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I Believe You Have My Stapler
yack0 writes "After three years of demand and countless calls, emails and letters, you can finally buy a Red Swingline Stapler. Hooray! As noted in this wall street journal article and confirmed by this page at the Swingline Stapler web site you can now pick up a Red Swingline stapler for merely twice the price of a plain black stapler. However, a colleague of mine says that the online order form is reading around $16 for his right now. Now all the cubicle dwelling prairie dogs can get one step closer to burning down the building." The red stapler has become some sort of cult icon at this point.
is black and shows up on radar smaller than a pelican. Only $56,000 each.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Yesterday he had 4 bosses/managers/etc come tell him the exact same thing --- that he didn't correctly stow away his oscilloscope in the proper location; but he didn't cause he wasn't finished working with it yet! Truly an Office Space moment.
Slydell: So we just went a ahead and fixed the glitch.
Lumbergh: Great.
Portwood: So um, Milton has been let go?
Slydell: Well just a second there, professor. We uh, we fixed the *glitch*. So he won't be receiving a paycheck anymore, so it will just work itself out naturally.
Porter: We always like to avoid confrontation, whenever possible. Problem solved from your end.
The fun thing to do, is watch the movie, while you are working. But I must not, it dose not help productivity!!!
I have a ton of machines to beat the living daylight out of. I also have my Office Space Soundtrack to play along to them. Damn it feels good to be a gangsta....
I am Lord Snowbeam. Heed my call!
Watch office space, a cult movie. Now you know what people mean by "office spacing" something they hate.
"It's even worse if you're locked into a proprietary operating system." -http://www.wehavethewayout.com/scale.asp?rew=0
i was told i could first post between the hours of 7 and 8 pm... sharon posts while she files, so i don't see any reason why... i'll burn down the building.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
I used to sit by the window, and there were these squirrels, and they were married.
I'll just post a link on /. and burn down your web server....
Sig? What sig? Do I have to have a sig!?!?
I believe my favorite line would have to be:
PC Load Letter! What the fuck does that mean!!
strychnine in the guacamole.
--bpl
follow the IMDB link to learn about Office Space.
PETER GIBBONS
'So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's me on the worst day of my life..'.
Office managers are putting on their O-face. You know: Oh! Oh!
These comments and opinions are mine and mine alone, although they shouldn't be.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
(This post is certified by me, Anonymous Coward, and is guaranteed to be a 100% authentic beowulf troll post. The reader is hereby advised that imaginization of a beowulf cluster, in whole or in part, or in any combination, of the items in the story to which this post pertains, is fully sanctioned and endorsed by me, Anonymous Coward.)
I work at motorola. Motorola is undoubtedly a huge source of inspiration for things like Office Space, and *especially* Dilbert. During out "Employee Well-Being" week they showed Office Space in one of the break rooms. It created anarchy when people saw the reality of their office lives!
being an afficionado of dark comedy, I have long been a fan of Office Space. I may be one of five buyers of the (poorly produced) DVD. The performances, particularly Ron Livingstone (hugely underrated actor) and Diedrich Bader (almost unrecognizable) make it a real gem.
On the subject of red staplers, why has the post WWII workplace insisted on mono-color conformity? It seems almost a conspiracy to ensure that office workers be isolated from as much visual stimulation as possible. Is it so important that the occasional visitor/client not see a single clash of colors that offends their sensibility? It would not revolutionize the drudgery of the workplace, but more allowances for individuality and color can't help but improve the condiditon of those who must exist in that environment from day to day.
The whole "flair" concept at the Houlihans type restaurant carries the same theme. Even where modern business allows disorder, it cannot be individually expressive disorder, it must be carefully regimented and designed to communicate the corporate message, not a personal one.
The dot com bust has given added credence to those who actually advocate this kind of enforced conformity - they point to a free form, more open dot com workplaces as a symptom or cause of the crash, and are using it to crush any new proposal to create a more humanized, comfortable workplace. Just my two cents. Great movie if you haven't seen it.
