"choose wisely whether your office is going to be cool with that"

April 13, 2022 2:44 PM

"am i taking notes? am i dicking around on my tablet? who knows! not my boss!!!" Kitty Unpretty writes an extremely opinionated list of office supplies recommendations -- organizers, highlighters, a hanging file frame, a paper folder, washi tape, and more. "now i always remember to take the slip off to include with the check because, i want my paperclip back. don’t you dare put my cute paperclip in the file cabinet. it’s mine." This post is colorful, literally (lots of colors) and figuratively (profanity).
posted by brainwane (47 comments total)

(More details on many of these recommendations in her "boring work stuff" tag.)
posted by brainwane at 2:52 PM on April 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

I have no real need to sort documents but I am now obsessed with that C-Line All-Purpose Document Sorter. It's a solution to a problem I don't actually have but that's why I love it. I had no idea such a thing existed but it's perfect.

I am not by any means an organized person, but I do have a weird love of alphabetizing.
posted by edencosmic at 3:15 PM on April 13, 2022 [15 favorites]

I used to sell office supplies, and I once had someone come in and say, "I need one of those things, it's long and skinny and you sort papers with it, and if you (makes whipping motion) go like this, it makes this great FWRRP FWRRP noise." I took them right to it; that C-Line is the one we kept in stock. And it does make a great noise.
posted by xedrik at 3:19 PM on April 13, 2022 [35 favorites]

Metafilter: a solution to a problem I don't actually have
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:28 PM on April 13, 2022 [26 favorites]

big fan of seeing "worksona" in the wild.
posted by simmering octagon at 3:59 PM on April 13, 2022 [8 favorites]

The Uni Kuru Toga mention, and it's writeup, made me go back and read the list again more seriously, this is someone who knows their stuff.

I also want a C-Line All-Purpose Document Sorter, for no logical reason. What an elegant idea.
posted by Infracanophile at 4:15 PM on April 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

whatever adhesive post-its use, the bootleggers have not mastered it.

Haha, good to know.

I second her rec of a half-letter-size DIY planner. Print something, cut it in half with a paper guillotine (IMO the most dangerous and exciting office supply), hole punch it, then it goes right in your planner. You can keep printouts right next to your handwritten notes. And of course the half-size is much more portable than something that holds a full sheet of paper.
posted by Monochrome at 4:50 PM on April 13, 2022 [3 favorites]

This is not productivity porn. This is productivity erotica.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:56 PM on April 13, 2022 [39 favorites]

I was promoted to overall Office Manager at work a month ago and one of my new responsibilities is making sure we are stocked with office supplies - and Amazon is one of the sources.

I AM ACTUALLY GOING TO BOOKMARK THIS FOR IRL WORK.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:56 PM on April 13, 2022 [16 favorites]

https://unpretty.space/post/669787546623016960/i-cant-the-person-who-asked-me-about-my-planner

‘junior’ or 'half-letter’ planners take up just the right amount of desk space at work that i can leave it open all the time (if you use paper sizes that make any fucking sense this maps to around A5)

Ooh, yes, also metric countries were clever enough to keep the same aspect ratio for their sizes. Just shrink or enlarge to change size.

i have a horrible weakness for happy planner accoutrements bought on clearance at joanns, i don’t know what it is but i see a book of sticker quotes that say dumb shit like ADULTING IS HARD BUT MY DICK IS HARDER for 75% off and i cannot resist. as far as i know this happy planner sticker does not actually exist but it should. anyway happy planners are actually stupid and wasteful and come in made-up sizes to discourage printables so fuck them

😆
posted by Monochrome at 5:12 PM on April 13, 2022 [3 favorites]

As someone who's spent my entire career in the tech industry, I am slightly baffled that any office still needs that much paper and paper-related paraphernalia.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:29 PM on April 13, 2022 [5 favorites]

If most tech wasn't user-hostile crap, escape from the potato planet, maybe we wouldn't have to use so much paper. There is no UX that provides tactile delight like pen and paper
posted by scruss at 5:46 PM on April 13, 2022 [8 favorites]

That sorter looks amazing and I wish I had the opportunity to use it.

