Funny you should mention blunt instruments, because last year a sales clerk at a neighboring store got fired, and came back to the store the next day before opening to discuss the matter with the manager, who let her in. The discussion did not go as the clerk had hoped, and she picked up the three-hole punch and smashed the manager in the face, breaking her nose. The clerk got arrested, and the manager nearly got fired…for letting her in the store before opening.
I still have my red Tot 50! And the little plastic pouch it came in! And today I threw away a Boston Stapler that kept losing bits and pieces and refusing to staple. The Swinglines are all fine.
Here in Japan, they still refer to staplers as hochikisu, after an American company that made them in the late 19th/early 20th century. The ones in my office small, mostly plastic, and completely nondescript. I have no idea who makes them, but they make them in colors that range from blue to blue. They don’t look like much, but they can handle 20 page booklets with a bit of effort.
Hole punches, on the other hand… At my main school, the hole punch is a big, heavy hunk of metal, with a handle that’s about a foot and a half long. This monster has punched through 50 pages at a time without problem, although sometimes the top sheet is wrinkled a little around the holes.
Of course, this being Japan, it’s a two-hole, non-adjustable hole punch.
My 90-year-old granddad still attaches pieces of paper together with an implement that cuts a v-cut through the paper, then folds the v round the bottom sheet in a triangle. I have no idea what it’s called, nor how old it is, but it’s genuine pre-stapler technology.