Pilot fish arrives with his tools to fix a paper jam, and finds a really big one. Dozens of sheets of paper have been pulled in at an angle, and the machine is thoroughly jammed.

User explains that she was trying to print a report when the copier sucked up all the paper. “I tried pulling it out,” she tells fish, “but it’s stuck.”

Fish uses a box cutter to cut away half of the paper on one side of the roller, and then he’s able to pull the rest of the paper out from the other direction.

But he notices that it looks as if there’s some grease on the feeder wheels. He wipes some of it off and then notices that something doesn’t seem right. He rubs the substance between his fingers. It doesn’t feel like grease. He sniffs it. He definitely doesn’t smell like great. “What the heck?” he says. “This smells like perfume!”

User assures him it is not. It’s hand lotion.

Fish lets user know that doesn’t make the situation any better. And he asks, “Why?”

“The printer was squeaking,” she says, “so I put hand lotion on those little rubber thingies to make them softer.”

Sharky prefers the sweet smell of a true tale of IT life. Send me yours at sharky@computerworld.com. You can also subscribe to the Daily Shark Newsletter.