LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
CAMP Talk: It's the little things that count |
by Bill Sievert |
Often, this column addresses the big issuesmatters of discrimination and civil liberties. Sometimes it takes on smaller matters, such as inconsiderate people who jabber on their cell phones in inopportune places, or America's fascination with cheese. Today, CAMPtalk tackles its tiniest topic ever: staples. No, not the food products you stock your kitchen cupboard with, like bread and potatoes. But those small U-shaped metal bits we take terribly for granted when trying to collate a stack of papers. A couple of weeks ago, I was facing another magazine's deadline for a very long article (roughly five times the length Steve allows the writers in Letters). With nearly a ream of paper rough drafts and research spread about my desk, my chair and all over my carpet, I decided the piece was ready. I printed it out, believing that with one slam of my stapler the manuscript would be complete. But my stapler was empty, a final twist of metal collapsing into itself from the thickness of so many pages. Of course, I couldn't find a paper clip large enough to handle the document. But I knew I always kept a backup supply of staples, the same box I had been hauling around from state to state since I first started writing for these pages three years agoor maybe even longer (as the box had no universal product code on it). It took a few minutes of digging and cursing, but I finally found the tattered box. It was crumpled into the back corner of a drawer, with nary a staple left inside. Okay, fine. Don't panic. Although there was a mighty electrical storm outside, I would simply rush down the flooding road a mile or so to a store that would be guaranteed to have thousands of what I needed, an office superstore, as it were. It wasn't until I had raced past the front counters that it occurred to me I might spend the rest of the day searching for an item so teensy in a building about the size of the second block of Baltimore Avenue. So I summoned an intelligent looking young man in a red logo shirt who was hooking up wires for a new display of computers. "Where can I find staples?" I asked. He paused for just a second, then said, "You're here, man." "No, I mean the kind you put into a stapler." "Oh, I don't get asked that question very often. Let's see, let me page someone to help you. Just wait here." Several very long minutes later, a manager appeared. "May I help?" she asked perkily. "I just need to grab some staples; didn't know where to look." "Let's see. We have electric staplers on aisle six in electronics." "No, no, I just want to refill my hand-held stapler." "Oh, hmm. I think those would be over with the office supplies, probably aisle two, north." She offered to walk across the store with me, it apparently being a slow day in office-store management. "No, they're not with the envelopes... maybe by the rubber stamps." We continued to trudge for what seemed to be an eternity, my loose leaf sheets still scattered all over the desk and floor at home, unless the dog had decided to roll them up for chew toys. "Nope, not by the rubber stamps. Wait, I think they got moved over with the packaging tapes." "Whatever." I followed, my mind distracted by my fears about the dog and the question of whether I had bothered to save the final version of my 5,000-word article on my vintage computer before I raced out the door into the storm. "Oh, here," she finally said, pointing to several rods protruding from the slat wall. Each held plastic-sealed packages of staplers in assorted bright colors. "Look," she said, "these staplers include 1,000 free staples." "I don't need a stapler. I just need staples preferably not in neon colors." "Hmmm," again, she said. "Oh, wait. Here..." She had actually found a package of staples, those cutesy little "Tot" ones my mother let me have in grade school. "I have a standard size stapler," I replied, feeling rather grown up. "That's too bad," she said. Too bad? "It's too bad that I expect to find a standard size office item in an office supermarket?" "Yes, it seems like we're out of your size staples. I'll have to check our orders. We could probably have some for you on Tuesday." "Thanks just the same," I said. "I really need to get back to work now." "Can I help with anything else? We're having a special on HP Computers." "I can't believe a store called Staples doesn't have any staples." "Well..." She was about to make a little joke, not realizing from my tone of voice how aggravated I was. "Does Wal-Mart sell walls?" she asked. "At least they have walls," I shot back. And then it occurred to her. "Oh, I have some staples in my office, standard size ones. Come with me." Once again, I obeyed, following her past the "employees only" sign. As I watched, she opened up the stapler on her desk and split the long row of attached metal pieces into two equal halves. "Here. Will these help you? They're on the house." "Perfect," I said half an hour after having walked through the doors. "Thank you so much." And, yes, I returned to the store that Tuesday to purchase more staples and a brand new computer. It was on sale, you know. As I said at the start, this column is just about a little thing. There is no great moral except perhaps that, when a person uses her or his head about a small matter, something much larger can be accomplished. Bill Sievert's vintage computer perished in an electrical storm while he was still unpacking his new one. Unfortunately, he's still having problems sending articles as attachments on the new machine, which may explain matters if there is no CAMPtalk this issue. He does, however, have a five-year supply of staples. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 11, No. 11, August 10, 2001. |