Wednesday, September 19

When a pen is the best part of your day, you should be worried

I pulled a pen out of my purse as I walked to work at the college library, and took a moment to bask in the joy this specific pen had brought me.

Working at my customer service job over the summer, there had been a supply room with all the pens, pencils, and notepads our shrinking hearts could desire. As a result, everyone wrote their disheartening notes with the same crappy pens on the same crappy notepads.

One day at work my boss asked me to make a phone call to Comcast, pay the bill with the company credit card, and write down a confirmation number. Since the IT guy was fixing my computer, I sat down at an empty desk. Recently abandoned by a new employee who abruptly quit after two weeks, there wasn't much in the way of office supplies. When it came time to write down the confirmation number, I glanced around, scrambled around, stuttered a little, and finally found a pen lying in a drawer. As I wrote, I realized how nice this pen felt. It was one of those heavy ones, with a nice rubbery pad for your fingers, a weighted head, and a metal clicker.

After my phone call, I decided to take the pen with me, since nobody sat at the desk any longer. From then on, I wrote solely with this pen. Soon I noticed that not only did the pen feel nice, but my handwriting actually looked better!

Finishing this warm thought as I arrived at the library, I made the decision to never take another job where my introduction to a pen would be the most satisfying thing I did.

7 comments:

Crankyputz said...

I don't know, life is pretty mundane, and its the silly things like a good pen, that you've just stolen from your boss, that can give you the extra Omph to get through the day....

Miss Awesome said...

If only we could know those things ahead of time...if only.

Dropout! said...

Yeah, that's gonna happen in a lot of jobs.

magickat said...

I love - LOVE - a good pen. A good pen enhances my writing. It makes me pay my bills with a smile. A good pen is hard to come by and damnit if anyone tries to get their hands on it. I'm all "yeah... you have my pen".

The Accidental Bitch said...

crankyputz - My hope would be to live a life not quite that mundane.

big momma - Good point.

dropout! - Not if I quit all of them right away!

kat - It's true. But imagine how nice it would be if you didn't need the pen to make you feel that way.

Sean said...

my biggest problem with good pens is that i can't keep them

Christy said...

I made them order me nice pens at my soon-to-be-former employer, I plan on taking them all with me...I don't care!