# You're a grown man! Buy your own office supplies!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [November 23, 2001, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953 "2001-11-23T22:32:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2001, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/1 "2001-11-23T22:32:40Z")
Argh! Will you _knock it off_? I don’t mind loaning you a pencil now and then, but I’m getting sick of you bumming something off of me two or three times a day! We do _not_ live in a paperless age, but for some reason because you do 90% of your work on the computer, you seem to think that you have _no responsibility_ for equipping yourself for the other 10%!
First off, you always want to take my best mechanical pencil. Fine, happy to oblige. Just bring it back when you’re done. Yeah, you noticed it doesn’t have an eraser? Here’s my big eraser. You can borrow that, too. You’re welcome. It jammed? Well bring it back and allow me to fix it because the lead has broken because you press too hard. Please try to use a little less pressure.
Then, you come over looking for a highlighter. I don’t have a highlighter, I say. Okay, you want to borrow one of my Sharpies instead. Fine, I say, take a yellow Sharpie, but be careful because it’s permanent and it will probably bleed through the paper. And you wander off grumbling about that.
Then you want a pen. All I have a Sharpies, fountain pens, pencils, and my red Rolling Writer (for the scientific grading of papers.) Grumble, grumble, grumble. Why don’t I have a black ballpoint?
Because I don’t fucking _need_ a ballpoint. I am fully capable of fulfilling all of my writing needs with _my own_ fountain pen, _my own_ mechanical pencil, _my own_ red Rolling Writer, and _my own_ goddamn multicolored Sharpies. See, if I _needed_ a ballpoint, I would go out and _buy a fucking ballpoint._
And then to top it off, you don’t bring them fucking back. I have to schelp over to your desk and dig around amongst your papers and crawl on my hands and knees under your desk to find _my own goddamn writing impliments_.
I swear to god, you’re going to get a Christmas present of one highlighter, one pencil, and one fucking black ballpoint pen in your _very own_ fucking _brand new_ pencil cup, with the _fucking reciept from the fucking univerisity store_ taped to it, so you can see what a fucking irritating lazy tightwad you are to constanly borrow _my fucking office supplies_ and then _bitch when they don’t meet your needs_!
You can then do whatever you want with them. You can hide them under your papers. You can drop them on the floor. You can chew on them. You can burn through the eraser by erasing half of what you write. You can use them for _sexual aides_ if you fucking want. And you know what? You don’t have to fucking return them to me . . . ever . . . know why? Because they will be _yours_. _Yours alone._ You know, kind of like _mine_ are supposed to be _mine alone_? Can you wrap your brain around that concept?
And if you reach for one of my pens _ever again_ I will be happy to _impale your hand on it_!
---
### Author:  [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2001, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/2 "2001-11-23T22:42:02Z")
Pencil cup, hell. Get him a pocket protector. That’d serve the miserable SOB right.
---
### Author:  [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2001, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/3 "2001-11-23T23:24:24Z")
When I worked at Benndorf-Verster (now defunct, alas,) some people thought that I was eccentric because I affixed little labels to all of my pens which had tiny print saying [sup]“A curse upon the regenerative organs of any that steal this pen.”[/sup] They always found their way back, though. I did this because one day, when my pen ran out of ink, I realized that that was the first time that I’d had that experience there – in six years. All the others had been pilfered before they had the chance to dry up. I feel your pain.
---
### Author:  [@ladyfoxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ladyfoxfyre)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2001, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/4 "2001-11-24T02:30:47Z")
Ah preach it sister. Hell, forget the ball point pen, pencil and highlighter. Buy the man a $10 gift certificate to Staples with a “personal note” on the bottom inviting him to go shopping at this fine establishment instead of your desk drawer the next time he needs a writing utensil.
---
### Author:  [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2001, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/5 "2001-11-24T03:10:49Z")
If the nuckfugget complains once more, merely inform him that the official _Podkayne Writing Implement Lending Institution_™ is now closed. Either that or insert the specifically requested utensil into whatever particular orifice of his is most appropiate or handy.
