> Most printers take A4 and US letter and adapt automatically

I found out that they do not automatically adapt to JIS sizes. My wife’s work once had a printer that somehow got configured to use JIS, I assume JB5. It then refused to print on US Letter, but as printers are wont to do, didn’t produce any useful error message, nor relay this information to the computer. It just wouldn’t print. I only discovered this (because if you work in tech, you must know how to fix printers, right?) by laboriously scrolling through every menu on the tiny LCD screen, and finding that the paper settings were incorrect.

> if you work in tech, you must know how to fix printers, right?

You kid, but it turns out the assumption was correct in this case. I suppose the truth is that by working in tech, you are likely very methodical and rely on deduction, which are both essential in fixing printer issues.

Yes, but that’s the annoying part. So many tech problems that people encounter can be trivially solved with a quick web search, poking at menus until you find something promising, or a combination thereof. I remember helping my mom over the phone to troubleshoot something on her iPhone – at the time, I had an Android, so everything was foreign to me, but I was able to deduce where a given setting might exist, and figured out whatever the problem was.

I don’t know when or why this skill declined, but it’s upsetting.

Yea, it’s like people’s brains turn off. They can read menus at restaurants, but refuse to do so when confronted with a printer or whatever.