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The original was posted on /r/talesfromtechsupport by /u/Muspel on 2025-01-11 02:44:40+00:00.
So, at my work, there was a recent project to replace our aging fleet of printers across the organization. This was a pretty big undertaking, but we had a good team working on it.
After planning out all of the things that would need to happen for the swaps to happen seamlessly, it was decided that we would start by replacing the printer in the IT department-- that way, it won't upset anyone else if something goes wrong, it's close by, and everyone in IT knows about the project so they'll report any issues instead of ignoring them.
The new IT printer is set up, and after about a week there's been no issues. Great! We move forward and replace the next printer.
Suddenly we're getting a bunch of reports of problems. Nothing about this printer should be any different, so there's a frantic hour or two before someone on the systems team thinks to check the IT printer.
Turns out it has the same problems. It's just that nobody in IT ever has any reason to print anything, so it didn't actually get used at all during that week-long testing period.
Luckily, the problems were minor and quickly fixed, and the rest of the rollout went fine, but it was an important lesson on the difference between asking "Does the printer work?" and "Did anyone have any problems with the printer?".