect it to one network but your PC is on another network the rest of your day you’re spending pulling your hair out trying to trouble shoot a printer.
In my experience once I’ve figured out a problem like this and moved the printer back onto the correct network the printer will retain the old IP address and credentials to the other wireless network. Because of this my first course of action when trouble shooting connectivity of a printer is to reset it first then manually connect it to the correct network or ethernet cable.
After all this when someone asks me what it will be like to work at a help desk I just tell them to get used to fixing printers or connecting peoples PC’s to a shared drive. I’m always getting messages back or phone calls back of the person laughing and telling me they thought I was joking and now they just laugh at the 3 or 4 times a day they get called for printer or shared folder issues.
