So THAT'S where my stupidity tolerance ends...

I like my job. I've come to realize that I don't LOVE it, but the silver lining is that it has a built-in self destruct, since when the new building is over my job is over, and I don't have to worry about decades of monotony and not being challenged. What I do really, really like is solving problems and just eeking out an answer 10 seconds before a deadline. I hope to use these skills more at my next job, which will hopefully be more than "just" a secretary. What I don't like is doing the same mindless tasks over and over again, especially for other people. I know it's job security, but how come I'm the one who turns off the burner under the empty coffee pot several times a day? And really, the men I support are engineers. I know they are smart. Why do I have to install their printers and enter contacts into their phones? If your initial reaction is that it saves time, you're wrong. Every time except for one that I have been asked to do this, the person asking me has stood over me and watched me do it.
Anyhoo, today really took the cake. We have a BizHub in our office, which can copy, fax, print, and scan. We had a new guy come to site, so I added his email to the contact list on the BizHub so he could scan to himself. His first name is a nickname, and usually when someone goes by a nickname, their full name is in their email address. For example, Joe Smith would have an email address of joseph.smith@ mycompany.com. He entered his email address and couldn't scan to himself. We installed the printer driver again. No email. I hard keyed in his email address with him watching. No luck. Twice I stored the email address in the database for the machine. Still nothing. The problem wasn't with the machine because I could scan to myself A-Ok. I called our wonderful Konica Minolta service rep, who told me that it would be $150 for him to come out and visit, and that since other people were scanning fine, it was probably an internal problem. I start an email to my favorite IT guy at my company, and just for good measure I cc the man with scanning problems on the email. Before I hit send I see it: he has been telling me the wrong email address. He had been entering his email address as nickname . lastname @ mycompany.com. Oh, and his email address is formalname. lastname @ mycompany .com. WOW WOW WOW WOW. I have to admit, I was really on the verge of stabbing someone, but fortunately I could call the other site secretary and have a laugh about it. I'm still in awe. WOW.