Job Posting: Assistant Stapler

Company:

(Removed by The Black Stapler, who hasn't cashed her severance check yet.)

Company Description:

For more than 50 years, The Company has been dutifully serving customers while making little attempt to better their product or promote the ongoing value of their service. While customer attrition is frequent and no longer unexpected, minimal and ineffective efforts are made to market the company's services to new target groups. In recent years, The Company's achievements can best be described as adding nails to the coffin it will eventually inhabit after a long and inevitable decline. Coffin construction is completed on an erratic schedule but is occasionally accelerated due to lack of strong leadership, employee infighting, allowing politics rather than policies to govern company operations, and quietly stifling any employee with new and innovative ideas.

Primary Job Responsibilities:
(Removed by Black Stapler, it was just the usual boring bullet points that seem to tell everything but actually reveal nothing about what the job is actually like.)

Requirements:
(Note from Black Stapler: this is where the misinformation gets really thick, and Black Stapler can't help herself from adding editoral comments, which are noted in italics.)
· Extensive knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite.
(Fails to specify that the version used is Office 2000, which is inefficient and outdated. Software updates are not in the budget.)
· Self starter who can work independently under pressure.
(Really, all one needs is the ability to look busy during frequent and extended periods of little work.)
· Ability to see a project through from start to finish.
(Black Stapler supposes it is possible to finish a project at The Company, but notes that most projects during her tenure were lost in the black hole of managment dysfunction and never actually started... which means finishing them was both unncessary and logically impossible.)
· Ability to think logically in fast paced environment.
(Black Stapler notes that the only possible way The Company could be considered a fast-paced environment is in comparison with the United States Congress.)
· Team player.
(Doesn't everybody know this is HR-speak for "Your ideas will be blatently ignored and later presented by your boss as their own"? If not, you know now.)

To apply, please submit your resume and salary requirements to The Company

Copyright 2008 Stapler Tales

Not Surprised

Black Stapler found the posting for her replacement online today. She's not surprised. She assumed there might be some sort of restructure going on that she wasn't party to. What is surprising is that a company that let her go after months of not keeping her busy, managed to post a job ad for a replacement on the same day of Black Stapler's separation.

Why the rush?

Copyright 2008 Stapler Tales

Spin

When Black Stapler was let go last week, the official reason was: "Job Elimination."

Oddly, the company felt this was an important time to start paying attention to the way they present information, so the e-mail sent to employees was subject to a bit of spin:

"Black Stapler has left the company to further her career growth."

Although this happens to be true (any stapler could see there was no career growth to be had here) – what ever happened to honesty?

Copyright 2008 Stapler Tales

Don't let the door hit you on the way out

Black Stapler had an important meeting today. When all parties were present and accounted for, Black Stapler heard these words:


"I'm afraid we have some bad news. We've decided to let you go. Your position has been eliminated."


Black Stapler could pretend to be surprised, but instead will return to her office for the last time, pack up belongings (using the list she wrote yesterday just in case this ever happened,) and leave so quickly the door will have NO chance of hitting Stapler in the behind.

Copyright 2008 Stapler Tales

Not in the Budget

Black Stapler's company has a philosophy on budgeting: spend as little as possible. Naturally, this philosophy regularly causes problems for The Black Stapler, who tries their best to maintain a professional image for the company to the outside world.

One clever money-saving strategy is to reuse shipping boxes. Any box that enters the building is immediately captured by the shipping department and stashed away for later use. In some cases, this makes sense. But keep in mind that Stapler's company does sometimes ship out equipment and supplies to clients on a fee basis. In other words, these shipments don't take place unless shipping and other costs are paid for by the client.

So the question is: if you were the client... what would your impression of the Black Stapler's company be if you paid for a special order and it arrived in a recycled... toilet paper box?

Copyright 2008 Stapler Tales

When a picture is worth MORE than 1,000 words

I don't think The Black Stapler had previously mentioned that their specialty was marketing.

Imagine how frightened Black Stapler was on their first day on the job to find CASES of flyers with the pictured art on them. Needless to say... they were immediately thrown in the dumpster.