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal...
Slightly offtopic, but our Indian DB2 administrator speaks with an accept which has an uncanny resemblance to the mumbling, rambling style of Milton (ie: the Swingline stapler guy). I have visited his desk many times, but have never noticed a red Swingline stapler anywhere. This new product may give him all he needs to complete his full transition to Milton (except that he's Indian, doesn't wear glasses, and doesn't have any facial hair).
Ph33r m3!!!
The site was /.ed when if first came out in the WSJ and now it's /.ed again.
Haven't these poor people suffered enough?
How come /. still hasn't posted a single article about the passing of Gene Kan, but somehow a red stapler makes it to the front page???
????
I believe you have my stapler.
Umm, yeahhhhhh...
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
You were looking for actual news?
Man, has someone ever lost his way...
When you only see maybe 2 minutes of such content per month watching regular TV & movies, you take what you can get. Personally I'd rather watch Office Space for the 10th time than watch Anti-Trust for the 2nd.
Seemed the other way around to me. 15 minutes of that boy meets girl crap, except it was better, because his pickup line was "do you like kung fu?".
What?
News is such a relative term here. Something interesting would have sufficed, but I guess if we're digging the bottom of the barrel, overpriced staplers will do handily.
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You may be right, bu do you know of a better, more humorous movie that is similar to office space? I thought it was well done, although I could have used more geek cubical stuff in the movie.
although i accept the fact that the movie was not written for me.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
It doesn't mean it got jammed, it means that it needs more paper or that particular size.
Though for us here in Australia...it means you forgot to set the paper size to A4....
Advanced users are users too!
According to IMDB the original stapler was just painted anyways:
;)
The red Swingline stapler that Milton was so afraid of having taken away was never actually manufactured by the Swingline company; it was instead painted red by a crew member in the props department. However, following the movie's success on video as a cult film, the demand for red Swingline staplers (apparently as a symbol of quiet rebellion among cubicle-bound employees) was so great that the company began to sell the red Swingline stapler on its website..
---
So break out that red paint and make your own...
"...you can steal my woman, but you ain't done nuthin' smart."
Ancient cultures (like China and India) tend to emphasize on hierarchy and obedience rather than questioning and innovation. When immigrant bachelor developers stay till midnight everyday and come to work on weekends, they set the same expectations on everyone else. Anyone who leaves at six because he has a life is viewed as being less of a team player. Also, important technical decisions might end up being taken outside the normal working hours.
Things only get worse when, after a few years, these same people become managers.
Some other symptoms are (i) dependence on individual brilliance rather than a good system and (ii) concentration of knowledge within a few individuals.
I am not blaming anyone and certainly not all immigrant developers fit the above pattern, but there is a cultural aspect to work and I am merely pointing it out.
BTW, I came from India three years ago.
All your favorite sites in one place!
Gmanske.
...merely twice the price of a plain black stapler...
..$29 bucks for a red stapler?
And sell at one-half the price on ebay...uh..yeeaah.
So, do you like Michael Bolton?
Actually, Milton and the epic of the stapler didn't originate in 'Office Space' but rather Judge's cartoon short from MTV's Liquid Television progam.
The skit basically showed Lumbherg and Milton having their classic confrontation about the stapler, moving his office down to the basement, and what not.
Judge made 'Office Space' from this skit.
"Where is my mind?"
At least now we know they use jrun.
nulli l__Errorpage2ejsp13.java:268)r vlet.java:40)0 24) ...
java.lang.NullPointerException
at jrun__util__Errorpage2ejsp13._jspService(jrun__ut
at allaire.jrun.jsp.HttpJSPServlet.service(HttpJSPSe
at allaire.jrun.servlet.JRunSE.service(JRunSE.java:1
at
Other people use this phrase in this context! Excellent.
