Zak Gets Extreme With Stubborn Money-Saving Printer Tactics

Any founder of a newly-funded startup will tell you that it’s always a good idea to save as much money as possible when you’re building out your product. However, sometimes trying to save a buck can go from economical to borderline fanatical, which is what has happened with one of our founders, Zak. I know that he has nothing but good intentions as far as trying to stretch a dollar as far as he possibly can, but in this particular situation he might have crossed the line over to crazy. But don’t take my word for it, read his story below and feel free to come up with your own thoughts and opinions.

Zak vs. The Printer
We have an average laser printer that you would find in most offices, which means that the printer, when bought new, comes with a ‘starter cartridge’ that’s filled with like 30% of the amount of toner that is found in a normal, brand-new, off-the-shelf (and fairly expensive) cartridge. I’m not sure who came with this jank idea, but for some reason it’s become standard practice throughout the printing marketplace.

If it had been up to the printer gods, our toner cartridge would have needed to be replaced like 2 months ago when we first got the standard “LOW TONER WARNING” that displayed proudly on our printer’s LED screen. But, thanks to Zak’s ingenuity and deep-rooted hatred of the ridiculous premium that we all are forced to pay for new toner, he used his MacGyver-like skills and figured out a way to trick the printer into pretty much using up every single drop of the toner that was left in the starter cartridge. I must say that this was pretty impressive, but even his electronic trickery couldn’t make it last forever and today was the day that the printer officially screamed out “No more!”. The time Zak dreaded most had finally arrived. It was time to change the toner cartridge.

Zak Gives In
Even after the printer gave off an error that literally read “Toner Life End” (as seen in the image at the beginning of this post), Zak still had to give the starter cartridge a few more shakes just to make sure that we weren’t wasting anything. You could see the defeat in his eyes as he finally realized that he’d been beat. I swear that he got a little teary-eyed as he started to reluctantly rip open the silver packaging that contained the brand-new toner cartridge. “You’ve won the battle”, he thought to himself, “but you’re not going to win the war.”

As Zak shut the toner’s access door and the papers started printing out again I began to think that it was only going to be a matter of time before I saw this scene unfold again. However, if Zak has anything to do with it, it’s probably going to be a while.

Looks like you’ve won this time, printer.