Office Max!

That’s exactly what happened to me when I met a copy machine representative. I wasn’t looking to lease a machine (I did a few years later), but I was searching for someone with a college connection to book a speaking engagement. He happened to know one of the deans, and that tie opened the door.

Your mission is to navigate your way through each floor of the office building using your stealth and stapler to distract your enemy co-workers. Be sure to gather new weapons and look out for open elevator shafts.

What do we do in our businesses, that we treat as vitally important or something that has to be done right away but that we’re not really using any more, or whose usefulness has passed? I’ve asked employees to fax me some paperwork one time only to have them not realize that I didn’t want it forever. On the road for two weeks and I return to find my fax machine out of paper and the fax buffer full. Woops! I’d put them on Threat Level Orange on counts and not stepped them back down to yellow. Now, some automatically stepped themselves back down, assuming that I only wanted it the one time I’d asked for it.

1. I love all of you, I admire your dedication to your work and I understand that you all have PhDs and deserve respect, however, I deserve respect too. Having the copy machine jam while I’m making you 400 copies does not make me stupid. It does however create a nuisance for me to have to disassemble the machine to find that a crumpled copy of a crossword puzzle that you were doing earlier has been lodged in the rollers.

The most coveted piece of hardware seen at the Red Hat Summit:

Appearing on MSNBC's Tucker Carlson show, she recalled that back in 2002, she noticed the floor around the copy machine in the White House was covered with yellowcake crumbs, so she cleaned the crumb trail that led right to the VP's doorstep. "I can't tell you how gross the vice president is," she complained. "He strains spaghetti through a fly-swatter, drops yellowcake crumbs everywhere. When I opened the door to clean his office, Cheney's desk had yellowcake all over it. He was holding the hinky memo and that man had cake all over himself. I can't stand the guy!"

Once most of the main items were moved back Bonnie helped me unhook the temporary office we’d set up in the kitchen nook so it could be placed back in the living room. The computer with all those wires and cables was taken down and then William and I moved the desk and book shelf, the fax machine and put everything back together in the living room. For some reason each time we hook the wireless modem up I have to show the computer the Lan Driver Disk or it refuses to acknowledge we have one; not a big deal and I had it ready as soon as the power came on. The speakers came to life and “Wa-ha” ( my only John Wayne impersonation; be glad for that, Pilgim. ) everything was working. I get a much better signal on the wireless since it’s directly below Bonnie’s bedroom; a good reason not to leave the office in the kitchen nook.

The one major casualty was my trusty Brother fax machine, now dead as a doornail. It was not surge protected.

Next stop…a home furnishing chain that was closing a few offices and needed help packing. During many of my approximately three million trips across the office, my arms loaded with various office and computer supplies, I’d walk by people who were emptying out their desks. Several of them gave me looks that clearly said, “Oh my Lord in heaven, by next Monday my life may be as pathetic as yours.” Yes, yes it will, I said silently with a smile, while tripping on phone chords that were now lining the hallways. That job was fairly introspective. Most of the time was spent sitting in an office, disconnecting anything and everything. I was able to enjoy some human interaction at lunchtime, when I’d sit in the sun with the professional movers, devouring a Big Mac and sipping down Coke, as if my work throwing obsolete business cards in a trash bag was as exhausting as carrying industrial furniture on your back. “Long day, huh?” I’d say, reflecting on that binder clip that fell behind the copy machine.

1. Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark, 17 inch paper, 99 copies.

4) Finally, as I mentioned in my last post I want a solid working environment. Ideally that means a private office with a door. If not, then a relatively quiet and peaceful atmosphere… sitting next to the copy machine just doesn’t cut it. A decent computer to work with would also be nice. Running Visual Studio 2005 on a computer with 128MB of RAM and a 15″ CRT monitor is hell, not a promising career.

There are certain things that bug me. One of them is not know how to do something basic in the field you are working. I program on a mainframe machine for a living, we have emulators on our PC's and need to know how to get around XP, Notes and Office products for meetings, email and documentation. The thing that bugs me the most is when a person refuses to figure out or learn how to do something (like start and instant meeting on an IM client) without even trying to do it themselves first.

I’m not quite sure what they are trying to point out. Are they trying to tell us that Gateway computers are “black, generic desktop PCs”? Or that the disfunctional, clueless office represented on this television show would select Gateway? Or, that The Office is a phenominally poor choice for product placement of office products?

The other night I dreamed we got a new stapler at work—a heavy duty one that would actually staple things, unlike our wimpy, temperamental one. In my dream, I was quite excited. How pathetic is that?

The network effect is a simple one. Some things enjoy exponential increase in utility when there are many of them. Fax machines are the perfect example. A single fax machine is a useless item but a network of millions of fax machines has tremendous value.

When you want to find a new home for something -- whether it's a chair, a fax machine, piano, or an old door -- you simply send an e-mail offering it to members of your Freecycle group.