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal...in every way
Harrison Bergeron? Vonnegut?
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
My grandmother used to have a red swingline stapler at her house. Ironically, I believe it was lost when the house caught fire. This was a good 15 years ago.
If I had known then what I know now, I would have hunted through the rubble for that damn thing!
I believe the first instance of that particular error message was in the HP laserjet II series. I know the HPLJIIP had it.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
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What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?
Yeah.
Wow, that's messed up.
.sig last updated Jan. 14, 2000
Umm, Peter! Yeah. If you could go ahead and mod this up, that'd be great.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
PC = Problem Code
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Hell, Lumbergh fucked her...
Its news for Nerds man! Stuff that matters!
To me this matters. I have wanted one of these for a long time. This is the most important post to me all day.
Where else am I going to hear about this? Right here. That's where.I'm a pathetic Nerd and I want my stapler.
And since links are being slashdoted right now I suspect it matters to other people too. And since you bothered to post, I bet it matters to you.
Wow, thats really interesting considering "There was just a slight problem: Swingline didn't make bright-red staplers." (wsj)
Nice try at impressing us loser.
Next time try sticking a that flaming stapler up your ass.
Always said Klaar, my first thought was sounds Klingon...
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So it can be given to a SE professor at my school. This should be good..
Beginning the day we all watched Office Space on the bad-ass hi-res LCD projector in the conference room (driven off a DVD player in an IBM laptop) my boss comes around and goes "mmmm... yeah, ...."
um... well... from your post, i regret to say, you gave no indication that he was HAPPY. all of those things mean nothing. It can just leave you looking at the hole in your life that you made to get all those "things". This, i know, is offtoppic, but i think it needs to be said none the less. If that is "everything...[you] could want", i am very sorry.
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One of the silliest little programs I ever encountered was SimStapler from Freeverse software.
Staple away to your heart's content with no jams! Sorry folks, this one's for Pre-X Mac OS 9 and under.
_______
Hey, Peter, forget this article, check out what's on Channel 9!
and definetly one of the funniest. The more i watch it the less funny it is, but it still holds a place near to my heart. Even today, the Swingline symbolizes the oppression and greed large entities can have upon smaller ones. Then again, it could also symbolize how simple pleasures can keep us from burning down large office buildings. And also that you'll be treated like shit wherever you are. Even in mexico with lots of money.
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Hm... are you familiar with Monty Python? well.. if you arn't, they are (were rather) a wonderful troop of british comedians. In the beginning of their show there is a part of the intro that has a foot, the one pictured above, smashing the item in the center of the screen.
this use of their foot is to indicate that is is supposed to be FUNNY, IDIOT!!! now. quit your whining about something that you should have expected when you cliked on the link.
thank you.
This past spring I had the most godawful computer engineering class... we were all given HC11's mounted on a power supply along with a breadboard. It wouldn't have been so bad if the professor hadn't had a policy of "it doesn't work, your grade is 0." (Each lab was 20% of the overall grade) Anyway, I remember many a night in the lab where the people would get frustrated and swear that at the end of the semester, they going to take out one of those poor boxes and beat the *&%$% out of it. If those boxes didn't cost $500, I'm sure a few people would have done it too...
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I don't have anything productive to say, but I like the don quixote reference
AM I the only one baffled by this pointless story? What the hell does a red stapler have to do with anything?
To publicize their new product!
Bring new life to your aging stapler with Stapler 2002 Upgrade Edition! Adds new and vibrant features which enhance productivity!
Personal Edition: Package includes one wire wheel for use with your power drill and a can of red Tremclad.
Enterprise Edition*: Package includes glass bead for your sandblaster and a bottle of red DuPont Centari for your paint gun.
* Installation downtime may be reduced through the purchase of a Stapler Backup Kit, part #6661313, projected availability 2Q2003, which includes one black Swingline stapler preloaded with 100 standard office staples. Availability subject to change without notice. We reserve the right to change the color of the paint supplied.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Gene Kan is dead. Got it? Dead.
