I was sitting in an important meeting the other afternoon at work, but I was distracted by a major frustration that took place earlier that same day. I had 3 pages of notes written on standard lined paper. To keep them together in a neat and tidy fashion, I figured that I would drive a staple through the upper-left corner of the stack. What do you guess happened? That's right, the staple crumbled on impact with the top sheet, utterly marring the corner. I angrily extracted the metal shrapnel and tried again. Four attempts, four total and complete failures. When I was done, my notes looked like a small vampire had gotten a bad case of the munchies on my work. What gives? Now you understand why I was so frustrated several hours later when I was sitting in my meeting. My frustration then gave me the fuel to do some reading on the history of the stapler on my laptop-type computer, no sense actually participating in the meeting given my state of mind. Did you know that the first known stapler was made in the 18th century for King Louis XV? Did you know that the very next day after he was presented with the device he ordered his official palace gadgeteer beheaded? Can you guess why? It was noted that old Lou walked away from a stack of royal parchment cursing and grumbling something about un petit vampire. Staplers, they really grind my gears.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Grind My Gears 16
I was sitting in an important meeting the other afternoon at work, but I was distracted by a major frustration that took place earlier that same day. I had 3 pages of notes written on standard lined paper. To keep them together in a neat and tidy fashion, I figured that I would drive a staple through the upper-left corner of the stack. What do you guess happened? That's right, the staple crumbled on impact with the top sheet, utterly marring the corner. I angrily extracted the metal shrapnel and tried again. Four attempts, four total and complete failures. When I was done, my notes looked like a small vampire had gotten a bad case of the munchies on my work. What gives? Now you understand why I was so frustrated several hours later when I was sitting in my meeting. My frustration then gave me the fuel to do some reading on the history of the stapler on my laptop-type computer, no sense actually participating in the meeting given my state of mind. Did you know that the first known stapler was made in the 18th century for King Louis XV? Did you know that the very next day after he was presented with the device he ordered his official palace gadgeteer beheaded? Can you guess why? It was noted that old Lou walked away from a stack of royal parchment cursing and grumbling something about un petit vampire. Staplers, they really grind my gears.