The stapler is ignoring the hole puncher. They haven't been talking much these days. There was a lot of paper work to be sent out recently, I've been raising the stapler's profile. In turn, It has become arrogant with its newfound fame. Poor old hole puncher. Looking pretty dismay in its current plight. It has been through a lot, I can tell - dust settling in inconspicuous areas, the vibrant red suit ravaged by the ruthless hours. I wonder when their friendship grew cold and if they would ever speak again. But I guess life's like that; people move on, environment change... its all part and parcel of life.

Its like the perennial debacle with photocopying machines. We have to make a lot of photocopies (these kids pay 40 bucks an hour, they deserve their own copies) and toner cartridges cost about 100 bucks a pop. They only send one when the other is dead. Well, what are we supposed to do while waiting? One of the heads of the company told us teachers to ask them to send two. He was stunned to find out we DO ask for more than one at a time (we aren’t morons ya know) and the main office refuses to send them. Talk about wires crossed. The photocopier is dying again, but we might be working out a toner refill scenario on Monday. If not, all photocopies on the fax machine, which is highly unfeasible.

So I am trying to get my home office set up and trying to get this old fax machine to work. It hasn't been used for at least 2 careers, well I think maybe I made a copy on it 3 years ago. I'm ready to scream, it's a dusty piece of crap.

Chesbrough and Rosenbloom illustrate the importance of the business model with a case study of Xerox Corporation’s early days in the copy machine business with its Xerox Model 914 copier. (Before changing its name to Xerox Corporation, the company was known as the Haloid Company and then Haloid Xerox Inc.)

Chris apparently unplugged the cordless phone while taking the printer/fax machine to the restaurant this morning. DOH! I am such a moron.

Caller: "On page 1, section 5, of the user guide it clearly states that I need to unplug the fax machine from the AC wall socket and telephone Jack before cleaning. Now, can you give me the number for Jack?"

Okay… what ass-clown decided to steal my stapler? I’m serious. The stapler that I have had in my office for eight (8) years is gone.

Bought a new printer today, was originally going to get a networkable printer, but after some discussion, we figured it wasn’t needed. BUT, this bad boy is a printer/scanner/copier/fax machine. I tried out the copier and it’s pretty fucking sweet. Should get to use the fax machine soon for sending out resumes and shit…only think that seems weird is that the ink cartridges are really small. Makes me wonder how long ink will last on this thing. The carts they give you are like 1/4 full so that’s not a good test and they don’t give you a USB cord to hook it up to your computer. Damn cheapskates.

6. At the office copy machine “Reproducing eh? Can I help?”

On sale at Best Buy on Nov. 1st is the Office Space (Special Edition Gift Set)

If this is anything like the stuff you get over at www.redswinglinestapler.com, I’m alllllllll over this. We bought a friend in the office their fan kit for a going away present when he was promoted, and it was great. You can only get this through bestbuy’s website though, apparently. Here’s the link.

So very early on I decided that a fax machine was a worthwhile investment. I went with the Brother Intellifax 2800 plain paper laser fax/copier. It has been supplanted by the Intellifax 2900 which is the same model lineage with a few more features.

Today in the President’s office I was assigned my first real duty (besides the innate duty of taking the mail and answering phones) of making copies. I know the special copy code! And it was de ja vu because I used to use the big copy machine at Lindsay. So let’s just assume I had absolutely no trouble figuring it out.

At noon, I took a nice long lunch and came back for more meaningless tasks including un-sorting the paper clips and loading the copy machine with as much paper as it would take.

Our roots are middle class. I think middle class interests play a big role in characterising our work. We were quickly buoyed by our abundant funding. Although we felt far more modest than the Big NGOs (nicknamed BINGOs), we still showered ourselves with facilities like the telephone, fax machine, and computer. Yes they may be basic facilities but everyday we wanted more. Our phone bills kept rising: up to one million rupiah (US$500) per month - compared to fifty thousand rupiah (US$25) a worker needs to rent a room monthly! We became dissatisfied with simple computers, we wanted colour notebooks. We paraded like executives. We would fly or take cabs to meetings instead of huddling in a bus or train like we used to.

If you’ve ever seen the movie, Office Space, then you know it really is art imitating life in a corporate environment. Well, today my “Office Space fan kit” arrived in the mail here at work. I’ve already placed the red stapler, sticky notes, coffee cup, and mousepad out for the world to see. I’m not disgruntled at my job by any means, just trying to bring a little humor to the workplace.

The red Swingline stapler that Milton was so afraid of having taken away was never actually manufactured by the Swingline company; it was instead painted red by a crew member in the props department. However, following the movie’s success on video as a cult film, the demand for red Swingline staplers (apparently as a symbol of quiet rebellion among cubicle-bound employees) was so great that the company began to sell the red Swingline stapler on its website.

Okay, not to panic, or so I've been telling myself, but my computer has crapped out. We have nine computers in our house, all connected through the ether, wired and less, each humming away at it's own assigned duties. I'm sure the fact that we have nine computers to serve four residents is easily explained. Give me a moment if you would and I'll work on thinking what that explanation might be. PJ is an Electrical Engineer by training and profession and I have spent most of my work life as a a systems administrator. So that accounts for some of them.