Sysadmin

I inherited an absolute POS postage meter from a predecessor at work. She signed the agreement for a 5-year lease on the damned thing, then fucked off and retired, leaving me to deal with the devil machine.

Why is IT supporting the postage meter? Oh, you sweet summer child. If it blinks or uses electrons in any capacity, it falls to IT or maintenance, and 'Dougie ain't doing shit with the stamp machine' (his words).

This thing is called an iX-3 made by Quadient. I want to enumerate the ways this thing sucks so maybe you can avoid the absolute hell that this machine hath wrought:

-The rubber, remote control-like buttons get stuck under the bezel consistently. It's one giant rubber pad and it's poorly designed.

-The back button doesn't actually go back, and the home button does not go home. They simply exist, existentially unaware of their useless nature.

-The menu will simply up and fuck off to whichever option it wants to go to at any given time. On the 5th minute of entering package measurements and after finding a finger joint that hasn't been utterly decimated by the 25 psi buttons the machine will simply revert back to the ZIP code. Or the weight. Or just lock up entirely.

-The repair technician often says "Hmm" and "That's strange" when servicing the unit. Just today he told me a story of a similar iX-3 at another company that was possessed. The staff had him over all the time because the machine would up and start motoring for no reason at all. Turns out a ribbon cable fried, shorted, and caused enough arcing to let the damn thing almost start on fire. I fear our machine was listening, and I fear the reprisal I am about to face.

-Wake up the machine and then weigh your item. If you reverse that procedure the machine will refuse to wake up until completely power-cycled. "Hmm, that's strange." says the technician. "Hmm."

-I tried to feed it a manufacturer-produced adhesive label for an oversize envelope. You know how a masseuse pushes and squeezes and grinds on your muscles? Now picture that, except with a label and rollers that don't give a fuck. Half a bottle of goo-gone leaves us with an oily sheen, a slight orange odor, and a defiant-looking meter.

-Unplugged the network cable to move it. It woke up instantly, demanding its outside connection. I acquiesced, cowing to its desire. In turn, it locked up and required a power-cycle.

Please, for the love of all that's good, do not ~~buy~~ lease/rent this machine. You have been warned....