[tweetmeme source=”travisthetrout” only_single=false]
You may think I am mad, but we (as an office) have been having difficultly finding me the perfect stapler. In the past week I’ve tried 3 new staplers and we’ve still not found a winner.
The problem
The problem is that the last stapler made my hand swell up – I wore away the top of it which then resulted in irritating my hand, hence the swelling. (The stapler also wasn’t very heavy duty and we went through several of the same kind of staplers in the past month). The reason: I do a lot of stapling. I can’t give you a number per day, but given that I’ve scanned and processed over 500,000 documents in the past 6 months (that is me, not the team) it will give you an idea of just how much stapling I do.
The Staplers
So in an attempt to fix the musical stapler problem, where everyone was passing round the one Rexel stapler (because only one out of our pile of staplers work) we decided to try ordering some new ones (not the ones our office buys in bulk for regular users). the catalogue came out and my boss ordered the Gemini which is a newer version of the one we all love, the Matador and the Bambi.
The verdict?
The matador, is sturdy and goes through a LOT of paper at a time, but it is heavy, which is not a good thing when your wrist is flicking about a stapler all day and you need to pick it up and set it down fast. However as a simple “desktop” stapler, for the occasional use it is good, especially if a lot of thick documents come your way.
The gemini is lighter by comparison, which makes it a lot better for my purposes. It eats staples like there is no tomorrow and tackles the thick trial bundles, but it can get stuck. Better for long term and high volume use, but you still have the issue of some documents being too thick for it to get its jaws round.
and finally the Bambi. Cute, small and surprisingly good at stapling. My boss has now claimed it as her own to assist with the morning post. As we know its not going to be able to handle the trial bundles and court documents we don’t even try, but there still are some downsides. The staples are tiny – unlike all the other staplers in the office which take the same size, so it is just being difficult when it comes time for a reload. Also the staples are so small that if you are trying to remove them (which I do an awful lot of as well) it is fiddly (of course the other side of it is if you don’t want people taking the staples out, its a good way to stop them).
Notes in a Book 
500 000 docs!!!! Can’t they just be stored digitally?
I’d give up with all that stapling.
unfortunately what I do in my job is make all the paper paperless for everyone else. 😦
A good stapler is really difficult to find… the de-stapler things are just as bad. One of the temps at my work gifted me her de-stapler because I kept having to take staples out and getting to the point where I kept breaking nails or hurting myself. It was such a sweet (yet odd) thing for her to do!
Aww bless thats so nice. I hate de-staplers, although everyone in work calls them by a different name. I have taken a big chunk out of my finger on several occasions using them – and they always break. lol. 🙂
I hate de-staplers – and have never got on with them. I have a pair of pliers on my swiss army knife which always sits in my desk tidy and allows me to de-staple far quicker and neater than any de-stapler!! 🙂
sounds an excellent idea. 🙂 one of the girls who work in the office was learning how to use our scanners today, and I started her off de-stapling, when she handed me the pile ready to be scanned she was like, “sorry, there is blood everywhere.” oops.
I should do a YouTube video on the art of de-stapling with pliers, eh? :p
I think you would get a lot of views with that 🙂
Pingback: Staple Removers « Travisthetrout's Blog
what about an automatic stapler? Are there such things? I know you can get stapling devices on Mltifunction printers. Hand stapling 500,000 copies seems drastic to me.