Technology and Efficiency: Bring Data

My boss has twice told me a story about when he started with our company. (His 20th anniversary is next spring, so we'll forgive him the repeated narrative.) He was hired as an entry level engineering draftsman of some sort or another that I don't understand. After about a month of working without a PC, he politely offered that he would be much more productive with that tool at his disposal. The response was that he needed to complete a requisition for the PC that would support his need for such an extravagantly expensive piece of office equipment.

He quietly went about drafting his requisition by hand on a yellow legal pad - something he still does on occasion, making amendments as he went, then proceeded to transfer his argument onto the appropriate requisition form in triplicate via typewriter. Yes, typewriter. My boss has many valuable skills. Typing is not one of them.

He handed the requisition to his boss at the end of the day, covered in carbon paper ink smudges and Liquid Paper (no, not this...this.)

He estimated that with a computer, he would have been able to complete the same task in 6 minutes, instead of 6 hours and calculated that the company could expect a 127,844% efficiency increase for the bargain price of one PC.

The computer was on his desk the following Monday.

A Case of Correction Tape

I order supplies for the office. Dangerous, given the 12-step program that people keep telling me that I need to thwart the OSW distinction, but my boss insists that I’m the best person for the job.

So here is my quandry….

What is it about the white-out correction tape pen that makes people go nuts? Seriously.

I have thirty-five people in the entire building, yet I’m purchasing 10-packs almost weekly. Is there a correction tape Gremlin running around mummifying rodents in the store-room? Are they using it to paint new lines in the parking lot? What?

God help us if they ever make a tape dispenser that works as easily.

Office Supply Whores

There is a running joke in my family that my mom and I can both be completely had by anyone holding new office supplies. The Fuller Brush man and the Kirby sales-guy can't get past "Good afternoon, ma'am" before the door slams, but the [insert your office supply vendor of choice here] delivery guy with four cases of 20 lb. Georgia Pacific paper can take us on the receptionist's desk...hence the name "Office Supply Whore." Irreverent, yes, but the only moniker true to the nature of this Mr. Sketch Marker-sniffing addiction.

Among the women who gather at my house, the best Christmas gifts are leather journals and fountain pens, handmade bookmarks and new stationery. Sleigh bells ring for highlighters. Not the big fat ones. The ones that feel like regular pens. And the yellow has to be just so - not too neon, and not the kind that darkens into goldenrod, eew! My mom and I knew that my brother had found the right woman when she, too, confessed her addiction to new office supplies and displayed a wide grin at the industrial-sized package of Sharpies that I gave her last December. Oh, yes. You do need them in every color.

So please, join me in this endeavor. A vellum-smooth ode to office supply addiction.

You had me at Bostitch,

The Office Supply Whore