# Office tools which don't work **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 22, 2007, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-tools-which-dont-work/396954 "2007-03-22T00:20:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-tools-which-dont-work/396954/21 "2007-03-22T17:50:01Z")
[QUOTE=Mama Tiger] My mother has a 50-year-old (at least) stapler that is heavy and sturdy and all metal, and works perfectly every single time, like they simply _do not make_ any more. I have actually persuaded her to put a codicil in her will that I get her stapler. Everyone else thinks I’m crazy, but you guys understand, right? [/QUOTE] Yup. I’ve worked in offices with those heavy old sturdy things, and nothing staples like them. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Tiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Mama\_Tiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Tiger)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-tools-which-dont-work/396954/22 "2007-03-22T17:59:48Z")
When I worked for the gummint years ago, a guy in my office had a 1920s-era stapler that had, fortunately for him, fallen off the inventory lists many years earlier. He would let us use it, but it had to be at his desk, and I kid you not, he locked it up at night. And who could blame him? In the two years I worked in that office, it never jammed once single time. Amen on the refiller. Those copiers that hold five reams of paper? Why was it that in every office I’ve worked in that had one, at least once a day I would fill the thing to the brim, and yet next time I went back to it it was empty again? Is there a copy paper thief who sneaks in in the night and steals all the paper? ---
**Author:** ![tashabot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tashabot/32/6250_2.png) [@tashabot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tashabot)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-tools-which-dont-work/396954/23 "2007-03-22T18:00:41Z")
Hole punches are a bane of my existence, too. I am responsible for the archiving of our newspaper; we keep digital archives, of course, and microfilm, but we also keep hardcopies back a year, bound on these newspaper-sized binder-type things (according to the side of them they’re called “Handy Newspaper Files,” they sit on an A-frame when filled, and the company that makes them, H.B. Rouse & Co., now makes tool parts…God I wish I could find them. They aren’t ANYWHERE). I have gone through so many freakin’ hole punches. I had one disintegrate IN MY HANDS, AS I WAS USING IT. Just fucking fell apart. How ass-lancing is that? I’ve never had problems with correction tape. And oddly, I don’t have problems with our printer/copy machine/fax machine. Never have. Everyone else does, though. They’ll be having problems, I’ll walk over, it’ll start working again. Apparently I have the Magic Touch for the printer. ~Tasha ---
**Author:** ![tashabot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tashabot/32/6250_2.png) [@tashabot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tashabot)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-tools-which-dont-work/396954/24 "2007-03-22T18:07:23Z")
I missed the edit window by like five seconds. ☹ Pertaining to staplers, I have an almost brand-new all-metal [Swingline](http://www.staples.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StaplesProductDisplay?storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=-1&productId=17573&cmArea=SEARCH) that works PERFECTLY. Never jams. **Ever.** And as far as I can tell, it’s only $10-ish. ~Tasha ---
**Author:** ![Gukumatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/74df32/32.png) [@Gukumatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gukumatz)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-tools-which-dont-work/396954/25 "2007-03-22T23:12:42Z")
Staple guns. Oh, Og, the staple guns . . . _eyes goes blank_ I once had to tour the entire site hotell - every gorramn room; there’s 2980 of them - and staple up new fire evacuation instructions. Two sheets of paper on every, single damn room. And the gorramn staple gun kept jamming. _SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH_ ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-tools-which-dont-work/396954/26 "2007-03-22T23:55:36Z")
[QUOTE=nashiitashii] I really hate having to use the hole punchers at work. They don’t want to punch more than eight pages at a time, and often get stuck, clogged and just don’t work half the time. [/QUOTE] I hate those little narrow black ones – I’ve tossed them against walls. But the big old grey metal ones are great. I found one that punched larger holes and took it with me when I left my last job. It was either that or the electric stapler, and I figured they might come and get the stapler but nobody but me ever used that wonderful old punch. ---
**Author:** ![ASAKMOTSD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/919ad9/32.png) [@ASAKMOTSD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASAKMOTSD)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2007, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-tools-which-dont-work/396954/27 "2007-03-23T00:59:16Z")
[QUOTE=Philster] I am surrounded by tools who don’t work. [/QUOTE] In the consulting biz, we call them “clients”… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2007, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-tools-which-dont-work/396954/28 "2007-03-23T01:06:16Z")
The problem with staple removers is the chewed-up staple gets stuck in the remover. So you need another remover to remove the removed staple from the remover. I don’t use regular staplers, I use an [Ace Clipper](http://www.maizegdb.org/IMP/WEB/Images/stapler.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2007, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-tools-which-dont-work/396954/29 "2007-03-23T01:34:09Z")
[QUOTE=gotpasswords] Are those the ones that you squeeze and nothing happense until \ it fires out a staple like a staple gun? Those are definitely better than the old Bostitch or Swingline types. I’ve noticed the recurring theme of one tool that never, EVER works in an office - the refiller. Whether it’s the copy paper refiller, the printer paper refiller, the pop machine refiller or the coffee pot refiller, that device is always broken. [/QUOTE] Yeah, the first time I used the stapler nothing happened and “dammitthisthingdoesn’twork” ran through my mind in the split second before the “pow!” and then I said “Ooooh!”. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2007, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-tools-which-dont-work/396954/30 "2007-03-23T13:25:42Z")
[QUOTE=Patty O’Furniture] I don’t use regular staplers, I use an [Ace Clipper](http://www.maizegdb.org/IMP/WEB/Images/stapler.jpg). [/QUOTE] Puny Ace Clippers, we use those for closing paper bags. My [Rapid 31](http://www.riversidepapercompany.com/images/Stapler/hsp12.jpg) could staple _through_ that. Okay, well not really, but I just stapled 90 pieces of paper through it with out a problem. But they where credit card receipts. I can also go through about 20 (cardstock) time cards, without struggling. My problem with the Ace Clipper is that (enter name of anyone of the many dumbass employees I’ve had over the years) insist on putting their hand around the entire thing thus bending the metal inwards to the point where you can get your hand through it. I’ve constantly straightening it back out and explaining how to use it properly but they just don’t get it. I think I’m gonna put spikes around the outside of the hand gaurd thing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/office-tools-which-dont-work/396954.md?page=1)