Resolutely Ignoring the Problem

Lately, we've been having this problem at work with things being printed out and not being claimed. Technically, this printer is only supposed to be used for work or school related things by people who belong to our lab group, and since there are only three of us, you'd think it would be fairly easy to match the material being printed with the person doing the printing. As it turns out, you'd be wrong about that.

Last Thursday, before leaving work, I took all the unclaimed papers and put them in the recycling bin. I happen to know for a fact that nobody was here on Friday. And yet, I walked in this morning to find no fewer than 32 pieces of paper with smiley faces on them. And another 4 that said, "Close this screen before opening document."

So I'm thinking that either (a) elves are coming in at night and printing out crazy things to try to get us in trouble or (b) our printer has accidentally been hooked up to a random computer in the building by mistake. I'm kind of hoping for scenario A because if it's scenario B, I'm going to have to go talk to the IT people. And really, I'd rather walk through about a mile of fire, followed by another mile of broken glass. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but for once, I'm actually being serious. Because the IT people here? They HATE ME. With a deep and unending passion. Because the last two times I went down there, my complaints were as follow:

Time 1, about 4 months ago: my co-worker was typing something on his fancy computer with two flat screen monitors and suddenly, smoke started coming out of one of them.

Time 2, about three weeks ago: keys started falling off my laptop keyboard and then I'd accidentally put them back in the wrong spot and as a result, everything I typed was completely incomprehensible.

And now, I'm supposed to go tell them that there are random smiley faces being printed on our printer? And that no one is actually sending these TO the printer? Wouldn't that be similar to going to a neurologist and saying that you're having seizures because a ghost is trying to possess you and you're fighting back? Because to me, these two problems sound pretty similar in terms of their UTTER RIDICULOUSNESS.