What makes you responsible for his complete lack of scribe-like-instruments?
Enquiring minds want to know.
---
### Author:  [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2001, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/7 "2001-11-24T04:01:56Z")
> [@](#):
>
> If you went to a meeting across town, would you split the gas money. No, not for business associates.
If I were the one who always drove, and if I weren’t being reimbursed for mileage by the company, you bet I would ask for some gas money every once in a while. A classy business associate would offer me gas money without being asked. Or would take me out to lunch every once in a while as a “thank you” for being the carpool driver.
Podkayne, is there some reason why your place of employment doesn’t have a supply closet? Next time the guy asks you for an implement, direct him to the closet.
---
### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2001, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/8 "2001-11-24T06:00:52Z")
Please tell me this guy isn’t your boss.
😃
---
### Author:  [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2001, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/9 "2001-11-24T07:13:32Z")
Why would you give this overgrown child anything??? What’s next? Hitting you up for lunch money??
Tell him you are not his mommy and he should learn to be self-sufficient. He will not learn self-sufficiencey if you give him what he should have gotton for hisself.
Smack him upside his head!!!
---
### Author:  [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2001, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/10 "2001-11-24T17:44:10Z")
I’m right there with you; when I was the admin assistant for the entire floor (not by choice, but that’s a whole 'nother rant), I sat two doors down from the supply room. And the self-important assholes I was working with (or for, in their eyes) would come to ME for their office supplies! Yes, I guess you can have my stack of sticky notes, and a couple of my pens, but here’s a better idea - why don’t you go 15 feet to the left and get your damn own? Cause that’s where the stuff on my desk has come from. Not magical office supply pixies, or anything. Jeeze, I don’t miss that job.
---
### Author:  [@Feynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Feynn)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2001, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/11 "2001-11-24T18:07:10Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by A pound of dogs, bitte. \*
> \*\*Why do people fuss over office supplies?
>
> If you went to a meeting across town, would you split the gas money. No, not for business associates. You’d let it go.
>
> Supplies fall into the saying “Don’t sweat the small stuff - in business it’s all small stuff.” \*\*
This is not small stuff my friend, some of us take our tools very seriously and don’t like when people borrow them. The cheapest pen I have cost me $20.00 and there’s usually $100.00 worth on my desk (when I’m working). People at work just know better.
It would appear that Podkayne is a person after my own heart as I too use my own pens and pencils rather than the office supplies. I would **never** let anyone use any of my fountain pens.
When it comes to the other stuff it pisses me off to no end that people aren’t willing to walk to the supply cupboard and get their own supplies.
**Podkayne** - Buy this guy a four in one pen: my Staedler comes with a red and black ballpoint, a pencil and a highlighter. then tell him to keep his hands the fuck off your stuff.
---
### Author:  [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2001, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/12 "2001-11-24T18:37:33Z")
_sigh_ It’s my own damn fault because I keep letting him.
We don’t get to raid the supply closet, sadly, since we are but graduate students, and thus slightly lower on the food chain than the fungus that grows under rocks on millepede shit.
**Feynn’s** right, **A pound of dogs, bitte** , I’m not talking about a #2 pencil and a disposable Bic . . . Thankfully, he _knows_ better than to touch my fountain pens. But to be perfectly honest, he’s _welcome_ to borrow the rest, even my good mechanical pencil, if he would just quit bitching that _I_ don’t have what _he_ needs, and if he would just _return_ my stuff when he’s finished with it.
If you want to make an analogy with a carpool, then you have to add that in addition to always making me drive and not chipping in for gas, he whines the whole way that my car is green instead of blue and that my radio doesn’t have a CD player, then once we’re there he borrows the keys to go out to fetch his briefcase that he accidentally left in the trunk, and instead of returning the keys he hides them in a random location and then disappears, leaving _me_ to play hide and seek.
