Malfunctioning Items at Kinko’s, v.1

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This is the beginning of what I anticipate to be a long-running series. The object is to prove my previously mentioned thesis that the hellmouth lies not under Sunnydale, CA, but instead beneath the far more evil Kinko’s. A useful side effect of this project is that it will allow me to vent my frustration online to our loyal readership and to anyone who Googles “Kinko’s” and scrolls through enough hits to reach this website. Admittedly, that is a lot of scrolling, but it still makes me feel good. The Internet is a powerful tool for the passive-aggressive bashing of corporate monsters.

Without further ado:

Date of Visit: Thursday, March 2, 2006
Times of Visits: 2:30 PM and 4:45 PM
Location: Oakland City Center
Project: British Airways Punk Rock Poster, Graphic Design Studio 2

Malfunctioning Items:

1) The credit card reader for the Mac Design station
2) The computer for the only other Mac Design station
3) The machine that dispenses the Kinko’s value cards
4) The computer’s ability to charge the correct, not double-the-correct amount for prints, resulting in my not being able to print two copies of my poster without logging off the computer and putting more money on my card
5) The paper cutter, resulting in my shredding the one copy I was able to print

Time Spent in Store: 45 minutes
Time I Would Have Spent if All Systems Were Go: 10 minutes
Nice Employees Encountered: 2
Annoying Employees Encountered: 2
Why I Continue to Patronize Kinko’s: They have a monopoly on self-service printing.

Filed under Blogger Archives, Evil Businesses, Favorites

3 Responses So Far
  1. 1

    Mark said,

    March 3, 2006 @ 3:50 pm

    A good friend of mine worked many years at Kinkos, now FedEx Kinkos :-)

    As is typical in so many companies, it starts off in a decent direction, then the bottom line becomes bigger than humanity can deal with and the company ditches.

    In this case the founder is cool, but the company that owns it now, isn’t.

  2. 2

    Sanjay said,

    March 3, 2006 @ 6:51 pm

    once upon a time i dreamed of working at kinkos. it is just so crisp and enticing looking. when i would go there it seemed the operation was pretty solid. maybe that’s a champaign-urbana thing, or maybe the company has gone down hill.

    i went to kinkos to get something enlarged about a month ago. I ran 2 copies when the machine ran out of ink. the employee didn’t know how to change the ink. even if he did he didn’t know where the ink was stored. he was really nice and called around to other kinkos to make sure they had functioning enlarging machines. but still. pretty bizarre, no?

    sanjay

  3. 3

    brooke said,

    March 3, 2006 @ 10:56 pm

    You know, I FedEx’ed (at the FedEx Kinko’s on Lakeshow) a friend’s letter of recommendation priority overnight this week and it did NOT show up at her place. We had the tracking number, so she called and they said, sorry your package is in Tennessee. Unfortunately, she needed it in IL at that time to apply for grad school. They suck..

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