Office Politics

Today, I sat at my desk, viewing a whole wad of documents that I needed to print. I was conflicted, do I sit and print one and rush to the printer to claim it, before it gets sucked into the abyss of other people’s printing, never to be seen again, or do I print the entire lot and hope to God that they come home safely with me, and not in someone else’s pile?

I was conflicted. As I sat there thinking about what is best to do, I thought how irritating it can be to see someone just pick up paper from the printer, without looking at it and wandering off to their desk. It is one of my pet peeves working in an office.

People just don’t get it, they have no concern for anyone around them and think that the printer was put there for their own use. It’s just maddening.

Then there’s the people who print reams of paper, leaving no room for the rest of us with one or two pages to send through. So, you invariably stand there waiting for a whole pile of printing to get done before you pick up your half page document.

And then there are the people who stand behind you huffing and moaning and groaning at the printer, whilst you photocopy or print something. They have no patience or tolerance and act as if you are there getting a tan! I love standing at the printer, staring off into space as I mindlessly wait for my documentation to come through. I am sure I have better things to do.

So, I sat there at my PC, agonising as to whether I should print one document at a time, or send all of them through to the printer, finally deciding to send all of them through and make a quick run to the printer. As I rushed to the printer, I realised that no one else was hovering around, waiting for printouts, so snatched up my printing and scurried back to my desk.

As I sat at my desk, feeling smug and very efficient, I worked my way through the pages. This took me about 30 minutes to review. When I got to one of the final pages and saw Joe Bloggs name at the time, imagine my surprise when I realised the one thing I strived not to be, was who I was – a hypocritical document thief!

You just can’t win, can you?

So, I did the only honourable thing you can do in that sort of shared office supplies situation – I scurried back to the printer, dumped the offending page on the printer and ran like a bat-out-of-hell back to my desk before the owner could trace the missing page to me!

Ironic, isn’t it?

This was a true story brought to you by the letter H – Hypocrite and the letter N – Naive Fool.