Most of this stuff seems like artifacts from a office that is now history. One of my coworkers and I lament that we have this fountain pen hobby but we have to force ourselves to ink and use them, since writing has become a forced, unnatural experience.

The list has the Kuru Toga High Grade, which feels nicer and heavier, but the mechanical pencil that I'd get (again) is the Kuru Toga Advance - in addition to rotating the lead twice as fast, it has a sliding sleeve that stops lead breakage.
posted by meowzilla at 5:47 PM on April 13, 2022 [3 favorites]

As someone who's spent my entire career in the tech industry,

Some days, I sorta miss printing source code to greenbar, then spreading out and using a ruler to trace out subroutines and program flow. I guess that's how I learned to keep subroutines to about 1 page.
posted by mikelieman at 6:07 PM on April 13, 2022 [5 favorites]

As a 40 something year old Creative Director, whose non-computer office supplies days mostly consist of Cheapest Unlined Notebook, those Uniball retractable roller pens (extra fine point), and desk Yeti cup for not-fooling-anyone alcohol at Zoom meetings that run late, all of this makes me both extremely glad that I no longer use post it notes and very, very nostalgic for the office supply closets of yore. I literally used to fantasies about Super Market Sweep style extravaganzas at Staples.

(I did recently shell out for a fancy local gallery purchased "artisan made" desk calendar to encourage myself to do a better job keeping track of hours. TBD if it's helping. But it's cute af)
posted by thivaia at 6:12 PM on April 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

I haven't had to use a sorter like the C-Line since the 80s. I've been in tech so long I've almost forgotten that some of these things exist. My mother, from whom I inherited my dormant office supply fetish, would love the spirit of this, though she'd abhor the language.
posted by lhauser at 6:22 PM on April 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

This person is 100% correct about Post-it brand notes. They are the best.

At an estate sale I bought a small pile of Post-Its that appeared to be samples. I liked the one that looked like a dollar bill and said "I'm just passing the buck" but my favorite said in small type across the top: "here's something else to whine and moan about." I was sad when I used the last one recently.
posted by vespabelle at 6:48 PM on April 13, 2022 [8 favorites]

The EZSTAX file organizer was made for me. I am the queen of Piles Everywhere!
posted by shiny blue object at 7:25 PM on April 13, 2022 [3 favorites]

I've worked in an office for 20+ years and never *needed* any of this. It's like a fetishist list of 'needed' office supplies.
posted by tcobretti at 7:27 PM on April 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

I worked in an office briefly and I think the only one of these I used was the telephone message memo pads, that's a sort of standard office supply. We used the TOPS ones though, which just come as slips you can tear out of a notebook and leave on people's desks. I'm not sure why you'd need a stickey-note version since they'll be thrown out by the end of the day.
posted by subdee at 7:53 PM on April 13, 2022

BTW a previous list she made includes a USB presentation clicker, and a place to get free presentation themes.
posted by brainwane at 8:12 PM on April 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

I loved this way too much. Office supply erotica indeed!

> As someone who's spent my entire career in the tech industry ...

This also describes me, but I appreciated the fountain pen rec! And I'll probably buy the brilliant stackable trays, since I have drifts of academic papers that I need to read and reference for N different projects.

NOTHING has been invented that replaces the tactile delight of scribbling on paper. By having my notes in a lab notebook and reading as much as I can on paper, I can use more of my visual field (errr....desk surface area), don't have to strain my eyes like reading on a screen does, and the physical interaction helps me remember things. I feel the draw of the washi tape planners ... but for now, I just use a piece of letter paper folded in half for each day's TODO list. Maybe someday....