/. run an article on me now? I would be willing to bet that far more /. readers have seen Office Space and are interested in a red stapler than know who this guy was. Oh, and did I mention, he died on June 29. It is now July 11. The story has been on Wired for almost 2 days now. Isn't it a little late for you to go into this rant? And as other posters mentioned, just because he had fancy cars and respect and money doesn't mean he was happy.
And up until 5 minutes ago, I had never heard of this guy. Why not? Because from reading the Wired news article, all he did was work on Gnutella. Gnutella. Who cares. After reading your post I thought maybe this guy had invented the Internet. People die all the time. And according to the article, "Kan's suicide was not completely unexpected, according to some of his friends. They had hoped Kan was winning his hard-fought battle against depression exacerbated by personal problems." I battled depression too and I'm a programmer, should
And I've bothered to reply. Don't mind me. It doesn't matter.
You forgot "boy imagines boss having girl and coffee." mmmm, okay, yeah, slurp.
Shot in downtown Calgary, where the doozer habitrails are so advanced that, between interconnected malls, eateries, apartment high-rises and office blocks, it is entirely possible to NEVER go outside. (Presumably something to do with harsh Canadian winters. . .)
The film is filled with dark-humor about what happens when a group of co-workers make a three pay-check bet to see who can stay indoors the longest. A rather bent film, with weird-ass hallucinogenic scenes which I can entirely relate to. --Basically, take your time in such fluorescent, filtered air environments, and multiply by 100. Makes you double-think space travel, and that's a fact!
-Fantastic Lad
Dude, I have a purple stapler... I'm in charge of stationery orders :)
* * Always question "the National Interest" - 9 times out of 10 it is a cover for evil
2002-07-11 05:31:21 Mining the Moon for Helium-3 (articles,news) (rejected)
Assuming we could pull together a coherent space program of the Apollo magnitude once again, Helium-3, a cleaner, safer, more stable isotope could be mined from the moon in abundance as an alternate nuclear fuel, according to this story from the Sydney Morning Herald. Also discussed: Lunar Tourism.
You know the shit's deep when a story about red staplers gets posted while one discussing how Helium 3 can be mined from the moon is rejected. I'd laugh if it weren't so damn tragic. Take the Karma. Might as well use it for something.
Articles rejected to date: 10/10
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And everyone has been posting the same link to the same article and whining about it not being a news item. Everybody knows already!
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I'd be forgivable it it were funny. Monty Python was funny. Whose Line is it Anyway? is funny. Mr. Bean is irritating, but also funny. The stapler.... Isn't.
My opinion of course. Everybody has two, and like armpits, both stink.
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We had to build stuff on the breadboard using the HC11 for processing - We did not, as I think might have been unclear, have to build our on HC11. 5 projects (each 20% of our overall), including a push-button calculator, a voice mail, and an eletronic etch-a-sketch. The HC11's were free (assuming you turned it back in at the end of the semester)... but man, some late nights in the lab made it tempting target...
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
If you liked Office Space, you should rent Haiku Tunnel. It's a black comedy about a temp worker who goes perm at a law firm and gets his artistic side crushed. Like Office Space, it's a biting parody of modern office life. Unlike Office Space, the good guy doesn't win, but it's still very funny.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Sure the links are slashdotted. Even I was curious to see what was so special about the thing. But then I saw it was a stapler. Red. It... Stapled things. If your a fan of the movie and want the stapler, that's cool. No disrespect intended. Hell, Fight Club soap is selling on ebay this very minute. But my Martha Stewart mug isn't going to get posted here no matter her popularity, obscurity or nerdy homemaker status and I'm pissed ;)
(no, I don't own any sort of Martha Stewert product)
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The swingline website at 11:00pm pacific:
We are currently upgrading our site to serve you better.
Please visit us again in twenty minutes.
