'24 Ways to Bore Yourself with a Stapler'

24 Ways to Bore Yourself with a Stapler

By Brian K White at 01/21/2007 07:48

24 Ways to Bore Yourself with a Stapler

If you work in an office, much of your day may be dedicated to finding any way possible to while away the endless hours that is the tedium of your mindless existence. While we can't tell you things will make your career more fulfilling, nor your hours pass with a new quickness and benefit, we can help you experience boredom in new and improved methods.

Of all the items in your cubicle, the most common and least used may very well be your stapler. It's a great device in terms of functionality, though it never gets its due credit, so let this be your boredom enhancement tutorial for how to utilize that device to better-than-ever benefit. Please enjoy and drink deep from our cup of wisdom as we present this, our 24 ways to bore yourself with a stapler.

1 – Stare at it while on hold. It will not do anything and it will not help you pass the time.

2 – Place it atop your head while claiming you are from a distant land where such activities are not considered peculiar.

3 – Go in early or stay late an evening and empty the staples from every stapler in the office. While you won't be able to enjoy the frustration it causes, you'll still know that you did it. Empty your own while you're at it, as not to arouse suspicion.

4 – While on hold with a vendor, see how many times you can lick your stapler before your important call is answered in the order in which it was received.

5 – When calling tech support, open your stapler and place it against your head. Commit to yourself that if they tell you to reboot, you'll clamp that steel into your temple. Though perhaps not boring, it is still a viable game to play in any office.

6 – Wage a staple war against the neighboring cubicles. This may not sound boring, but once you see the staples fall with complacent impotence a mere foot or two from where you shot them, you'll quickly realize the lack of joy.

7 – Guess how many staples remain, then count them off as you shoot them into the garbage. You may also want to place over/under wagers to yourself by which you can earn the additional smoke or bathroom breaks you could have just as easily taken by not playing the game in the first place.

8 – While filing documents in the arguably needless file cabinet, take it upon yourself to find individual pages that need to be stapled... not stapled to anything else, but just to themselves. Just single sheets of paper with a staple in the top corner. Nothing says "page 1 of 1" quite like a lone, needless staple.

9 – When you find multi-page documents that should have been stapled, but weren't, count this as your opportunity to fill that staple void by stapling them all yourself, preferably in the middle of each page.

10 – Before sending a document to another department, consider flipping all the pages in random directions prior to stapling them together. It's not that the document deserves it, but that the people who wouldn't take the document a day earlier by email and print the damn thing themselves require a bit of classical conditioning.

11 – Fold one or bunches up and eat it. The risk of ill health as a consequence is low, but not zero. This could be the most exciting boredom you'll ever enjoy at your boss's expense.

12 – Steal box after box of staples from the supply cabinet and place them in your least favorite coworker's lunch box while he or she is outside smoking. It's a bastard thing to do, and if there are hidden cameras around the office you'll be fired, but it might just be worth it, though still quite a boring crime.

13 – Spend countless hours in working your used and unused staples into teeny tiny sculptures. Especially in light of its absurd frailty, it can't be any good in the end, but it can be boring.

14 – Determine how many staples you can fit in your nose. Best advice is to stick to those still stuck together in unused form. To do otherwise might drop an odd staple or twenty into your lungs or tummy, which can also be fun in boring ways, but is best considered as a separate game with its own health and employment risks.

15 – Pierce that piece of skin you always considered with a staple. Though it isn't sanitary, permanent or even remotely wise, it will certainly give you a dull, regrettable story to tell at your next Boggle night. Consider alcohols of rubbing and oral varieties prior to attempting. Though they may not alleviate any pain, they may preclude infection while assuring your judgment remains appropriately at bay.

16 – If you lose a button or your tie clasp fails mid-day, secure it with a staple. What this procedure lacks in excitement, it more than makes up for in boredom.

17 – You can also secure failing pant hems with a staple. It isn't sexy, but neither is your job, and unlike sex, you can actually use a staple in this instance.

18 – When you have uncooperative hair and a lack of gel, mousse or bobby pins, don't fret the frustration, staple those locks into place.

19 – Many men find their dress shirts fail to remain tucked in, some so much that the entire workday is wholly consumed by the perpetual struggle to keep shirts in pants. Consider a quick trip to the bathroom where you can unbutton your pants and staple your shirt tails to your pocket liners. While this is unreliable and ill-advised, it does at least give you something to do. Also, do not attempt this in your cubicle, since even partial removal of trousers can be interpreted as deviant behavior in the office environment.

20 – Find random, unrelated things in your boss's inbox, and staple them together. It's pointless at best, but the confusion it will undoubtedly lead to awkward conversations between persons you don't like as the how's, what's, why's and WTF's of these events.

21 – If your boss brings a cat, dog or other non-aquatic pet to work, recognize that it's inappropriate, and that it's your responsibility to staple random memoranda to this animal. You're not being cruel in this action, but rather lending new credibility to the creature as a bonafide service animal.

22 – Although it won't actually achieve the desired goal, you're always free to staple your stomach so that you can partake of even more of the morning meeting doughnuts. Strongly advised is the coincidental use of a red shirt or blouse.

23 – If you have a hundred-page stapler, as used on large documents and ebooks, consider using it to staple your coworkers to their chairs when they fall asleep. These staplers are much quieter than traditional staplers, and far more binding as well.

If you're done thinking about staples and staplers, now may be the time to bite the staple-shaped bullet and place that office supply order you've been pretending to research these past five minutes; and there's no better way to do it than by putting that shiny new stapler on order that you've had your eye on all this time.

By Brian K White