Category: Office/Business Resources

Article: An Orderly Office? That’s Personal

Posted on by chase

Sara Rimer at the New York Times recently published an incredibly in-depth article about her time spent with a professional interior designer who specializes in work spaces. It contains some anecdotes we can all relate to, and is a great read for anyone looking to re-do their home office.

When Sara first had help organizing her office, she felt great about it. Her filing cabinet was organized, her desk was clear, and everything was in its place.

She had accomplished what many people consider to be the goal of having a tidy home office: she had gotten the clutter out of her sight, and for all intents and purposes, out of her thoughts. A lot of people take this step and feel like they’ve done all they need to do, but even Sara’s friends were skeptical:

“I did that once,” said one of the men at the table, a computer consultant, with a skeptical tone in his voice. “I got everything put away. And I never opened the filing cabinet again.”

“That,” I said serenely, “won’t happen to me.”

A few months later, it had. The cabinet was again serving mainly as a place to put notebooks, scraps of paper and letters I was planning to file tomorrow. The clutter had not only returned but multiplied. I was back to where I’d started, or worse.

In the end, she realized her solution was not going to be hiding everything away in a filing cabinet, but keeping it out in front of her, where she could look at and visually sort her materials without having to root around for them in a drawer.

Employing a label maker and some storage and “bin boxes”, Sara created the perfect organizing system to match her needs and her space.

After that, personalizing the decor and updating the furniture were all that was left to finish off her perfect, customized home office. She even had space to invite her boyfriend to set up his own office space in the small room (though that ended poorly, highlighting another concept touched upon in the article: the need for a personal office space.)

Lisa Whited, the designer who helped Sara, has these tips to share regarding designing a home office:

• The No. 1 rule is clear out the clutter. Get rid of broken things that you won’t ever get around to fixing. Karen Kingston’s book “Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui” is a helpful guide.

• Color can help make a small or confined space feel more livable, and paint is the cheapest way to get it. “I painted the walls of my home office — a five-by-seven-foot, windowless walk-in closet — yellow,” Ms. Whited said. “I like yellow, and we had leftover cans of Behr’s Cornmeal in the basement.”

• Lighting is important: beyond a room’s general illumination, which could be overhead lighting, you can use task lighting, to work at your desk, and accent lighting, like a hanging light, to create an inviting space.

• Choose containers that are an appropriate size to hold what you’re putting in them. They don’t need to be fancy, but if they are going to be visible, they should at least look similar, so the space looks more organized.

• Get the best chair you can afford. “It’s like your bed,” Ms. Whited said. “You spend a ton of time in it.”

• Always have extras of whatever you usually run out of on hand. “I have at least one extra printer cartridge,” she said, “two reams of paper, staples, tape, etc.”

• Don’t dismiss the importance of candles, flowers, a great piece of art — whatever inspires you. It all helps.

All in all, an amazing piece for anyone looking for stories about redoing a home office, looking for inspiration or helpful hints.

Please note, the links I’ve included in my re-telling of the article are used for sample purposes to give you an idea of the look and feel of the office being described; no specific stores or brand names were mentioned in the New York Times article.

Big Box Watch: Office store stock “uncertainty” on the rise

Posted on by chase

A recent article by Morningstar has listed their appraisal of OfficeMax stock to an uncertainty level of “extreme”. In a quote that I feel is only good news for online retailers and the end-user consumers, Morningstar said:

Office supply retailers have been disproportionately impacted by the current economic downturn as well as mounting competition from mass merchants and online retailers. In our view, an industry shakeout is inevitable, and it is unlikely that all three office supply superstore chains will survive in their current form.

And while they feel that Staples may be the best positioned to survive the economic storm, given their greater geographic reach and availability of online options over the other two big-box names, they went on to state:

…It is not immediately apparent whether OfficeMax or Office Depot (if either) is better-positioned to weather a severe economic downturn. Both firms carry heavy debt burdens on their balance sheets, and with few indications of an imminent pickup in office product sales, we expect free cash-flow generation to be increasingly difficult over the coming years.