Thank you for your patience.
error: conn.105.serv
WHAM-slashdotted! WHAMWHAMWHAM!
It was. If you ever want to really piss of a waitress at Fridays, ask them if they've ever seen Office Space. Then ask them how many pieces of flair they're wearing. They really call it flair, and they really have to wear 15. We did all of this by accident at someone's going away party from a software company a lot like Initech and sent the waitress screaming from the table several times.
Flame it, troll it, overrate it or mark it redundant, but damn, what a waste of news space.
Woe is me.
in certan cultures where people does not get fired too much (hint hint: asian country starting with "J">, it is actually opposite as what you say.
the rest is the same, though (the crazy long hours).
think about it... concentration on knowledge serves one and only one purpose -- job security. however, when job security is a non-issue (or, at least a LOT less of an issue than, say, in the US), knowledge gets shared plenty quick -- because the more you teach people to do stuff, the more they can do and the less (hopefully) you have to do. ;-) pretty neat eh? i think china and india cannot cope with the crazyness because of the cultural situation *and* lack of job security.
anyway -- not saying that other countries got it all figured out -- but at least it's working out better than you are describing in certain places. US work model has its own problems too -- heh... man don't even get me started.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
What's funny is that at first I would've agreed with you, but then I looked at that stapler site and got hooked. I saw the light. I realized that staplers are special. It's something intangible, the magic of mundane technology.
Then something weird happened. I remembered that I had a stapler that my father gave me when I was little and it was old when he gave it to me. I looked for it in my apartment and sure enough I found it. According to the engraving it's a Bates 88P Hand-Grip Stapler. I think it's almost 40 years old--please someone correct me if I'm wrong.
It's one of the few things I've kept with me for a really long time. It works great and never jams. I spend a lot of time on a computer, but it's fun to use old technology, too.
Isn't that bizarre? What is it with staplers, and not, say, hole punches or paper cutters? :-)
-- LadyJessica
Am I the only female Slashdot poster?
-- Jessica
The mutant geek grrl from Hell.
did you see the staple less stapler? Cool huh. I wonder hwo well it works. http://www.calcampus.com/stapler/history.htm is another GREAT stapler site.
The only way to bust a doper--is when you yourself become a smoker!
Of course they made red staplers in the past, the metal ones I've seen were more a brick red rather than the brigher shade, though. And of course, the little plastic Tot 50 staplers (no relation to the current Tot 50) were usually red as well.
I loved that movie. I remember one day I came in to find our dress code hade been moved up a few notches "because if you interact with the public, we want you all to give a good impression of the system.". The irony comes in because that was another of their rules, we're in a windowless square and forbidden to interact with the public! The same day someone showed me office space for the same time, and at least I felt reasured that there were a lot of people in the same situation.
Everything will be taken away from you.
I have a red stapler and a red hole punch. Whooopdeee indeed.
I'm shaking my head in amazement that this made it to the front page. Obviously it's far mroe important than say, oh, I dunno, how about Gnutella developer shooting himself. Nah, that's not important at all...
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
IIRC the printer in the movie isn't actually a HP is it? I could be wrong tho.. Can anyone confirm that its something else?
i hate pansy republicans
Is here: http://stationerystore.opnet.co.uk/detail.asp?Prod uctCode=459778
It's RED, it's cheaper than the swingline, it's ELECTRONIC and you can see all the workings through the transparent casing (so you don't need to mod your stapler case)!
What more could a geek need in a stapler?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
I just thought that I would tell you that your link to see the stapler does did not work when I tried it....
Conoco (a midwestern oil company) was sold on the idea that they could get their company logo on the staplers and that would help prevent them from disappearing. What a scam. The result was once they new red staplers with the logo arrived, people started taking them home. I suspect 1/2 the staplers at the highschool had walked off from the oil company. I suspect that Conoco ended up buying something like 10 times more because people were stealing them.
yeah but a better pickup line is "I know kung-fu" hell it got neo trinity!
four-oh-four
I was actually WATCHING Office Space when this story was posted. It's a sign, has to be a sign.
