Supply Assistant

As if the winter season isn’t terrible enough, I have to wear about ten layers and a puffy coat that makes me look like the Michelin Man just to stay warm. I devote an extra five minutes at the beginning and end of each work day just to suit up. But what’s even worse is tossing my many layers on the back of my office chair. When it’s just a small hoodie to fight the autumn breeze, it’s fine. But when I have all the other bulk, it makes sitting in the office all day uncomfortable. Not to mention that my jacket easily slides off and onto the floor. Granted I may not look super stylish in my giant jacket, but that doesn’t mean I want it lying on the floor.

The simple solution? Investing in coat racks. Clean Sweep Supply sells more than just wholesale office supplies and discount office products. They also have a wide array of office furniture too. Coat racks will keep employees happy and comfortable. When someone is working at the office 40+ hours a week, they should feel at ease, at home. Having a proper place to put your items is a simple way to make employees feel like they truly belong. I’m not an intern. I deserve a spot for my jacket!

Push pins are one of the most important office supplies. We use them to mount posters, photographs, sticky notes that are no longer sticky, and anything else worthy of hanging on walls.

Some are solid metal-colored, some are red, white, green, yellow or blue. These are good but there’s always the decision as to whether you want to hang this poster with all the same color push pins or if you want red on the top and white on the bottom, or if it doesn’t matter you can choose different colors for each corner. This used to be a big deal to me, especially when I ran out of a specific color.

My office mate has a bunch of business office supplies and even more push pins. He’s so friendly and kind, he lends them out to the entire office, without ever expecting them back. If it were me, I’d only offer the yellow ones, because they’re my least favorite. I guess that’s because I’m selfish. Sometimes I wish I were more like my office mate, but then I realize that I can’t be. I shop for office supplies anyway with the intention of stockpiling them just in case I ever need to look good.

Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do. But there’s a time for being outside the office, away from the office supplies, away from the printer supply and all of the deadlines and customer relations. It can get stressful, sure, which is why it’s important to take a breather every now and then.

Life is very long, and if you’re willing, full of adventure. It can be good to get out of your element now and then, to have an experience different from the norm, which reminds you of the power of a sunset, or watching a bird in flight, or meeting someone who is different than anyone else you’ve ever met; of going to the beach in a country you’ve never seen before and noting the difference in how the sun hits the earth differently in that part of the world. This is a large part of what life is about — having new experience and remembering that you are alive, to breathe and smell and eat and love! You can get away with never leaving your home town and working with the same office supplies day in and day out, you may not be satisfied with your life when it’s time to die.

So next time you’ve had a stressful day, get out of your comfort zone and away from your office supplies and remember that there’s more to life than what’s immediately around you.

The office desk is one of the most important parts of office supply. Without a desk, what are you going to do, work on the floor?

Nothing like a solid oak, or cherry wood, or mahogany desk where you can sit and type away for hours at a time, where your back is toward the wall and not the room’s entrance, which is bad feng shui since it exposes the back of your head, and you can really focus, get down and dirty with all of the file folders and other office supplies you have stacked in piles.

Some say that a clean desk is a clean mind, but I prefer having my ideas scattered randomly around my desk. It allows me to jot things down as I need to. On the center of the desk is my computer and surrounding it are books and scraps of important papers with phone numbers and pieces of yet-to-be-chewed gum, office supplies, receipts and coupons and candles, for when I need some aromatherapy.

All in all, I love sitting at my desk to do work. It should be your sanctum, and you shouldn’t prefer to do work anywhere else. If it’s not, well maybe it’s time to fix it so that it is.

A printer supply can be very expensive. Toner and ink is pricey, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find it on sale. Because you can’t be cheap with your ink; sometimes your printer will take that negative karma and use it against you, printing out the entire web page even though you specifically highlighted only the text, and that black bar at the bottom cost about thirty cents. It’s much better to simply give your usage of the printer over to the printer gods. They will treat you well most of the time.

When you have a printer you don’t have to shlep your laptop around with you to prove a point. Print out what you need and look professional. You won’t have to ask friends to borrow their printers, you won’t have to offer them favors in return for letting you use their printer supply of ink and paper.

And when you have a well stocked printer supply of paper you can easily take a sheet and draw on it to illustrate a point. Nothing like a clean sheet of paper to write on. So if you want to make your life easier and less complicated, just invest in the heart of any office supplies: a quality printer and printer supply.