I think this sort of uncertainty is definitely not a new concept, and is certainly being felt across the industry. The availability of quality online alternatives to big-box retailers has been chipping away at their stranglehold on the market for several years, and coupled with the downturn in the economy and stories of impropriety, consumer faith in the office megastore is at an all-time low.

To be fair, these businesses have no one to blame but themselves. They’re clinging to an outdated business model in a time where people are looking to move forward. Office supply sales is an old industry, but that doesn’t mean it needs to keep a death-grip on old ideas. Guess what, guys? Turns out if you provide good, lasting value to your customers, stock the inventory they want at a price that is reasonable and appealing, and deal with them in a friendly manner, your business ends up doing just fine. Who’d have guessed?

Managing Potentially Awkward Workplace Scenarios

Posted on by chase

I came across a great article outlining some easy ways to cut stress at the workplace by managing 10 different sticky situations. It’s aimed at employers, but there’s no reason you can’t apply the information to making your own office life a little smoother. Check out the article to find out what to do when:

1. Two employees start dating or break up
2. An employee shares too much personal information with co-workers
3. A laid-off employee turns vengeful
4. Employees wear politics or religion on their sleeve
5. Employees think a co-worker got an undeserved promotion
6. An employee is planning a wedding and annoying co-workers
7. An employee who needs to drive on the job gets a DUI
8. An employee’s substance-abuse problem is becoming obvious
9. There’s conflict between childless employees and working parents
10. An employee is taking advantage of company money or equipment

The last one is what set off my flags regarding office-supply news. Employee theft of your hard-earned equipment is no laughing matter, and the article lists some good ways to deal with it discretely and humanely. Remember folks, that stapler may not seem like much to you, but after a hundred go missing every year, your boss is going to start getting grouchy. The good news is: they’re cheap! Buy your own!

 

Article: Design a Home Office on a Budget

Posted on by chase

I just came across an article from the Los Angeles Times with some helpful hints for building a home office on a budget. While I plan on doing a full feature on this very topic, I thought I’d share the article now because it has some interesting tips. In the article, interior designer Lauren Rottet is shopping brick-and-mortar office supply stores and liquidators, but the fundamental principles she outlines could easily be applied to online ordering:

“Because it’s quick and easy, there’s always the temptation to buy a whole room ensemble – matching desk, chair, cabinet and hutch – but they really dominate a room, and chances are you don’t need all four pieces.”

She moves on, gravitating to the simplest desk – nearly black with unfussy hardware.

“Wood veneers and laminates look cheap,” she says. “The darker the piece, the more it tends to disappear.”

And in the lighting aisle?

“Most people probably have a lamp at home that would serve their purposes,” she says, passing on the options here. “Or they could find a cool one at a vintage furniture store.”

Rottet’s main piece of advice is to keep your home office as much a part of your home as possible. Use design choices that match your personal style, rather than making your home office feel like a workstation or cubicle. Mix-and-match pieces and look for vintage or pre-owned materials to accent your new hardware. One of the ideas I really like was using two pedestal file cabinets as pedestal ends for a desk, and laying a piece of thick glass or granite across them for a DIY feel that still has charm and elegnace.

However you end up kitting out your home office, be sure to do it with quality materials from a reputable retailer. While the temptation is there to trawl the bargain-basement offerings and your local big-box store, you’ll more than likely end up with cheap particleboard junk that falls apart before too long. You don’t need to break the bank; just buy a few quality pieces and accent them with personal touches wherever you can. If you’re going to be spending a lot of time in your home office, you want it to be as comfortable and natural as possible.

