An opening note of caution: If you break into extravagant song and dance on a regular basis, perhaps slippers are not for you. Something, somewhere, is bound to get hit with a flying slipper.
Anyway! On to the main point!
The temp job that I've been at for what feels like a long time (but in actuality has only been the initial 3 weeks as well as this past one)... loves me. I'm not really sure I can say why, since the job is elementary at best, and tedious at worst. I am converting their filing system from one of papers stuffed into boxes in a warehouse and various people's offices to one online. As such, this requires that they give me papers, I sort them into year, name, category, vendor or whatever other criteria they desire, then scan them in. Thrilling, no?
As Eddie Izzard noted with grocery store clerks and their beeping (or non-beeping) scanners, the most excitement in my day comes when I put what appears to be a carefully de-stapled, de-paperclipped and generally loose collection of single pages into the scanner, and it decides it wants to scan them 10 at a time... or not at all. Then I get to take it all out, clear the jams, find where that particular file started, re-stack all the papers, and discover what went wrong. At first, I was very diligent in this job, however as I got through the HR department's paperwork and began on Accounting- most specifically, Accounts Payable, I began to run into something that baffled and seriously, seriously irritated me.
Most people in this world are fully capable of understanding how a stapler works. You put all the papers you want together into the stapler, ka-chunk it down, and the papers are secured! Magic. A/P, on the other hand, decided to go with this pattern:
1) Staple pages 1 and 2 together.
2) Staple pages 3 and 4 together.
3) Continue pattern until all pages are stapled into twos.
4) Staple all pages except (and this is highly important!) except pages 1 and 2 together.
5) Staple all the other pages to page 2, leaving page 1 showing only one staple for the whole stack.
6) NOTE! It is important that you do not always staple the same corner. Show your spontaneity by changing corners often.
I kid you not. This is what some... lovely person... did with 5 years worth of paperwork. Moreover, when you have a staple containing only 2 pages resting on top of multiple other staples, the staple remover doesn't work, because it can't get a good grip underneath it, what with all the other metal in the way. Let me tell you how excited this made me to go staple hunting.
Being my usual lovely self, I took a deep breath and kept working diligently, slowed slightly by this obtuse setup, but maintaining my efficiency as much as possible. As time went on, however, I began thinking of ways to simplify my process. The one that I settled on, but did not actually put into production, was to stack all the papers into a neat pile, bring in a very sharp machete, and remove all the staples at one go, as such:
While a very tempting idea, I decided that bringing in a machete and chopping up paperwork (and likely a desk as well) would probably not result in positive reviews with the temp agency, so I merely resorted to using scissors when my fingers detected multiple staples in documents. If they ever do go back and look at A/P records from 2004-2009, they will probably wonder why so many have corners missing... though I did ensure that no actual data was lost.
The second idea that formed in my head, after the 50-billionth time of finding these staple-addled documents, was to exact retribution on the person who made it so. After all, she probably wasn't suffering staple-remover's thumb or scanner-jam ear; it would only be fair to educate her on how annoying and detrimental to mental and physical health her habits were, so that someone else down the road wouldn't have to suffer as I did. Staring at the 50-billion-and-one-th mangled document, I dreamed this up:
While I did go in search of the person responsible for this, I was informed that she was no longer working there and out of the reach of my staple-y wrath. So, I had no choice but to go back and continue my exertions with scissors and staple remover, and growl sub-vocally every time I found a sheaf of papers that contained as many staples as papers.
However, the good news is that I was sufficiently efficient that they ran out of things for me to do today. They were not expecting me to be done until the end of the week, so they had not prepared more stuff for me to do. As such, I took the rest of the day off, and got a number of errands run- you know, the type that can only be done during business hours... when you have to be at work. So, all in all, not a bad day! Cheers!
Anyway! On to the main point!
The temp job that I've been at for what feels like a long time (but in actuality has only been the initial 3 weeks as well as this past one)... loves me. I'm not really sure I can say why, since the job is elementary at best, and tedious at worst. I am converting their filing system from one of papers stuffed into boxes in a warehouse and various people's offices to one online. As such, this requires that they give me papers, I sort them into year, name, category, vendor or whatever other criteria they desire, then scan them in. Thrilling, no?
As Eddie Izzard noted with grocery store clerks and their beeping (or non-beeping) scanners, the most excitement in my day comes when I put what appears to be a carefully de-stapled, de-paperclipped and generally loose collection of single pages into the scanner, and it decides it wants to scan them 10 at a time... or not at all. Then I get to take it all out, clear the jams, find where that particular file started, re-stack all the papers, and discover what went wrong. At first, I was very diligent in this job, however as I got through the HR department's paperwork and began on Accounting- most specifically, Accounts Payable, I began to run into something that baffled and seriously, seriously irritated me.
Most people in this world are fully capable of understanding how a stapler works. You put all the papers you want together into the stapler, ka-chunk it down, and the papers are secured! Magic. A/P, on the other hand, decided to go with this pattern:
1) Staple pages 1 and 2 together.
2) Staple pages 3 and 4 together.
3) Continue pattern until all pages are stapled into twos.
4) Staple all pages except (and this is highly important!) except pages 1 and 2 together.
5) Staple all the other pages to page 2, leaving page 1 showing only one staple for the whole stack.
6) NOTE! It is important that you do not always staple the same corner. Show your spontaneity by changing corners often.
I kid you not. This is what some... lovely person... did with 5 years worth of paperwork. Moreover, when you have a staple containing only 2 pages resting on top of multiple other staples, the staple remover doesn't work, because it can't get a good grip underneath it, what with all the other metal in the way. Let me tell you how excited this made me to go staple hunting.
Being my usual lovely self, I took a deep breath and kept working diligently, slowed slightly by this obtuse setup, but maintaining my efficiency as much as possible. As time went on, however, I began thinking of ways to simplify my process. The one that I settled on, but did not actually put into production, was to stack all the papers into a neat pile, bring in a very sharp machete, and remove all the staples at one go, as such:
While a very tempting idea, I decided that bringing in a machete and chopping up paperwork (and likely a desk as well) would probably not result in positive reviews with the temp agency, so I merely resorted to using scissors when my fingers detected multiple staples in documents. If they ever do go back and look at A/P records from 2004-2009, they will probably wonder why so many have corners missing... though I did ensure that no actual data was lost.
The second idea that formed in my head, after the 50-billionth time of finding these staple-addled documents, was to exact retribution on the person who made it so. After all, she probably wasn't suffering staple-remover's thumb or scanner-jam ear; it would only be fair to educate her on how annoying and detrimental to mental and physical health her habits were, so that someone else down the road wouldn't have to suffer as I did. Staring at the 50-billion-and-one-th mangled document, I dreamed this up:
While I did go in search of the person responsible for this, I was informed that she was no longer working there and out of the reach of my staple-y wrath. So, I had no choice but to go back and continue my exertions with scissors and staple remover, and growl sub-vocally every time I found a sheaf of papers that contained as many staples as papers.
However, the good news is that I was sufficiently efficient that they ran out of things for me to do today. They were not expecting me to be done until the end of the week, so they had not prepared more stuff for me to do. As such, I took the rest of the day off, and got a number of errands run- you know, the type that can only be done during business hours... when you have to be at work. So, all in all, not a bad day! Cheers!
This post had me laughing hard! I love your drawings =)
ReplyDeleteOkay, that's a better display name!
ReplyDeleteMuch better display name, yes! I hadn't thought of the trials and travails that a first-name S initial would bring. :) And yes, while they easily double or triple the prep time for each post, I'm getting some good feedback on the pictures, so they'll likely continue. Thank you!
ReplyDelete