Gran's box

So the other day the library calls to have my department do some computer work for them. Usually they have their own IT staff, but sometimes our department will go over there to help setting up machines and stuff like that. When I got there they had just purchased five storage servers and a couple of data entry terminals that they wanted set up for two graduate students. The graduate students were going to be working on a project to take a bunch of old archived stuff and convert it into a digital format for safekeeping and for analysis and research purposes. It was supposed to be a really cool project and apparently the government had given them quite a large grant for the equipment. They had already unpackaged the computers downstairs in the sub-basement by the time that I arrived and the only two people down there were the two grad students. Alicia looked a lot younger than she was and had curly strawberry blond hair and was a little too cheery for my tastes, Max was the other grad student and he seemed to have a much more gruff demeanor. They introduced themselves to me and we chatted for a little bit until the head librarian came down to greet us. The head librarian and I had talked quite a few times before and she and her husband had a private book collection that was worth several thousand dollars so she knew the value of the historical nature of books and proper handling and care. She was explaining all of this to the overly peppy Alicia and the under peppy Max and then she turned to me. She said, 'Listen this equipment is very expensive and the government has paid top dollar to see that everything is set up perfectly. I don't want to tell you how to do your job, but please be careful with everything.' Then she showed me where the computers went and explained the set up to me. She explained how each student would take documents and use a light scanner to scan the pages of documents or pictures into the computer and then use the editing features of the software to correct any mistakes the scanner might have made. It was a fairly straightforward set up so it wasn't difficult to get it set up in just a few hours. During that time Alicia told me about how she was planning on becoming a librarian too, but that she really wanted to write for a living and Max droned on for hours about how history was the only important thing on the planet. They seemed like pretty cool people and when I wrapped up I left them to their work. I gave them my card and told them that if there were any problems they could call me directly and I would come take a look at it. Everything went fine for the first couple of days, but one afternoon I got a call from Alicia. She didn't sound nearly as peppy this time and told me that the scanner wasn't working at all and she was having to put most of the data from the documents in manually. 'It's just a bunch of scribbles,' She said. I told her that I was busy right then but I would check on it when I got off work at five. Since the grad students had classes they usually didn't start work until 2 or 3 in the afternoon anyway and worked through most of the night. That evening I went down to the sub-basement and took a look at the scanner. It seemed like everything was set up okay and I told them that I would talk to my manager about setting up a service call from the manufacturer to check out the light. Now I wish I had just told them to shut it down until the technician could look at it, I should have known when I first saw those 'scribbles' but it was late and I didn't want to waste my whole day trying to figure it out. I did give my manager the information and she scheduled a work order for the following Thursday, but it doesn't look like that will do any good to anyone now. The next morning I got a call on my personal cellphone at about 6 in the morning. It was Max. He just said, 'Listen goddamnit, I'm not doing this anymore until stuff starts working.' I tried to calm him down but he was completely irate. I told him to wait there and I would be over to see him as soon as I got in. When I did get to