Quick News: Buying trends in small business

Posted on by chase

I was just handed a pretty interesting document courtesy of the School, Home and Office Products Association (SHOPA) that lists buying trends in the office supply arena. The numbers are from 2006, but they still make for an interesting read. One of the major things that impressed me was how little brand name mattered to the average office buyer, and also how little they were concerned about price matching. Take the following chart:

Print Cartridges and paper are the only two products that show a huge push for price comparisons, presumably because they are purchased the most often. That means that everything else in that graph is only occasionally thought of as being “worth” shopping around for the best price. Add into that the information found in this chart, which outlines the important attributes when selecting an office supply retailer:

And you can see the price is only third on the list of importance for most companies, with product availability and the company’s needs coming first. To me, this begs the question: “What if a company had almost limitless availability on a huge range of products, from paper, ink and the stuff I buy every day to the things I only buy once or twice a year, AND they offered a great price?” Seems to me like that would be the place you’d shop, right? Food for thought.

I’d personally love to see the updated numbers since 2006, when we’ve seen an explosion in online shopping and a general shying-away from big box retailers in ALL markets, not just office supplies. I imagine they’ll be pretty impressive.

Universities suffering from “Paper Cuts”

Posted on by chase

In these troubled economic times, lots of universities are forced to cut spending wherever they can, and unfortunately office supplies are often first on the block. While it might seem like a few sheets of paper here or there don’t make much difference, new articles show the results of these cutbacks can be worse than originally anticipated. An article recently posted in The Central Florida Future, the University of Central Florida student paper, shows that cutbacks to office supplies are having a damaging effect on the way professors teach:

Humanities professor Debra Maukonen can no longer allow students to keep their tests as study tools because she has to collect them due to the recent cut in paper.

…

These changes are part of an effort to cut back on office supplies because of decreased budgets.

The lack of office supplies “makes it more difficult for instructors to do their jobs,” Maukonen said. “In the larger picture, it’s more than paper — it’s people.”

She said a smaller budget means just what students are seeing now: reduced faculty, staff and services; reduced course offerings; reduced face-to-face classes and more online classes; larger class sizes; and an higher student-teacher ratio.

“I know we are saving trees and money by going paperless, but I am seeing a difference in teaching,” Maukonen said.

The trend towards a paperless office has seen huge strides in recent years with the advancement of technology, and in certain places it works wonders for helping an office “go green” and cut back on costs. But it seems like in a university setting cutting the office supply budget is only hurting students.

At UCF, last year, office desk accessories, such as organizers and calculators, totaled around $164,500, and mailing supplies totaled about $34,000. This year, the totals dropped to about $83,800 and $11,900, respectively. Print, copy and fax supplies had the biggest budget for the two years. Last year, they cost the university about $182,800. That number was nearly cut in half for this year to about $94,600.

I think it’s important for universities to consider the impact of slashing budgets on the quality of education they can provide. Rather than unilaterally make huge sweeping cuts, institutions need to consider their options when picking an office supply retailer. Any self-respecting office supply dealer will offer bulk pricing on office supplies, as well as make special deals for educational and governmental institutions. It’s all a matter of shopping around for the best deal, and I can only hope that a university will exhaust all other options before making budget cuts that may harm students.

Big Box Watch: Office Supply stores hit hard by recession

Posted on by chase

Just browsing the big-box news and came across an article by Tribune Media Services columnist Andrew Leckey. While the bulk of an article relates to his personal encounter with a big-box retailer (describing it as “a ghost town”), he has some eye-opening facts at the end of the piece:

Financial results underscore a brutal economy and industry in transition:

— Staples’ net income dropped 14 percent in its fiscal fourth quarter ended Jan. 31. It suspended its store remodeling and is looking toward smaller stores.

— Office Depot is closing 112 under performing North American stores, reducing by half its new-store openings and closing six distribution centers. Including substantial charges, it had a $1.54 billion net loss in the fourth quarter.

— With charges, OfficeMax had a net loss of $396 million in its fourth quarter, suspended its quarterly dividend, eliminated jobs and delayed store remodeling.

