Scanning is hard.

Today at work a coworker approached me with a book. He opened the book about 2/3 of the way through, indicated the first part of it and said, "Can you scan these pages so I can send them to our other plant?" I stared at the pile of paper he was showing me. It was a lot of pages. Our scanner is finicky and likes to screw things up partway through scanning them. I was answering phones as well and given the frequency of the incoming calls, running back and forth between the scanner and the reception desk was going to cause issues. I managed to squeeze out some sort of polite comment asking if he really wanted all of those pages. Thankfully he thought for a second and decided it was better to only scan the pages they really needed, and if they want any of the other ones they can let us know. So my work load was cut in half. Good thing too, as scanning turned into quite the ordeal.

First thing I noticed was that the book was too wide for the scanner. After a bit of fiddling I devised a way to scan one page at a time, although half of the pages were going to be upside down. I prayed I could fix them after the fact and set to work. I was doing pretty well at the start, and got about halfway through before the phone rang. I ran off to answer it, and ended up trapped on the phone for a good 2-3 minutes trying to figure out who this guy wanted to talk to. By the time I came back, the scanner had decided that I clearly didn't want all these pages I was scanning since I had been gone so long, and had thrown them away.

Attempt #1 is a failure. Start over. Lesson learned: if I will be away from the scanner for a while, go back and end the scan, then finish the phone call and start from where I left off. Piece of cake.

This time I get about a third of the way in before the phone rang. I ran over, answered it. Took a few moments for the person to get around to saying what they wanted, but passed them off fairly quickly. Or so I thought. Get back just in time for the scanner to beep and, once again, toss my hard work into the abyss.

Attempt #2 is also a failure. Start over. Lesson learned: just end the scan.

This time, I am prepared. When the phone rings I end the scan, no questions asked. It takes me three tries, but I get through it all. Finally. Feeling accomplished, I strut back to my desk to feast my eyes on the spoils of my efforts. I open the scanner folder, open up the first file, and......the scanner chose the wrong paper size. The bottom of all of the scans is cut off. They are useless.

Attempt #3 is still a failure. Delete and start over. Lesson learned: maybe I'm just not meant to scan.

I trudge back to the scanner and wander through it's various settings until I finally manage to force it to choose the scan size I want. Get about 4 pages in. Phone rings. End the scan to answer the phone. This time I actually check the completed scans to see if they worked. Bottoms of the pages are still cut off.

Attempt #4 is a failure too. Delete and start over. Lesson learned: I may be completely incompetent.

At this point one of my co-workers who covers the phones when I'm away from the desk offered to take calls while I finished this project. Thankful that I had one less thing to focus on, I told her my scanning woes and my issues with the pages being cut off. She replied, "Couldn't you do two pages at once, and use the legal-size setting?" As I was in the process of telling her how the book was too wide, the little voice in the back of my head woke up, took stock of the situation, and informed me that I was being stupid. If you imagine the scanner like a Word document, I was laying the book down as if portrait was the only option, and hence only letter-size. I completely forgot about landscape.

So I go to the scanner and rotate the book 90 degrees. Lo and behold, it actually fits now. I start scanning, and two minutes later I am done. I check the scans, and they are beautiful. My work is complete.

Attempt #5 is a success. Go back to my desk and remind myself that this is why I learned to laugh at myself. Lesson learned: the hair dye can cover the blonde, but it can't make it go away.