Office Chatter

My colleague has a calculator on his desk.

It’s got 30 odd buttons and does things like add, subtract, divide, multiply and it even has a percentage button!

Girls copying their bums on photocopiers are the stuff of TV ads, but spare a thought for the poor photocopier. As many small businesses (SMEs) know, printers and photocopiers can be overworked and though you'd like to get newer, greener  machines, cost can be a real disincentive.

It’s that time of the year again... The sun’s shining, the Brits come out in force in the hope that there’ll a British champion, you can’t book a tennis court for love nor money, everyone suddenly knows all there is to know about tennis (what’s the ATP?) and every supermarket entrance is piled high with Pimms and strawberries… It can only mean Wimbledon.

Napoleon is supposed to have said that an army marches on its stomach. Or perhaps it was Frederick the Great, but whoever made the remark, they got one thing right. The success of any organisation depends on it being well fed. So when Zurich Financial  Services reports that the number of companies saying supply chain problems have led to a drop in profits has doubled in the past five years, you realise that the emperors knew a thing or two.

This morning I paid my rent by a BACS transfer, bought some Xbox games from eBay with Paypal, topped up my mobile credit and Oyster card and booked tickets to the Body Worlds exhibition at the O2 bubble with my credit card.

I carry no cash on me nowdays, rarely have more than a £20 note and I have never written a cheque (I’m 23).

In every office, there's a prankster –  a good thing, too. Every office needs a bit of fun; it's part of a healthy office. A practical joke can turn a dull day into a happy one and take the tension out of a stressful situation...

The most recently published unemployment statistics indicate that in the past three months someone has lost their job every 30 seconds in the UK. That makes for pretty dismal reading and raises questions about what alternatives here are to redundancy at times such as these.

One option is to go down the route that BA have, who recently asked their staff to work for up to a month for free...

I love office stuff, in fact I know a whole two rooms full of people that love office stuff, but I have a friend who LOVES office stuff, So much so she had to avoid supermarket aisles and office supplies stores like the plague for fear of debt and ridicule especially when she was out with others...

The government wants consumers and businesses with landlines to pay £6 a year – per line – to subsidise the roll out of broadband across the UK...

Losing a treasured stationery item is always hard, be it a pen, pencil, ruler or stapler. You spend hours hunting, wondering and obsessing over where it could have got to, turning everything on your desk upsidedown and going into every nook and cranny you could possibly think of...

Back in the day when I was just a fledgling Eurofficer, before our trusty cherry made it's début I was given the responsible (yet rather tedious) task of opening the company mail. As any small business can vouch for, we get a lot of it: invoices, cheques, fan mail and correspondence from manufacturers...

I spent a long time on the bus this morning, packed in amongst other victims of the tube strike. For most of my journey I was stuck at the front of the bus, looking out onto the road like Leonardo Di Caprio in Titanic...

Because we are geeky about our office products and because we love checking out all of the interesting ways that stationery products can be used, we've seen a lot of different ways of playing with Post-it notes...

So once again Bob Crow has served his customary crippling blow to the London economy with the London Chamber of Commerce & Industry estimating that the RMT's decision to strike for 48 hours could cost London up to £100m in lost productivity.

How much will it cost you..?

I have used the same mouse since the day I first bought my computer. For the most part it has been a trusty companion, but today having de-fluffed it yet again... it seems that the roller ball sensors have finally had it!

So my next move was to ask for advice from a techy mate, Jim. He said my old mouse was a dinosaur. When I looked dismayed, he laughingly said I'd be better off with an optical mouse and then I'd never have to clean  a mouse ever again...

Two interesting bits of news from the tech world: Google Wave and Microsoft's Project Natal.

Google Wave is the company's attempt at redefining  email (which has been around for decades). What's interesting about Wave is that it emphasises real-time discussion and collaboration, instead of the 'send, receive' transaction of 'regular' email. Also, it's Internet browser based. The idea is you won't need software to use it, just access to the Web...

Giving 150 million people in need access to specs could boost the global economy, according to the World Health Organization.

That's a lot of squinting.

So, the sunniest May for ages has just ended and we've had a really sunny start to June. Is this helping us bounce into work and focus all day or do we end up listfully staring out of the window at the unreachable sunshine?

The team at Euroffice, as always, are divided.. what do you think?

Dear Readers,

I have a confession to make. My father ordered a new chair from a company that's not Euroffice. 
(I know you're horrified, but he acted before he could be stopped, which sounds intentionally dramatic.)

It was a desperate man desperately seeking an unusual wedding present which started the adventure. The man was Max Bishop, and that experience set him on the road to building the company he runs today.