Copyright 2008 Stapler Tales

"Wake Up, It's Time to Go Home!"

Yes this really happened in my office. On Friday.

Who was this directed at? One of the managers. Whose office is right next to the front lobby. Whose little nap had no doubt been observed by several of the employees who report to him as they left for the day.

Better yet was who said it: His boss.

Copyright 2008 Stapler Tales

CW's

I didn't know what a CW was either until my 9th grade social studies teacher, Mr. Hatfield, enlightened me. A CW is a Clock Watcher, and I think before Mr. Hatfield became a teacher, he worked in my office.

A couple weeks ago, the entire office was herded into the conference room for a reminder on the policy regarding tardiness and other policies designed to reduce morale and otherwise remind us that we are being micromanaged out of our souls. (One is not allowed to trade their entire soul to the devil, er, management, up front for gold or vacation days, it is stolen one paragraph of the employee handbook at a time.)

Effective the day after said meeting, the receptionist was tasked with logging each person's arrival time at the office, as well as times "in" and "out" for lunch. Personally, I reached the maximum allowable tardies in 90 days, which is 3, after exactly... 3 days. I'm still here, so they can't have been too serious about actually firing people over it. Either that, or HR hasn't finished the paperwork for my last check.

Anyway, so the whole policy makes for an office full of CW's. Case in point: a colleague of mine arrived at the office one morning and there were three people in the front lobby. The moment she stepped in the door, as if those present were watching the final rally at Wimbledon, three heads swiveled up to look at the clock on the wall... and her arrival time was noted in triplicate. (White copy - HR; Yellow Copy - Manager, Pink Copy - Employee.)

Copyright 2008 Stapler Tales

Unassembled

Our office recently moved, and I am using different furniture, so the ergonomics are different, and problematic. So I made this simple request by e-mail a little over three weeks ago:
"The keyboard tray on this desk isn't quite big enough to hold both the keyboard and mouse, which means that the mouse has been on my desktop. Unfortunately, that makes it uncomfortable to use. I've tried moving it around, but it seems the best solution is a wider tray. Can we get one of those?"

Last week, it occurs to me that two weeks have passed and I haven't heard anything about my request, so I send a second e-mail:
"It's been several weeks since I sent this request. Is there an ETA on a new keyboard tray? Please let me know what the status is."

This morning, a box arrived, a brand new "keyboard drawer." I happened to overhear that it was backordered, which explains the three+ weeks that have passed since my first request. But seriously, would it kill someone to reply to an e-mail with "we'll order one right away" or "it's backordered and should be in soon"?

So here it sits in the box. I'm debating how long to wait before I should ask about having it installed. Naturally, being a practical person, I recognize that it does not fix the problem to have the keyboard tray in a box, it needs to be attached to the desk. But if someone overlooks the obvious request for a response in my e-mails, will it occur to them that installation is required?

Copyright 2008 Stapler Tales

Protecting Valuable Resources

Me: Can I get a couple blue ball-point pens?
Office Manager: I'll need you to send me an e-mail request.
[Time elapsed: 1 minute]

Me: OK. (I walk back to my desk, and draft an e-mail which says, "Can I get a couple blue ball-point pens?")
[Time elapsed: 2 minutes]

Office Manager receives e-mail, prints a copy for the file. When convenient sometime this month, she takes her massive key ring over to the closet, unlocks the cabinet and retrieves two ball point pens (approximate value: 25 cents) and delivers them to my office.
[Time elapsed: 3 minutes]

COST ANALYSIS:
Cost of employee needing office supplies helping himself to 2 pens from a central, unlocked supply cabinet:
- 1 minute of requesting employee's salary: $0.36
- cost of pens: $0.25
- cost of post-its requesting employee forgot to mention: $0.50
TOTAL: $1.11

Cost of current procedure at my office:
- 2 minutes of requesting employees salary: $0.72
- 3 minutes of office manager's salary: $1.08
- cost of pens: $0.25
- cost to repeat process for forgotten post-its: $1.58
- cost to employee morale over not being trusted not to steal the paper clips: unknown
TOTAL: $3.63

Copyright 2008 Stapler Tales