Paperclips

Sometimes you only realise how much you rely on something when it's gone.

Today, down in the training room from air-conditioning hell, there was an item of stationery missing.

We had pens, calculators, entire computers including hard drive and the cheapest possible mice, but did we have paperclips? We did not.

When you work primarily with paper because your office is resistance to change, it's very easy for it to get out of place. The things that need to go with the other things, all need to be attached together otherwise they won't be in the place that you need them when you need to do the various things with which paper needs things to be done.

Staples are all very well and good, but we're into training mode which means you don't want things to get too attached. Too often they turn out not to be the things that should actually be attached to that.

We tried bulldog clips, but they bent the finely weighted paper that we really aren't allowed to bend for some strange known only to god reason.

There were magnets, but they were too attracted to each other to be fully removable. We tried putting things into piles but the room is to small and the selection of piles too large.

Those little bendy suckers really do just do the job in a way that no other thing does.

Eventually we did have to give up and walk up two flights of stairs in order to retrieve a packet. Two flights. Now that's reliance.