I used to be over by the window and there were squirrels and they were merry. But then they switched from the Swingline to the Boston...
I looked around for an OfficeSpace script, but I couldnt find one... Does anyone know where to find it??
-k
They going to sell the stapler on Think Geek at all?
Where ARE they? I would be eternally grateful to anyone who could point me to a copy of the "Milton Animated Shorts" by Mike Judge.
I have only been able to find a few shreds of info on this. They were apparently broadcast on Saturday Night Live in October of 1990 (or 1991?).
Please help me find the birthplace of Office Space!
Thank you, Vortran
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
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You know, the Nazis had pieces of flair that they made the Jews wear.
What Would Jesus Do
(for a Klondike bar)?
"Has a case of the 'Mondays'"... .....
Has anyone ever said to you "Looks like someone has a case of the 'Mondays'"?
Naw. No. Shit, no, man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked.
.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
It beat the conditions they had at home in Greece, but it really was slavery.
Unfortunately, Americans, being very provincial, tend to think only in terms of American style slavery, in which manumission was rare and unexpected. (Oh, and no one was really sure what to do with free slaves, except repatriate them to Africa.)
For more information on Roman style slavery, try reading the Masters of Rome series by Colleen McCullough.
The real problem with comparing things to the H1-B system is that there isn't anything exactly like the H1-B system. It somewhat resembles both indentured servitude and Roman style slavery.
American style slavery was really more like feudalism, almost no hope of freedom or every raising your social status.
Of course, it is difficult to compare the H1-B system to anything else, since it is a modern invention with its own rules and peculiarities. However, to dismiss a comparison with slavery, especially non-American slavery simply reflects a lack of knowledge of the history of the ancient world.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
slashdot is a forum for discussion. the story is about a stapler, but it was posted because it gives people a chance to talk about a great movie and corporate culture.
reading through the comments, i don't see many that are just about staplers, but many many funny and insightful comments about the workplace.
I thought it was a fax machine. I've actually seen and used the model which they destroy at the end of the movie. Typical fax machine, it sucks ;)
The story has been on Wired for almost 2 days now. Isn't it a little late for you to go into this rant?
Of course the red stapler news has been making the blog circuit for quite some time now. It was on Metafilter May 1. And for those who havn't seen Office Space (like me), mentioning the movie title in the Slashdot story would have been polite...
My previous (asshole) boss wanted to move me into this 10x12 cube with 6 other people, I protested and even suggested that they move me into the basement (it actually would have been better than the sweaty little cube) - anyways after much bitching they finally put me in the climate controlled server room - sure it was noisy and 45 degrees but it really reduced the time drive by's would hang out... I just had to wear a parka at my desk!
As long as we're talking about innovative new forms of slavery, shall we break into the topic of prison labor? With the ever-overflowing population of America's prisons, and the drug war eagerly stuffing more bodies into the system, there's an enormous amount of cheap labor available, creating a vested interest for those who benefit to perpetuate the system. It's really a brilliant workaround to that pesky anti-slavery amendment.
My deviantArt site
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:DQJxCdKIbukC: www.swingline.com/b2c/whatsnew/NewProducts.jsp+red +swingline&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Here is the text:
"Swingline The Red Stapler
Ah, the price of fame. Hollywood took one of our staplers - thanks,
by the way - and used it in one of their films. Trouble is, they painted it red, a color we didn't offer. Ever since, we've been getting calls from customers demanding to order "that red stapler".
Okay, okay, you win. We took our industry-leading 747 Desk Stapler and gave it a deep, establishment-defying, I'll- flunt-my-individuality-if-I-choose-to red finish. Without sacrificing one staple's worth of solid 747 reliability.