The thing that I always notice when people are making these doom-and-gloom predictions for the office supply industry? They always seem to be referring to brick-and-mortar stores. First it was the big-box stores pushing out local enterprise, and now it’s those very same big-box stores crumbling in the bad economy. No one seems to mention that the new face of office supplies has been online retailing for quite a while now, and people looking to improve their office-supply experience only need to look as far as their computer.

This doesn’t help all those big-box retailers, of course, and I’m sad for the people who are losing money when office store stock crumbles. But for the average consumer needing office supplies, the future’s never been brighter.

Office supply model-making: shouldn’t you be working?

Posted on by chase

It’s Friday, and as the work day and week draw to a close I find myself thinking about anything other than work itself. In this spirit, I found a post from Make magazine’s blog that collected all of their submissions that dealt with…ahem, non-standard uses for office supplies. I have to admit it takes me back; almost all of my office jobs have involved creating things out of office supplies at one point or another. I personally think this kind of three-dimensional doodling is essential for keeping workplace creativity and energy levels up (or at least that’s what I told my bosses), so take some of these ideas and run with them!

Office supply Mario Kart courtesy of Donald Kennedy, who hosts all kinds of impressive creations on Flickr as well as his personal page, KodyKoala. Made from binder clips, colored paper clips, and loose change. Those feet look pretty official, though. I think there’s a GI Joe amputee stumping around somewhere without his boots.

A couple of variations on the theme of the Starship Enterprise. The first one came from Instructables and has a saucer made from blank DVDs, a thick Sharpie body and binder clip arms attaching the ink pen engines. The smaller one is made from paperclips, small binder clips and a wall clip that actually detaches for extra realism! Well, not realism I guess. You know what I mean.

These sci-fi papercraft projects are pretty great, and require nothing more than some heavy paper or card stock and some white glue. It’s basically a matter of printing and following directions, and you end up with a cool, incredibly cheap cubicle decoration for the price of a printed sheet of paper. For more ideas, just run a Google search for “papercraft.” You’ll be amazed at the variety of stuff that will come up.

Last but not least, this incredible Star Wars Tie Fighter made from stray Starbucks materials. This model is completely made of paper cups, heat sleeves, coffee boxes, drink carriers and stir sticks. Pretty astounding work from Wired magazine photographer Dan Winters.

Check the Make Magazine post to see more examples of fine office supply creations, and feel free to email me your own at chase@ontimesupplies.com and I’ll be sure to feature them in later posts.

Big Box Watch: Office Depot Encouraging Employees to Lie?

Posted on by chase

When I set my various news programs to send me alerts relating to Office Depot, I had no idea just how deep the rabbit hole would go. Originally I want to keep tabs on the ongoing investigations into their alleged misconduct over government sales (which I also just learned extends to the GSA, the Defense Department and other high-level federal contracts), but I keep finding more and more horror stories from employees about the way the company does business. By way of LaptopMag’s blog:

“I have had various managers (including my store manager) insinuate, if not flat-out tell me, not to sell items to customers if they aren’t going to get any attachments … The managers would much rather us sell 3 laptops, a PPP, TDS, and case than a hundred laptops with nothing.”

The PPP mentioned there is the Product Protection Plan, an add-on warranty offered by Office Depot, and TDS is “Tech Depot Service”, an Office Depot-supplied tech support program. Since the likelihood of these services being actually “cashed in” is low, they’re a popular way for big-box retailers to pad their profit margins.

Selling a product that may not have a lot of value isn’t a crime, though; people have the right to buy or not buy whatever they want. However, misleading or misinforming people about what you’re offering them is not only bad business, the FTC has stated it violates federal law. Once again, it comes back to doing business with a company you trust. When you can plug your local company’s name into Google and come up with dozens of results featuring “fraud”, “lying”, “theft” and “criminal investigation”, it’s probably time to look elsewhere.