I’m picturing loooonnngg chains, like they have at the bank, anchored to my desk. That way I don’t have to go looking for my stuff. . . I just reel it in.
---
### Author:  [@Feynn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Feynn)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2001, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/13 "2001-11-24T19:36:37Z")
Podakyne - You are just going to have to learn to say NO to this guy.
And… it’s nice to see someone else who appreciates the beauty that is a fountain pen.
---
### Author:  [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2001, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/14 "2001-11-24T20:50:10Z")
Am I the only one that is reminded of the Kids in the Hall sketch? Bruce Macdonald in the government office: “My Pen! MY PEN!”
---
### Author:  [@DPWhite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPWhite)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2001, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/15 "2001-11-24T21:21:02Z")
He’s a graduate student!? I figured he was a freshman writing remedial English papers. Choke, gasp! Please tell me this is not an architecture school! I know some people have to be really cheap to get through school, but this guy really doesn’t seem to appreciate and respect the enormous courtesy you are doing him by lending him professional tools.
I’m a sole practitioner lawyer and a friend of mine in the same condo complex consistently borrows various books, software and things I have written, which I do not begrudge him (much). But it got to the point where I said: Hey, John, at least leave a note when you’ve taken something or a phone message and bring it back right away so I don’t go insane looking for it. That seemed to help when I explained that I was uptight about where my stuff was, (like he couldn’t figure it out by me being uptight about it). But this guy is a very good friend and mentor.
---
### Author:  [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2001, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/16 "2001-11-25T05:59:30Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by GingerOfTheNorth \*
> \*\*Am I the only one that is reminded of the Kids in the Hall sketch? Bruce Macdonald in the government office: “My Pen! MY PEN!” \*\*
Or maybe “Office Space” - “that’s…that’s my stapler.”
---
### Author:  [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2001, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/17 "2001-11-26T00:06:31Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by A pound of dogs, bitte. \*
> Supplies fall into the saying “Don’t sweat the small stuff - in business it’s all small stuff.”
Since it’s small stuff, it shouldn’t be a big deal for him to get his own supplies.
---
### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2001, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/18 "2001-11-26T04:16:31Z")
OMG!! Somebody _else_ who saw _Office Space_!! **I’M NOT ALOOONNNNE ANYMORE!!!**
😃
---
### Author:  [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2001, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/19 "2001-11-26T04:56:41Z")
This won’t help **Podkayne** who is a student (and I appreciate your travail - been there); but I’d lived for years in environments where we each had our engineering rule, parallel glider, flexible curve, templates, etc. that people had scratched initials on. And we still wound up with meetings going into limbo while somebody ran down the hall to hijack the first engineering rule he saw, which of course left someone without one, albeit temporarily.
Or, we floundered or started making guesses when none could be found.
“Screw that!” says I. I ordered a half-dozen of all of the normal scientific/engineering office implements and scattered them around the office. Nobody is proprietary about them any more and there is always one of what we need lying around.
$200 worth of office cure.
I can still relate to **Podkayne** ’s predicament, though. Man, just cover your turf.
---
### Author:  [@Scribble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scribble)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2001, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/20 "2001-11-26T05:13:35Z")
[minor hijack] Duck Duck Goose–I also saw Office Space. I loved it. I’ve converted my boyfriend to the Office Space cult. You are not alone. You were never alone to begin with. [/minor hijack]
Ahem. All right. Sorry. Now back to your regularly scheduled office supplies rant.
---
### Author:  [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2001, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953/21 "2001-11-26T05:24:17Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Duck Duck Goose \*
> \*\*OMG!! Somebody _else_ who saw _Office Space_!! **I’M NOT ALOOONNNNE ANYMORE!!!**
>
> 😃 \*\*
You are so very not alone. Office Space is great! Even Jennifer Aniston couldn’t ruin it, and that’s saying something!
If nothing else, I’m eternally grateful to Office Space for giving us the phrase “no-talent ass-clown.”
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-a-grown-man-buy-your-own-office-supplies/94953.md?page=2)