(Why yes, I'm the person who wrote all my pseudo code at BigTechCo using a fountain pen, often while sitting in a massage chair. I *miss* that perk!)
posted by Metasyntactic at 8:20 PM on April 13, 2022 [5 favorites]

i know what it looks like but trust me. sometimes you need to organize a drawer and folding an origami box will save time. sometimes you just want to pin some origami cranes to your cube wall. but most of all, when someone brings a small child in due to an emergency, you will be able to present that small child with a coloring page out of this thing and maybe some cheap markers or colored pencils you got at the dollar store Just In Case. and you can color them yourself if you get bored enough. it’s versatile, is what i’m saying.

I want to know this person!
posted by Zumbador at 8:39 PM on April 13, 2022 [6 favorites]

I developed a dependency on that sorter as a typist for the real estate special section of a newspaper in the late mid 90s. I made every subsequent job buy one, and found it handy in an office all the way through the first decade and a half of the 2000s (and made many converts.)

Who is still using so much paper? Universities, medical systems, and government offices. Which are typically the largest employers in any given state. Also accountants, lawyers, and anything having to do with real estate.
posted by desuetude at 8:48 PM on April 13, 2022 [8 favorites]

Oooh, document sorters.

Way back in the old days I used to be a radiology clerk at our local hospital. This was the early early days of electronic health records. The radiologists would read films into a glorified voicemail box to be transcribed. Then the transcriptions would print out at our printer, one copy to go in the medical record and one would get couriered up to the patient floor to go in their chart. So you can imagine that during the day this little hospital would have 6 record clerks sorting, filing, and running paper up and down the elevators. Did we have document sorters? You bet we had document sorters. Like for the floor copies we'd have to sort by floor/ward and then by either name or room number depending on how the nurses stored the charts. I would go home at the end of my shift and dream of filing. It was the most boring and most stressful job I ever had because a misfiled paper could delay diagnosis and the hospital had actually recently been sued over a misfiled radiology report.

This seems so archaic now that I'm looking back, stacks of printer paper sorted with springy sorters on a long counter.
posted by muddgirl at 8:50 PM on April 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

Anyway that job probably doesn't exist anymore.
posted by muddgirl at 9:02 PM on April 13, 2022

It may be relevant that Unpretty is in accounting and mails very large numbers of envelopes of documents during her busy season.

I work in IT. I haven't had to fold anything to go into an envelope in ages, I don't print stuff almost ever, and I am not sure when I last saw a paper check never mind touched one.

This said, I have always been a paper note taker and planner - imo it's better than typing because the physical act of writing helps with information retention and focus, and doesn't involve giving up screen space on a work monitor to notes. Work monitors have enough stuff open on them at any given moment already - I'm in IT.

Like Unpretty, I have gotten to the point where I don't like any of the pre-printed and pre-bound planner layouts, but I don't print mine. I use a Leuchtturm notebook, a Midori folding ruler and black or gray pens. The Leuchtturms are pricey but the paper is nice and they last forever ime.

I bought the washi tape organizers Unpretty recommended when this went up and they're great, also. My favorite way to reversibly label equipment, cables, and keys is brightly colored skinny washi tape and this excellent permanent marker. The best way to then make those labels waterproof, oil proof, and hard to remove is putting clear glossy packing tape over the washi tape.

It is also my experience that neurotypicals are more likely to claim do be able to do things like "remember which key is which" and "not need a planner" and some of them are even correct! But brain difference havers are likelier to iterate over many organizational systems until they find ones that they prefer.
posted by All Might Be Well at 2:59 AM on April 14, 2022 [14 favorites]

As someone who's spent my entire career in the tech industry, I am slightly baffled that any office still needs that much paper and paper-related paraphernalia.

My aforementioned Office Manager job is for a tech company, and we still need loads of paper-related stuff for:

* Mailing our product out to clients
* Preparing marketing materials for conventions and sales events
* Preparing handouts for visiting students from the nearby colleges here on a tour
* Making the hard copies of various legal/sales/HR things because some obscure law says you need a hard copy of it
* Making quick "DON'T TOUCH THIS SHIT" signs for when someone has laid out a complicated thingamawhatsit and needs to break for lunch
* Telling the cleaning staff what shit in your office is trash and what isn't

And on and on.