The only concession we've made, in fact, is to offer the Red 747 exclusively over the Internet, at least for now. And that's a matter of public safety -
they're in limited supply, and we'd hate to cause riots in the street."
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
It would seem to me that the fact that Swingline now sells it will kill the novelty of the red stapler. As one who has never undertood the act of spending vast sums of money on a product that wil be gaurunteed to be worthless in 5 years it would seem to me that if so many people are gonna run out and get a red stapler then the black ones will subsequently be the way to express your individuality. I guess I'm the cool one with my 70's orange bates 550.
so if you could just move that article to the end of the posts, that'd be greeeeeaat, ok. Thanks a bunch /.
The Adult Happy Meal - "I'm lovin' it!"
Office Space is to us cubicle workers as Saving Private Ryan is to our WWII vets.
I wish my lawn was emo, so it would cut itself.
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal...in every way
Harrison Bergeron? Vonnegut?
Nope. The Democrat party's vision statement.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;
Answering the first ? - Yes, the (very) short story influenced my young mind more than most and the fact that he predicted the equality of outcomes movement is, to me, just more evidence of KVs genius.
Answering the second (pudknocker) Anyone who confuses the ravings of liberal naderites with position of the institutional Democratic party deserves the theocratic, conform of be investigated for unAmericanism, socially stratified state they will end up with.
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal...
Burn their webserver - IIS 4 (according to NetCraft). The techs are probably working on installing updates and re-service-packing everything. Not to mention all the rebooting. They had no chance of survival. Come back in a week...
OK, you're all talking about the movie instead of staplers. Right behind me is the reference desk.
On it are arrayed a grand total of four staplers.
There are three black ones and one cream one.
There used to be one or two burgundy ones (who says red staplers don't sell. I'd imagine burgundy ones are fairly common.) but they must have
circulated on to someone's desk.
The reason we have four staplers is one of them is always broken. The worst part is that students using the things try to fix them. "No!" I always
say. "Just use another one." In my mind's eye,
I see a student with bloody fingers from trying to manually extract a jammed staple. Even worse is
a student employee trying to fix a broken stapler.
There is a good fool proof and very annoying (to the right people) way to fix a jammed stapler. Take it, open it as if you're going to staple
notices to a corkboard. Then fling it hard against the bottom of a bookshelf or a wall. Watch heads
in the work room behind the desk turn. Watch
students go yikes.
Then pick up the stapler and use it. Chances
are very very good it works. The toss and impact
dislodge the jammed staple and gets the other
staples into line, and nobody risks bloody
fingers.
OK, and for being so sweet and patient and putting up with my post, you are all invited for a virtual tour of my office.
http://nakedmolerat.org.uk/office/
A friend of mine, actually has one of the coveted red staplers -- complete with lock and chain. You can waste time at work (and get back some of your sanity) by looking at it here.
Just hit Shift-"Continue" or OK (whichever your printer has on it) and it will ignore what paper you have in there is just start printing. Works every time for me.
http://new.wavlist.com/movies/317/
I actually found one in my fully-stocked desk when I started my last job for a software development company. (Mind you, it wasn't fullsize, but it was indeed a red swingline) That didn't concern me at the time, but sure enough, a few months later they brought in some consultants and fired me along with a bunch of other folks. True story.
And yes, I took the stapler with me when I left.
Come on people. If you want a red stapler paint it. If you want to be really hip you could powder coat it. Be creative - you don't have to settle for catalog choices. You'll never express your individuality by ordering off the same menu as the rest of the sheeple. You're going to have to roll up your sleeves and create some things on your own (or mod things someone else created). It's fun and rewarding. One-of-a-kind is always cooler than "first to buy it".
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
Yes they did, cuz I remember the thing, putz.
..where's my Initech logo coffee mug?
Very slow news day I guess.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
My favorite quote of this most quotable film is...
Bob #2: "We're letting go of Michael Bolton & Samir Naya...Naga... Nagonna work here anymore, anyway. Ha!"
