Stationery 2 – When good pens go bad

On Monday we revealed the Onions’ Top five FOR THE WIN stationery items. So much love, so little time.

But it seems that when passions ride high, disappointments gallop alongside. When asked to list the top THREE items of stationery that frustrate or would never darken their desk, the vitriol flowed.

The ire was not focussed on items with a core-functionality for which people had no use (although there was a marked lack of love for the mouse mat), but rather on items that failed to adequately perform their core-functionality.


Top three FAIL stationery items:

1: DEFECTIVE ADHESIVES

• Sticky tape that isn't magic tape - seriously why does it exist?
• Sticky notes (they should stick for years not minutes).
• Sticky tape of the: 'I thought I was buying sticky tape but instead I've ended up with some flimsy bit of cellophane with a sad excuse for adhesive on the back’ school of sticky tape.
• Post-it notes that fall off.
• Gluestick.
• Clag & spray adhesive - the former doesn't secure much at all, and the latter sticks you to everything!

2. DEFECTIVE PENS–PENCILS

• Pencils with leads broken all the way through (how does that happen?).
• Thick or leaky biros, especially the leaky ones that pick up dust blobs or hairs on the point.
• Pencils with constantly snapping leads (especially those 'mechanical' ones).
• Leaky pens.
• 2B pencils that are not 2B.
• Ink, uncontained (i.e. smudged on my face, leaked in my pocket, in a puddle on my desk).

3: DEFECTIVE RUBBER BANDS

• Wrong-sized rubber bands.
• Rubber bands without enough give.
• Rubber bands with too much give.
• Rubber bands that are the wrong size or break as soon as you stretch them.
• Too-big rubber bands that you have to fit around the ms vertically.

4. DEFECTIVE PAPER CLIPS*

• Twisted paper clips (especially the ones with old sticky blu tac attached to them).
• Little paper clips, (especially the terrible plastic covered ones).
• When the giant paper clips are all tangled up with the small paper clips.
• Mating paper clips.

Dishonourable mentions:
Plastic sleeves, textured pads attached to keyboard & mouse on which you're meant to rest your hands (*shudders*), wall calendars with no room to write on, mouse mats, unlabelled manila folders, useless mini-staplers, useless non-sharpening plastic pencil sharpeners, mouse mats, staplers that constantly jam, mouse mats, year planners (I much prefer a Buddhist approach of my diary - one day at a time).



* Yes. This is Item FOUR in our FAIL stationery top THREE. This disobedience is getting out of hand.