Maybe the paper stuff we get doesn't need to have as much style, but why not have a little fun, you know? My boss is seriously into design and decorative art (he used to design art galleries) and he gets very particular about what pen and paper he uses; he actually has this old-school "writing box" on his desk, a small box with little drawers and doors and stuff that looks like it was designed to carry writing supplies for an early 20th-century expedition or something; it even has a fountain pen with the ink in a bottle in it. And he actually uses it on the regular.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:18 AM on April 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

OH HANG ON -

I actually can vouch for one of the things she recommends myself, because i already got some for myself before seeing this. These thingies are indeed a little overpriced for what they are, but they are also precisely as helpful as she says they are. I got them to better sort and store some decorative paper stuff and then stick the whole thing in a cubby in my home office - I got them mainly because any other "paper sorter" was even more expensive or too big. These work exactly as advertised and are more flexible (I ended up only needing 10 from the 12-pack for my decorative paper stuff, and the other two take the place of a letter tray on my desk).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:26 AM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

There is no UX that provides tactile delight like pen and paper

As someone who cannot draw, or write anything legible by hand - I strongly disagree.

The most perfect tactile delight is a clacky keyboard - followed by the 2nd greatest technological invention - the portable laptop/notebook computer.

There are times when I see someone's beautiful handwritten paper notebook/planner with wonderfully legible text, visual annotations and I am envious... I think I might use a hybrid system like "Livescribe" with special paper and digital recording pens...

And then I remember - I can't write or draw for crap - but I can search my archived text notes (and emails to myself) going back 20-years... I can copy/paste any text or hyperlink or image into a collection or archive. I can print, forward or email my notes in seconds (without having to find a copier or take a crappy phone picture) - and - I can type much faster than most people can write (or speak even).
posted by rozcakj at 5:55 AM on April 14, 2022 [3 favorites]

I remember when I'd start a new job and I'd get so many office accessories handed to me: a stapler, a staple remover, pens, notebooks, file folders, trays, book ends, tape, etc.

With my current job I got a MacBook, a coffee cup and a t-shirt on my first day and that was it.
posted by octothorpe at 6:11 AM on April 14, 2022 [4 favorites]

... cut it in half with a paper guillotine (IMO the most dangerous and exciting office supply) ...

When I took the Surviving an Active Shooter Incident class at my last job, they recommended ripping the blade off and using it as a sword. For that reason alone, it should be on her list.
posted by donpardo at 7:19 AM on April 14, 2022 [6 favorites]

With my current job I got a MacBook, a coffee cup and a t-shirt on my first day and that was it.

Lol I literally got a macbook with a post-it on the top listing my username and password, and that is it. That was the onboarding.

Two years later they did send me a hoodie.

I could barely read this whole thing because it was just so far outside anything that has ever been a part of my life...it was like OK I sort of know what most of these words are, but I am not understanding what they're about when they're all strung together. It is a combination of having a completely paperless, object-less workflow (I mean, personally, I do have post-its, but they certainly are not required and most of my coworkers think I'm bananapants for using them), and just not being able to fathom thinking that much about my job.

Oh to have a job where the workload allowed you to take a moment and consider how you might make yourself better or more effective at it. Instead my job is like firefighting but with bullshit instead of fires.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:23 AM on April 14, 2022 [4 favorites]

I've worked in an office for 20+ years and never *needed* any of this. It's like a fetishist list of 'needed' office supplies.

Er, I don't believe she says anywhere that you "need" this stuff, only that she recommends this stuff. If you find the aesthetic element distracting, or if you prefer a very minimalist approach, then you do you.

