Office1000 Blog April Archive

History of Pens; Quills

By Reference at 04/22/2007 11:34

The Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947 on the northwest bank of the Dead Sea date back to around 100 BC. They were written in Hebrew dialects with bird feathers or quills. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Europeans had difficultly in obtaining reeds and began to use quills. There is a specific reference to quills in the writings of St. Isidore of Seville in the 7th century. Quill pens were used until the nineteenth century.

What does it take to inspire you to clean up your toxic office space?

Reading what this person had to say, I found much of myself in her dilemma. I was tripping over files on the floor and had every surface covered with this, that and the other thing. There was disorganization everywhere. The worst part was I had no idea how to go about reorganizing.

In this video are some absolutely great tips on organizing your workspace, from beginning to end:

• You must remove everything from your workspace so you can decide what is essential to you and what needs to be eliminated from your space
• Donate, donate, donate everything that is usuable that you do not need, leaving room for the important items
• Assign everything a home or space. Define every shelf, desk surface and drawer to make sure everything has a purpose.
• Buy fabulous containers. Organizing can be FUN! From Barbie pink file folders to neat files on rollers, whatever strikes your fancy to make your office totally enjoyable but neat.
• The essential items should be close to you and easily accessible to promote creativity. You may put magazines that are important to you in a magazine rack front and center. You may need some binders on your work surface or a nearby shelf to hold ideas. You will need an organized supply drawer.
• One of the most important things is to make sure your desktop is free of clutter. It will increase your energy and even your overall attitude.

Organization for the Working Parent's Home Office

If you are operating a business from your home, these might be some handy organizational ideas to help coordinate things between having a home office and a family in the same house.

• Communication: establish a protocol for interruptions, discussing your normal working hours, and basic rules to be followed. Be ready to listen, question, and explain every detail fully
• Organization: the basic proper tools include a strong internet connection (especially if you have an internet home based business), a dedicated telephone (it can be a cell phone), a place to keep files and notes, and a way of organizing your incoming work
• Limitations: set limitations with your family so they know how to approach you in non-emergency circumstances. You could designate a signal that will visually tell them you cannot be interrupted unless it is an emergency. This could be as simple as a closed door or a sign you hang outside of your office
• Prioritize: Invest in a calendar, and make sure you update it regularly with appointments, school activities, deadlines, etc
• Commitment: Your word is important within your family and your business - so unless something happens that you cannot control, live up to what you say
• Flexibility: A work at home office can truly make a difference in narrowing the gap between career and family, especially if the office is organized and the expectations with your family are firmly in place

Nine Ways to Bore Yourself with a Photocopier

Of all the things in your work-a-day office environment, nothing is as ubiquitous as the photocopier, unless of count you count your chair, desk, stapler, and perhaps the conspicuous lack of window you have. It would be delightful to find a way to entertain yourself with the photocopier, but that may be a dream just out of reach. In the mean time, consider instead the more likely possibility that you can daily bore yourself with this very same device.

What follows are just a few of the many, great ways.

• 1 – Photocopy non-nude photos, specifically uninteresting ones, specifically of the blurry, grainy and indiscernible varieties.

• 2 – Print out the office betting pool on the latest professional or college game. Though it's obviously against company policy, don't' worry, you won't get fired unless your 16th-seated team unexpectedly charges at the end, putting you on top, winning you the full $126 pool. Sure, this will forever label you as the proto-typical office gambler slash cheater, and thief of work time, productivity and office supply value. Hey, no one said being a winner is easy.

• 3 – Use your photocopier to replicate the rules to fight club, but remember, the first rule is that we never talk about fight club

• 4 – Make infinite copies of the photos of your kids, pets, yard and car, no matter how blurry, gray and dark they may be. Bearing in mind that nobody will ever be able to see what you've copied, these will indeed be exceptionally boring photocopies.

