The office is a strange place. Office society is like medieval Germany, full of tiny little independent principalities that must not be encroached. Medieval Germany, however, did not have photocopiers (though I imagine that when Gutenberg put his original printing press together he spent the first week calling in overweight technicians and trying to un-jam paper). I am struggling to understand our new giant photocopier, trying to work out why it prints twenty copies when I indicated I just wanted one, and why it prints ‘recto-verso’ when I don’t want it but won’t tell me how to do it when I do.

I am not very good friends with technology. Sure, we keep in contact, but it’s not in my speed-dial or anything. Sometimes I will walk past this photocopier and it will growl at me. I try not to look it in the eye if I can avoid it. I have given up wondering why, when there are five trays filled with paper, it insists on using the tray which is not only empty but impossible to open without a crowbar. I have not even begun to tackle the many options on the control panel; I’m sure that if I really wanted to I could get it to wallpaper the living room, but it’s just best if I stay away.

The little printer we have at home is even more scullyphobic. It seems to be pretty straightforward: you load the paper, you press ‘print’, it prints – couldn’t be simpler. Tell that to the bloody printer! What really happens is that you press print, and the printer says ‘no’, stating its reason as ‘out of paper’. “No,” I tell it, “the paper is THERE, right there in front of you.” “Where?” it replies childishly. “THERE!” I moan. I hold its hand, feed it the paper like a baby in a high-chair, and then, halfway through the first bite, it chokes up, flashing “Paper Jam! Paper Jam!” on its little LED screen.

So I take the paper out. And press ‘Continue printing’. And, like a schoolkid trying to wind up the teacher, it continues wailing about there being a Paper Jam, despite all the paper being removed from its guts and several threats of hammer-induced destruction are thrown its way. Oh, I really hate printers, why can’t they just grow up? And the worst thing is, you know that when that printer does grow up, it will be a smug, self-important photocopier. It’s nature’s way.