Me, I stand by my need for my X-FILES mug, for hanging my antique Nautical Chart of Buzzards' Bay on the wall, for my purple Lamy Safari fountain pen, and for my handmade sign of Sheriff Hopper from STRANGER THINGS proclaiming that "mornings are for coffee and contemplation". Everyone's different, and some people want to play a bit.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:36 AM on April 14, 2022 [8 favorites]

I've been pushed to a nearly paperless workflow for the past year-plus due to printing being STRENGSTENS VERBOTEN for security reasons while working remotely at my current job and...I hate it. I feel like I've been buying stationery I never bought before in a sad attempt to compensate. I need to stay away from JetPens most weeks.
posted by praemunire at 7:49 AM on April 14, 2022 [5 favorites]

I miss having a desk covered with carefully chosen stuff like this. I moved everything out of my office one weekend last summer when I knew I was going to hand in my notice Monday morning. I ended up taking the counteroffer but I didn't move much stuff back and I kind of like the empty space now.

I used to have a giant tray stack for paper files but after WFH most of 2020 with no printer I realized I really could go paperless so I do. If you hand me a paper it will be scanned and saved to the project folder (maybe) and tossed in the recycle bin within the hour. Now I'm on team clack clack. I type fast and copy+paste with gusto so I'm on page 268 and megabyte 159 of the Notes.docx for the project I'm working on today.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 7:57 AM on April 14, 2022 [4 favorites]

Re: paper stacking, one of the best purchases I ever made for my office was a pair of what I think are called lingerie chests, each with eight 12x10x5 inch drawers. I bought them at a local consignment shop for $50 each and they made a huge difference vis-vis productivity, office tidiness and hiding sensitive info. The drawers are perfect for corralling stacks and can be carried around easily when useful, to meetings or when two people need access to the contents. I put card catalog style label holders on each one. It takes seconds to reinsert the drawers in the cabinet when I have to look professional. And at the end of a project its drawer of chaff can be culled and the wheat sent to deep storage. They’re great for storing different paper/stationery too.
posted by carmicha at 8:43 AM on April 14, 2022 [3 favorites]

I still have lovely things on my desk. But I absolutely refuse to work with paper if at all possible. Now working with a new boss who seems to want printed agendas and slide decks and it is driving me up the wall. I hope he'll soon realise that our joint client at least does not do paper.
posted by koahiatamadl at 8:56 AM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

Thanks for posting, as a fellow stationary/art supply junkie* I have new justifications for more stuff.
*I really am, I joined the monthly card club to use up paper supplies and wound up buying more stuff to decorate cards, as well as better paper. So...
posted by winesong at 9:20 AM on April 14, 2022 [4 favorites]

I don't get paid until tomorrow but I am already making a wishlist, HELP ME
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:01 PM on April 14, 2022 [7 favorites]

I have 10-20 work note scraps in a plastic bag at my desk right now. I still can't find the one I was looking for! I keep telling myself to put them into OneNote. I had a great notebook for work notes but I filled it up at the end of last year and have not found a good replacement. So now they end up in scraps, sigh.

This is the third or fourth time I have seen the half sheet binder recommendation in as many weeks, so I just ordered one from Avery. Of course that sent me down the discbound hole and now I've also bought a punch and discs to experiment with.
posted by soelo at 1:09 PM on April 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

Ooooh, she went there…Pilot Metros and 32# HP LaserJet paper. Do not engage.


Too late, see you over at r/fountainpens
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:50 AM on April 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

→ The most perfect tactile delight is a clacky keyboard

Unfortunately, everyone else within earshot wants you dead. It would be like taking notes with a squeaky marker.
posted by scruss at 7:27 PM on April 15, 2022 [3 favorites]

> When I took the Surviving an Active Shooter Incident class at my last job, they recommended ripping the blade off and using it as a sword.

My most recent one (just a few months ago) recommended throwing a stapler, calling for help on the work phone, and hiding in my office. Guess what my workplace doesn't have! Answer: staplers, phones, offices.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:16 PM on April 16, 2022

While people are in the mood: does anyone have a recommendation for a small fan, for work? Something battery-powered, with a clip or something so it can be set up just so and then moved to a different table and set up just so.

(I will take this to AskMe if needed, but I feel like this is the right crowd.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:19 PM on April 16, 2022

There is a fan in the list of recommended items at the original link!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:28 PM on April 16, 2022

How did I miss that? Thank you.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:56 PM on April 16, 2022