A colleague has suddenly developed a phobia of papers being crunched.
Its a bog standard office with paper in constant use. Its only the act of crunching paper (for eg to be tossed into the bin) that sets of a reaction from her. The reaction is an immediate recoil, covering of ears and horror on face followed by a muffled scream. Not nice to see. We know its not being faked as she reacts mid sentence to a crunch from across the office.
This phenomena did not manifest for many years. Its all of a sudden.
Staff are made to feel guilty for doing a perfectly normal act. How do you think we should proceed.
Learn to throw away paper without crunching it. Whole flat sheets take up a lot less space in a landfill than crumpled into a ball. And the paper is probably being discarded printed on one side only,with backs that could be used as scratch paper and note pads.
Personally, I never crumple paper to be discarded, because it seems environmentally unsustainable. To me, crumpling paper does not seem like a “perfectly normal act”, and it would bother me a much as seeing coworkers discarding their lunch with perfectly edible leftovers in it.
I wouldn’t disrupt the office, but please don’t crumple paper around me.
I’ve never heard of a paper crunching phobia before.
Anyway, I work in an engineering office, and we do produce a lot less paper than we used to, but we still end up with a lot of scrap paper. We have a box next to the copier where scrap paper goes. When the box gets full, it goes off to be recycled. It’s better to lay the paper in there flat so that you can fit more in the box. Crunching the paper up would make it take up more space.
I’ve never had to deal with anything like this, but I’m thinking some recycling boxes might help things out, especially if you put instructions on the front of the boxes to lay the paper flat and not crunch it up. The instructions can even say that it’s to make more paper fit into the boxes so your co-worker won’t feel like it’s only being done to appease her phobia. It will help your co-worker out and make recycling easier for your company. Win-win!
It’s odd. That seems like a very strange phobia, but now that I think about it, I no longer experience people crumpling paper around me on a regular basis. Now if I were to hear it, I would notice as unusual. There really is no reason for paper to be routinely crumpled.
Another person here who has eliminated crunching of paper in my office, though not because of any fears. I just went to Target and bought plastic bins and put them under every desk with a big sign saying RECYCLE. A large recycling bin here costs $35 for as long as you need it, so periodically I just rent one of those and put everything in there. Voila! No crunching of paper.
I agree with what the others have said–I don’t see any point in crunching paper. I rarely see anyone do it anymore, probably because of ubiquitous recycling bins.
Also, IANAPsychologist, but given the sudden onset, I’d guess that paper-crunching resembles a sound associated with some recent trauma for her. If so, someone in a position to do so tactfully might suggest counseling. Meanwhile, it might be a good time for a recycling initiative.
I’ve seen recycle bins that only have a narrow inch or so opening in the top so people have to feed in waste paper flat. No crunching. Plus it will show that management is trying to accommodate her issue.
Dos she have an exaggerated reaction to other sudden fairly loud noises? Could be some weird hearing related thing. As in tumor of the inner ear or the brain’s auditory center. :eek:
Side note: I don’t often handle huge amounts of paper these days but when I do it’s still valuable to have a way to quickly mark a piece of paper as “bad.”. e.g. you copy a 5-page doc & discover the diagrams came out too light. So you need to copy it again darker and then not mistakenly use the bad copy set.
My solution is to fold the “bad” papers roughly in half. Not square; definitely crookedly. That way they’re obviously not the “good stuff”. Then they eventually work their way into the recycle bin.