That, and the fax machine beat-down...ah...
--G
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Did you SEE the jump to conclusions mat?? I think you could prolly make one. Besides, it is horrible, this idea.
It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care..
We got back from lunch early so I got the projector, threw in the OS DVD and kicked back.
I took a screen capture of Lumbergh and have him on my corkboard looking down at me
"Mmmmm... yeahh....."
Live web cams
The website's back up (still running IIS4) with a big "Nothing but red" ad on the front page... but what happened to our $16 stapler!? $28.99, my friends!! Well, if they can't admin a website, at least they recognize customer demand when they see it.
Is it just me, or does the stapler from the movie look more like the the durable stapler than the new Swingline Red Stapler ? Maybe spray paint is still the best way to get a Milton stapler - ignoring the 100% markup for red paint...(?)
Ok, I click on the add to cart button on the Swingline website, and it pops open an ordering window with a 4 staplers added to the shopping cart. Ok, I think it's a little strange, but change the quantity back to 1, and hit continue to checkout. Next thing I know, I'm looking at an order form with all the text boxes filled out with somebody else's personal information. He's from Bellvue, WA apparently (I'm in Virginia). It also has his credit card number and expiration date!
This has to be the worst security I've ever seen in an online shopping site. The company who apparently provides the online shopping service for Swingline appears to be an outfit called SureSource.
Obviously not a company you would ever want to do business with, but how does this speak of other fly-by-night online ordering services?
You forgot "boy imagines boss having girl and coffee." mmmm, okay, yeah, slurp.
Yeah. Could you moxe a little over to the right? Grreat.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
I've had a burgundy-red Swingline 767 for quite a while. VirtualStapler has documented such a beast here. Now, the red 747 does appear to be new, though.
-dwd-
Funny no one has mentioned this... The fabled red stapler is up to $30 now. =>
I use Windows... like a two dollar wh.. why don't I just go ahead and not finish that sentence.
I actually got through to the site some time ago. When I clicked "Add to Cart", three red staples showed up in my card. When I removed the two that I never asked for and clicked "Checkout", the standard form asking for billing and shipping addy's showed up -- WITH SOMEONE ELSE'S INFO. Not someone who works with me or has access to my machine, but someone in Wisconsin. I contacted the person and he informed me that the same happened to him and another person had contacted him informing him of the same. /Groucho/ I've heard of the Slashdot effect, but this is rediculous! /Groucho/
I doubt that there privacy policy allows for handing out random user info!
"Anyway, long story short... is a phrase whose origins are complicated and rambling...." - Abraham Simpson
Dilbert is funny. Tom Tomorrow is not funny - but he may be trying to be funny. Scott Adams has a keen ear for workplace idiocy. Tom Tomorrow does not have much feel for how people really talk and act - his characters are overblown caricatures.
TT seems to think that if office workers read the right kind of comics they'd rise up in some Marxist revolution against the oppressors.
The solution to the Dilbert workplace is not some kind of revolution. Rather, go work for a better company. The only reason intelligent people stay in the Dilbert-style workplace is fear, or lack of awareness of alternatives. The best antidote is to maximize savings and avoid debt.
If I can presume to speak for the Dilbert constituency, we are not communists. We are clear-eyed realists. We don't want our employer to be nice, or to care about us, or to provide jobs for life. We simply want high pay, reasonable hours, respect, clearly defined tasks or responsibilities, and freedom from irrational interference. And (knock on wood) I have been able to get these things.
Here it is friends, the REAL Red Swingline.
It's a "67 Electric" I Like to claim, that since it's painted in 4 layers of hand-rubbed "Ferrari Red" laquer it's the world's fastest stapler, and with a 40 sheet capacity it sure isn't slow =)
Eat your heart out guys...oh and I beleive that I have my stapler.
JawzX.
Big Red 1
Big Red Close
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