Got Ink?

Yes, I said ink. Printer ink to be exact. Because I need to print, copy and scan things while I'm here, I thought buying an inexpensive 3-in-on printer would be a good way to go. So, I went to the hypermart (Tesco), which has just everything you think you need and then some but in reality not everything you need, and bought an HP. Last week, I used up all my ink printing forms and whatnot that I needed for my research – materials to hand out to prospective research participants, surveys, etc. You may be wondering why I just didn't print one and send the rest through a copier, which I have access to at the office. The short answer is that I have something in color on the paperwork and I want it to stay that way in order to highlight that it is research and not part of the recruitment firm. Anyway, I went in search of ink and in search and in search and in search.

I went to the electronics store in the mall that has a pretty good selection of ink, including a number of HP and no #300. I went back to Tesco and no luck. So, I thought I would order it online from HP. I went to their website and finally found my ink and tried to order it. I could order it. I couldn't pay for it or have it delivered because it could only be delivered to an office or some sort and there was no easy way to pay in advance (ie. No credit card form). My next bright idea was to try to order it from amazon.co.uk. I found my ink but they can't ship 3^rd-party items of a certain type, including electronics and I guess ink is an electronic. So, I googled a bit and found a few places in Prague that do ink. I emailed one and later got a response that they do not have my cartridge number. But I found another site, that has my ink, that will ship it via Czech Post, that will let me pay by credit card. Could it be? I bit the bullet and put in a relatively large order, risking that I was doing it right but not wanting to risk having to do this too often. I had spent 2 hours online looking for ink that afternoon.

On Monday I received an email saying that my order had been shipped. Yesterday, I received that lovely little notice in my mailbox that I have a package to pick up. So, today, I trotted down to the post office again and received my little box full of inky goodness.

I thought purchasing a printer at a major supplier like Tesco, from a major brand like HP, would make finding the necessary accessories easy, or relatively easy. And when I mean that no one had the ink, they weren't just out. There wasn't even a blank spot where it should be. They don't carry it. On the up side, while I was waiting for my package to arrive, or to find out if I did this right, I popped into a photo and electronics store near the mall to see if they had my ink but although they don't they did tell me that they can order it. So, I have a solution. Not a simple one but a working one. Oh, the little things in life – it's things like this that allow me to waste an entire day doing nothing.