• 5 – Use the photocopier (or network printer) to "accidentally" print the manifesto… it doesn't matter which manifesto, honestly. Once it's got "manifesto" in the title, and it's caught by the IT guys, you're pretty much doomed professionally.

• 7 – Catch "MF Tray Jam", but don't correct it. This will obviously inflame the whole office who needs their L2, P1 and other such tray-things duly printed. They'll assume someone can fix it, unaware that you already know that P1 Jam feed error U4 tray feed correct, please remove, which you adamantly refuse to do… you wily dog, you. How boring indeed!

• 8 – In a pinch, you can use it as a paperweight. It's overkill, sure, but just think of the amount of paper you can secure from even gale force winds with a several hundred pound photocopier. By the way, when I said, "in a pinch", I meant that it could pinch off even an entire limb of yours, properly dropped upon a section of your body, as it is precisely "a pinch" indeed.

• 9 – If your job seems too pointless to bear, consider making tens of thousands of copies of blank sheets of paper. It won't run through the toner cartridge, so you won't have to deal with that, but you might find some relief in mixing it up a bit. Consider the difference between single sheets of nothing compared to 50-page, collated sheets of nothing. That ought to make the work day just fly right by.

History of Pens; Reed Pens

The Ancient Egyptians had developed writing on papyrus scrolls when scribes used thin reed brushes or reed pens from the Juncus Maritimus or sea rush.

In his book "A History of Writing", author Steven Roger Fischer suggests that on the basis of finds at Saqqara, the reed pen might well have been used for writing on parchment as long as ago as the First Dynasty or about 3000 BC.

Reed pens continued to be used until the Middle Ages although they were slowly replaced by quills from about the 7th century.

Office1000 does not offer reed pens for sale.

How to Use Stacking Folders to Get Along with Your Co-Workers

Regardless of your work place, there are a few simple tools you can always employ that can help you get along better with your co-workers. The obvious ones include personal hygiene and abstaining from racist jokes, but did you know that you can also win friends and influence subordinates merely by employing stacking folders? Here are a few of the more common ways to do so.

You won't appear elitist just because your inbox is of higher elevation. A stack perhaps ten-high just means that you really care about getting your interoffice memos, and noticing them when they come in.

Having a complicated series of boxes in, out and otherwise makes your work appear so complicated that others will be afraid of it, insuring no one will try to steal your job.

In a pinch, stacking folders make a great fort for protection against having to look at your coworkers.

Whether you work in an office or not, you can still use them. If you sell doughnuts, consider this a unique, though peculiar way, to file and organize your goods for display.

If you have a problem with staring out the window you've been luckily graced with, use an extensive array of stacking folders to obscure the view, thus keeping you on task, more productive, and a better coworker all around.

If you want to really get along with your coworkers, you can have one stacked folder for each letter of the alphabet, thus converting your entire filing system from that pesky horizontal method, to a more interesting vertical system.

Emergency preparedness may be the best tool you have in case of the unexpected. Always bear in mind that stacking folder, while light enough to throw with significant velocity, also have pokey, jabby edges that can leave a would-be assailant with nasty lumps to the noggin in dire moments of need.

The Benefits of Disorganization

I realize that the object for this blog may be to sell more office supplies and especially organizational products. However, I feel compelled to offer an oposing view today. An interesting question was raised on slashdot, are you a slob? Do you pile papers on top of folders on top of game boxes? We know from the photo shown here that at least one person out there is. A google search for messy office photos tells us that it is a serious problem. Or is the problem so serious? Yes, we might agree that many people are "slobs", but the slashdot discussion provides from more insight: The arguments then begin: "I think you are missing the point. Messy people aren't more productive because they save time on not clearing things up. The theory is that our brains are not organized in the same orderly manner as books on a library shelf. Our minds are actually quite messy and random, which allows us to be flexible and creative by linking seemingly unrelated things together in an instance." If you have this "problem" buying tons of organizational products may not help you. It might however, make your co-workers and family members happy. Slobs Found To Be More Productive Than Neatniks

10 Ways to Be the Coolest with Duct Tape

Whether you work in an office, metal shop or aboard an oil drilling rig, there are certain tools of your trade you can't do without. Maybe it's a stapler, box of binder clips or full set of metric ratchet tools. In any case, there's another tool, one more ubiquitous, that you need to keep on hand, stock up on, and never forget. I speak, naturally, of duct tape.

