Autobiography of a copier

Hi there, my name is Canon. Yes with a single 'n' instead of double. Despite the connotation of power that comes from my name, my day to day job is copying. I work in a small office in a city called Mountain View in California which I'm told belongs to a mighty big country called the United States of America. It must really be a mighty big country since I am never turned off (no pun!) and I need to always be ready to go in case of any time-space-altering copying emergencies. But I've developed skills over time to go into hibernation and sleep so I do ok.

My job is a thankless one. I always feel cheated. People just come in, feed me something, punch some keys. I do my job. They walk away carrying with them even the stuff they fed me. Sometimes they open my trays and stuff reams of paper in it. I keep these for later use and I have quietly observed that I lose some with every job. I do get to read a lot of interesting and supposedly confidential information. One of these days I'm just going to hang on to some and email it to my friends!

The only time people think twice about me is when I do something wrong. I confess sometimes I play some pranks by jamming their paper in my rollers mainly because I'm bored. But by and large, anything that goes wrong with me is generally a result of sheer neglect on part of the people. I suppose these people are weird that way. The other day my friend Ricoh was telling me similar stories. He is into faxing which to me sounds pretty perverted ... but he's a friend - I let it slide.

Another problem about being me is that I hardly get to do any original work. Any creativity on my part invites screams, curses and sometimes kicks. I hear the latest management buzz touts a lot about job rotation and developing new skills. I haven't done any of this renewal stuff for as long as I can remember. I copied when I was young. Now I'm what I'd best call the middle age and I still copy for a living! The next job I'm going to look for, I'm going to push for something new ....

Sometimes I think it's all all right at the end of the day if you at least get proper recognition. What's recognition for a darn copier, you ask? Well, honestly, I haven't thought about that much. But I suppose an occasional loving glance may help. Or at least some petting at the end of a job. Not only do I never get any of these, and - here's the part that is truly hurtful - people often forget my name and call me Xerox.