If you want to know of a fun way to take wind-blown photos of your friends while being inside, spray two cans of Dust-Off, otherwise known as compressed air, at their forehead. Tell them not to inhale, though. It’s not good for you.

Compressed air’s original office supply purpose is to clean keyboards and computer screens. Too often I’ve seen filthy computer keyboards, with dirt, hair, dust, and last night’s dinner stuck in between keys. Taking poor care of your computer shortens its lifespan, as is the case with everything, from your car to your own body. Think of compressed air as a doctor’s appointment for your computer, a way to clean itself. There’s no other way to rid your computer of this gunk — Windex is not good for it, and a wet rag could easily drip and damage the electronic parts. Plus there are pieces of dirt that aren’t even visible to you, but may lurk underneath keys, slowing and affecting your typing negatively.

So invest in a can of compressed air and clean your computer today. That way when you bring your computer and your office supplies to your local cafe and you see your friend, she won’t say, “Wow, your computer is really gross looking,” but instead, “Wow, you take really good care of your computer.”

For Christmas one year, when I was obsessed with office supplies as a child, my grandmother gave me a set of erasers. There was the standard big pink one about the size of my thumb, which was my least favorite, there was a rectangular white one which when rubbed against the paper made little brown dirt rolls and was slightly more effective than the pink, and then there was a tiny half white-half gray eraser. This was my favorite.

This eraser was slightly smaller than the pink one and much thinner. The gray side erased ink. The white side was for heavy duty charcoal erasing. If only Robert Rauschenberg had had this eraser when he made his “Erased De Kooning.” He would have had a much easier time. I wanted this eraser to last forever and I reserved it only for special occasions, when I had pressed too hard with my pencil or I needed to remove the pen lines and start over in paper, my overzealous nature now held in check.

Every now and then I think of that eraser when holding my current business office supplies. I hope that one day I’ll be able to offer that same feeling of elation to my grandchildren.

The sound of a bell has long been associated in my mind with the business office supplies I used to use when I worked in Brooklyn as a youth. It was my first job after college. I was a marketing administrator, and everyday at twelve noon the tolling of nearby church bells sounded.

Twelve o’clock was also the time I had my weekly meetings with my manager, when we’d go over what needed to be done and what was going to happen with our clients. At the sound of those bells I opened up my file folders and clicked my pen ready to write, ready for him to speak. I took notes as he talked on about campaigns we were running for high-profile companies. The meetings usually lasted fifteen or twenty minutes. Then I took lunch.

Now whenever I hear bells tolling they remind me of my innocent youth, when I was a young man concerned with doing the best job I could with my business office supplies, when I lived with roommates and the weekends were simple and easy. Those were good days. No I didn’t make as much money as I do now; I didn’t have the luxury and ease and love I now do; I was alone, drifting, and happy, without a care in the world.

The people in charge of our country are intellectuals. They have waded through years of school in order to get PhDs and juris doctorates.  They are well familiar with office supplies and file folders. And yet they aren’t doing a very good job at compromising because they put their political ideology ahead of their know-how and abilities to do what they do best.

Our politicians use their knowledge in their field, garnered through years of study and hard work with office supplies, to give themselves power and leverage. Their large egos get in the way of what they should be doing — serving the people — in order that they can continue to pocket money and fight for what they personally believe.

Luckily our forefathers anticipated this. Next year’s elections may decree that these senators and representatives are not as popular as they once thought. Assuming the anti-incumbent mood continues over the next year, the politicians who laud themselves will hopefully find themselves out of a job.

It just goes to show that even those people who know their business office supplies and who make it to the top aren’t assured that position for the rest of their lives. Which gives other masters of office supplies a chance.

I remember all my office supplies, or school supplies, in my desk. That desk nook was where we put our binders and folders and pens and pencils. The dark space was so private, so secretive, so childish, where you aren’t sure what’s proper and what’s improper and you only have vague notions of security. As adults, everything is out in the open, and you’re free to be judged as you present yourself, which is really not who you are, but a facade you represent to the world. The secrets, if you still have them, are deeply hidden under a subconscious patina of shame.

I wish I still had a nook to place my office supplies. I’d keep all my pens in line and it would allow me to have much more control over where I put my paperwork. I don’t like them all out in the open and drawers are just places to hide. A nook requires organization, I wouldn’t want to be like those kids who had papers spilling out of their desk every time they tried to take out a folder. And even though I don’t hide my business office supplies like a child, I still hide my secrets like an adult.