No longer merely for ducts, this silver-faced tape has been used for everything from taping pipe-work to securing missing hatches from fighter planes. So if it's good enough for, well, just about everything, maybe it's just the thing you need to make you the coolest worker in your work place.

Here are the ten coolest uses for duct tape you might not have considered:

• 1 - Use it to close wounds. Forget bandages, stitches and butterfly closures, whether the wound is big or small, so long as it hasn't hit an artery, you can close it temporarily with a single swath of duct tape.

• 2 - If you have an offending car parked in the "Customer Only" zone, you need a parking boot. You know the kind, they're used to lock down offending automobiles with a fury sufficient to prohibit them driving away. You could spend hundreds of dollars buying such a parking boot, or you could use a single roll of tape to wrap it, lock it down and insure that the driver will never again dare to step wheels in your most coveted parking space.

• 3 - Suspend tremendous weights from girders. I know it may not sound too terribly cool, but when nuts and bolts fail you, always bear in mind that there is nothing one can suspend that one can not suspend with a couple quick wraps of the shiny, silver tape.

• 4 - Block entrance to the complex. If you're doing pavement repairs or lack onsite security sufficient to keep unwanted cars out of your complex on nights and weekends, you really need a fence, gate and secure locking mechanism. Those things can cost upwards to tens of thousands of dollars, so in the mean time, just run a couple quick lines of self-stuck duct tape across the opening. While it may not stop cars entirely, it will surely remind the drivers they should have read the signs before barging in, and it will lead ultimately to a single, undeniable truth; that you are cool.

• 5 - Use it to foil cat-burglars. One of the most overlooked benefits of duct tape is that it can be used as a ridiculously binding double-sided tape. Sure, it's too much for your office documents, but is it too much to place atop your roofline, window vents or strangely accessible ventilation ducts? Some would say yes, but you know better, the answer is plainly "no". Use loops of double-folded duct tape to create roach motels for cat burglars and watch the accolades roll in when the big break-in is foiled by a stuck cat burglar, thanks to you.

• 6 - Make yourself into a handsome pseudo-mercury statue. Things can get dull around the old office place, and you may already know this if you are one of those who have worked in one. Spice things up by wrapping yourself head to toe in an absurd sheath of duct tape, then walk around insisting that you're the guy from Terminator-2. While you may not be cool in fact, you might convince yourself that you are, and really, isn't that all that matters?

• 7 - Affix the office kiss-up to the wall, desk chair or ceiling. I mean, seriously, how cool is that? You may not realize how sticky this stuff is, so hopefully, this person won't either. Make it like a little joke at first, but lay it on thick and quick and you'll quickly be delighted as the joke turns to sheer terror and that jerk-face is semi-permanently stuck to the place of your choosing. A desk chair is an easy choice, and a wall can take a bit more doing. Structural support pillars are also good, but if you're really feeling up to the challenge a ceiling can be the best. You can leave him or her there indefinitely, and if they get obnoxiously loud, just tape over the mouth. Since this is already a hated fixture around the office, everyone will agree that it was a joke in good fun, so don't hold back.

• 8 - Repair every office woe from the paper tray that won't stay in place to the latch on the fire door the smokers need to get back inside. Whether it's a problem with a swivel chair or a wobbly leg on the break room table, duct tape can fix it, fix it good, and fix it more or less forever. How cool will you be when you fix the table so wobbly it keeps spilling the accounting lady's sweet and sour all over the funny papers?

