Office Chatter

Over the past few years many industries have seen redundancies and cut backs in the form of reduced salaries. This may or may not be perceived as fair by the people at the receiving end of these cuts. Have you experienced a pay cut and if so do you acknowledge that it was necessary and that the business you work for cut your salary only as far as they absolutely had to?

It's Think Ahead Thursday in Green Office Week, so let's put some thought into making green practices an everyday routine. Not being eco-conscious costs us money – simply by leaving the lights on, for example, UK businesses waste £120m each year.

Artist Peter Root took 100,000 staples and spent 40 hours creating this 'Ephemicropolis'.

There was an interesting article in the The Guardian this weekend about being green in the office; the writer said they were green at home, recycling this, saving that, but that doing the same thing was much more difficult in the office.

It's Green Office week, so we thought we'd celebrate it by giving you 12% off our range of eco-friendly products. You'll be surprised at the variety and choice – we have 1400 products with great environmental credentials. Most offices are always trying to catch up on filing, and it's always good to stock up on paper, so here's a little selection of what's on offer.

From the book Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction by John Austin, and picture courtesy of wildammo.com, we've got this handy-dandy guide to building a crossbow out of pencils! (And a pen.)

We have now seen and heard the pledges from all of the political parties involved in the forthcoming election. Pledges aside we now need to start looking at real practical measures to boost the economy and make things better for small businesses. What measures would you like to see the new government use to support small businesses in the coming year/s.

Here at Euroffice Towers we have a dilemma. Because we're eco-conscious we urge people to think about their use of paper, and recycle what they use. But that way, it seems lies itchy bums.

I just found a report by John McCrone of the Dominion Post who says that there are basically three types of small business owner. What motivates you to run your own business and what kind of business owner are you?

Small businesses know only too well that if their websites are slow to react, customers simply go elsewhere. So Office Chatter is on the broadband case for you. While users should check their speed and should complain to their provider if they are not getting the speeds agreed, an Ofcom spokeswoman also told us that Ofcom would be interested in hearing from SMEs who are not getting the speeds their contract seemed to promise them.

Now that the warm weather is here, you may be inspired to have a good spring clean of your desk. It's simply a question of making those mounds of paper disappear, to magically re-emerge in lever arch files, and every time that happens, you should say thank you to Louis Leitz.

We are always looking for ways to make your shopping experience with us easier. On of these is our past purchases section, this allows you to shop from previous orders that you have placed. Why no give it a  try and see.

You'll probably have heard that Penguin Group Australia are pulping a cookbook because a recipe calls for 'freshly ground black people', an embarrassing example of over-reliance on a spellchecker. But when it comes to strange substitutions of words, New Scientist magazine has been having a bit of fun recently.

Have any of your colleagues not been able to make it back into the office today as they are stranded somewhere and notable to get back into the UK.  With no end in sight we are being told of the plans being drawn up by the government to help get people that are stranded home. The question is how long will this last and with a number or other European countries opening their air spaces again how long will it take the UK to follow suit?.

Did you know we had a option for you to save a printer on our site, this has been designed to help you save all the printers that you have in your office and makes ordering inks that so much easier. Why not take a look and see. Just clink on the Green "Tools" tab and select the "Ink Finder" option and add your printer to your account. Next time you want to order your ink just click on the "Ink Cartridge and Toners" tab and your printers will be there along with all the relevant inks.

The Labour party says they are 'championing an enterprise economy'. Let's find out how they're going to do this, and what small businesses can expect.

As expected, the Conservatives want to encourage greater personal and local responsibility rather than more central government. But David Cameron seized the advantage in the publicity war by promising to postpone Labour's proposed National Insurance 1p increase for employers and workers earning less than £35,000. In addition, in terms of SMEs, the Conservatives have plans to:

As we're going to see the first ever live TV debate between the leaders of the three main political parties tonight, I thought I'd do a quick run-down of how their proposals would affect small businesses.

The first of the Leader debates will be aired live tomorrow evening the 15th April. Will you be watching it? or have you already made up your mind who you are voting for?

Most of us pay very little attention to the envelope – it's just a throwaway piece of office stationery.  Yet some people pounce on them, not because they're waiting for some amazing piece of good news in the post, but because they're fascinated by the geometric patterns printed on the inside.

Tens of thousands of private motoristsand commercial vehicle owners are now claiming costs for damage fromlocal councils that have not repaired dangerous potholes. Mainhighways are a bumpy ride at the best of times, but small businessesbased on council-owned industrial estates or on back roads suffereven more because of shoddy maintenance of secondary roads.  

Even though we are climbing out of the recession, the vast majority of small businesses are not implementing recovery plans, says a survey out today.

How cool is this video? It's amazing what you can do with some office supplies and a bit of time on your hands.

I've found a guide to removing scratches from CDs using petroleum jelly. Now, I realise most people would just say 'Vaseline', but that's actually a trademark. (Much the same way that people say Hoover and Tannoy for vacuum cleaners and PA systems.)

As usual once the bank holidays are over the weather decides that it is going to get all nice and sunny. With this in mind its always a great time to start thinking about our summer holidays, where to go and how to get there. With all the talk recently about global warming and the damage to the environment I was thinking about off setting my carbon footprint but buying some trees somewhere. Have you thought about it or have you done it in the past? Take our quick poll to let us know.

On the bus today, a woman with a child in a pram and a toddler, tried to buy a ticket with a £10 note. The driver said he didn't have any change and, I'm sure, was about to ask her to get off the bus... 

Did you know that Post-it notes turn 30this year? (Possibly even today!) According to the makers 3M, it* was first sold nationally across he USA in 1980. And we've been singing the praises of this essential item of stationery ever since.  

The Carbon Reduction Commitment – a mandatory carbon trading scheme for large companies – comes into force today, and smaller companies fear that similar tough measures will be forced upon them in the future, says the Federation of Small Business.

As small businesses, we have to take our digital secrurity seriously; if customers doubt us, they'll leave us. And we can't afford for that to happen.