• 9 - Bind the very essence of the universe together, much like "the force". Just like the force, duct tape has a light side, a dark side, and literally holds the universe together. Not everyone in your office will understand this, but those who do will surely see the brilliance you bring to the table, even if it is a wobbly table, and even if you are just the one that stopped it from wobbling.

• 10 - Upset your urologist by unpredictably binding your kibbles to your bits, you know, just for fun. I'm not saying it's a good idea, but is "an idea", and whether or not it will actually make you cool or not is ultimately up to you to decide, but it does make me pretty cool by suggesting it, assuming you consider it even for just a second.

Please Manipulate Us

Absolutely a necessity for those of you managers that lack the hand-eye coordination to harass more than on employee at a time.

When this simple toy is placed in front of them, they cannot resist playing with the little employees (I mean beads). They are pretending each wire is a different department with its own employees, and they can manipulate them, and make or break their business lives, just like in reality!

Watch out for those who, when faced with this toy on their desk, get a feral gleam in their eyes. These are the ones you do NOT want to work for!

How to Impress Your Boss with a Laminating Machine

How to Impress Your Boss with a Laminating Machine

By Brian K. White

Of all the things on your forever growing "to do list" today, the last thing you want to do is add yet another, but consider, even if just for a minute, that this next one might make you successful. No wait, not just successful, but so prominently prominent in your successes that someday soon you'll manage the whole department, and upon another day quite soon thereafter that you might rise to even own the entire company. You can do it, and I'll tell you how, by the great and grand graces of the laminating machine.

Yes, the laminating machine.

Sure, you can use this handy contraption merely to seal-in copies of telephone directories or inventory lists, but you can take this device to a higher level, even whilst it takes you to yet a higher level still. Unsure? Unconvinced? Uncertain of the many graces it may bestow upon you with it's mighty heat and dual sheets of previously unconnected plastic? That's okay, I'll gladly help you understand how it's done.

If your boss keeps a hand-written schedule that includes all the assorted, sordid outside-the-box items as day spas, on-the-clock shopping and other personal uses, make sure to take these pages and laminate them. It may not please your boss, but it will definitely impress him or her, even if just to cement your cunning as sure as you've laminated his or hers.

If you have a coworker who is a total suck-up, which you certainly do, unless you are that employee personally, you've surely stumbled across a handful or so documents proving it. These people are prone to contradicting themselves, swaying with the politics as quickly as the winds flow. Seal in their sycophantic deeds and insure your place as a true and steadfast employee by laminating their up-kissing deeds forever. Though your boss might not appreciate it today, the day will come soon enough, and you'll surely get your due for it.

Once you've finished whatever you wrote on that sticky note, laminate it. You can never know when it could be handy to share a few hundred thousand laminated Post-Its from years past. Modern historians may find this pointless, but think of your grand-children, children, and the boss sure to replace your current boss who may be tempted to cut you loose for not carrying your fair load. Face facts, it can't be denied you did your deeds if there's a sealed-in record of it.

Assuming you have access to spending and account records that may be damning, use lamination to seal these original, time & date of documents, preferably with newspaper snippings embedded for future use. While this may not exactly "impress" your boss, it will leave an impression, and one that won't quickly fade.

Whenever possible, insure that printouts from the company CCTV security showing you having unpredictable and potentially embarrassing interludes with your boss are printed out and laminated for future reference. You may need to have unpredictable and potentially embarrassing situations with the security staff to insure that you receive said printouts, but once you have them, it's entirely up to you to have them laminated. Surely this can never happen, so assuming your boss agrees that it didn't, you'll be golden up to retirement, so lamination will be key.

If this ideas seem to outrageous to consider, you can always go back to using such a device for directories, ID badges and fancy interoffice presentations. That's still impressive, helpful and may keep you in the realm of indispensable, even if it doesn't make for as good of a story at your Friday night poker meeting.