Meanwhile, check out LaptopMag’s series of articles. The first one they did about Office Depot Employees lying about notebook stock sparked an internal Office Depot memo and caused many employees to come forward to be quoted in the current article, which alleges changing price tags with photoshopped duplicates, “folding in” the price of warranties and other add-ons into clearance items, and more. It’s amazing that all this is going on in the face of their other criminal investigation. Kind of makes you glad you can shop online, eh?

How-To: Select a new Office Chair

Posted on by chase

After writing my article on ordering a replacement caster for my office chair, I realized that when all was said and done I would have rather ordered a replacement CHAIR for my office chair. This thing came from a big-box store as a stopgap measure to replace a nice leather chair I had inherited but eventually fell apart. What was supposed to last me a few weeks has turned into a few years, and today when I leaned back and a screw fell out of the bottom of the chair, I knew it was time to go shopping.

That’s when I realized I know nothing about office chairs. I mean, sure, I know you sit in them and they keep you off the floor and they’re a handy place to hang your coat, but other than that I had no idea what went into selecting one. I tended to just walk into the store and sit on things until I found one I liked and wasn’t too expensive. I decided to educate myself on the subject a little more and I’m here to pass my findings on to you.

Three options that all came up during a search for “office chairs.”
I think I notice some differences.

I figured my first step should be to call around to some leading manufacturers of chairs and find out what they recommend. The best info I got came from Hon, one of the top names in office furniture and all around swell folks. Between a helpful customer service call and a free .PDF they sent me called “how to buy office furniture”, I’ve compiled a list of their recommendations.

Operate within your budget. As much as I hate to be a stickler for price, this is one piece of advice I can agree with. While your chair budget should be high for a personal chair (the price is worth the comfort if you’re going to be sitting in it all day, every day), you still need to set one. The sheer amount of different chairs will stagger you if you go shopping by features before setting a price point. So narrow it down to a healthy price range, and then start looking at options.

Consider your Position. After you’ve decided on a price point, consider how often the chair is going to be used, and in what context. The amount of use a chair will see should definitely determine its type, and the Hon buying guide has some tips for this scenario:

1. Employees who sit six to eight hours a day performing multiple tasks should have high-performance task chairs with ergonomic controls that let the user adjust the chair to suit his or her body size and work style. Many chairs now use passive ergonomic adjustments that maintain a comfortable configuration as the user moves. (More on ergonomics later.)

2. People who use computers should have adjustable armrests to maintain a comfortable position at the keyboard. The chair’s tilt feature should allow users to look at the computer screen at a comfortable angle no matter how much they lean forward or back.

3. Executives may not need all the performance features as they spend less time sitting down, but may require leather or more high-tech materials to project a strong, professional image.

They go on to mention that a chair should have a solid warranty on parts and fabric, and to keep in mind that something like a waiting room chair or conference room chair should be treated differently than a “work chair”, since those are meant to be sat in by many people for short amounts of time, not one person for long durations. On that note:

Think ergonomically. You’re going to be sitting in this chair for a long time, so you need to know that you can adjust it to fit your ergonomic needs. In case you didn’t know, ergonomics is the study of suiting the work environment to fit the worker, in order to maximize human potential. It is often used as a stand-in for “comfort” when talking about the workplace. I plan on doing a whole post on ergonomics at some point, so for now we’ll take it to mean adjusting your chair to maximize comfort, reduce stress, and generate a comfortable work environment.

To begin, make sure your chair has all the adjustment options you think you might need. The Hon rep told me one of the reasons to start with price is that any chair that’s worth buying is going to have enough of these options that anyone will be able to customize it to fit their needs. After seeing some of their options charts, I believe it:

Okay. Up, down, back, forward. I can dig it. That’s what chairs should do, right? Seems pretty cut-and-dry…oh, wait. What’s that?


For a more detailed explanation of all these features,
check out the Chair Buying guide at On Time Supplies.

This is science at work, people. There’s a reason why ergonomics is big business, and why it’s important to take care of yourself by using the wealth of options available to you. Bad posture and poor ergonomics can lead to repetitive stress injury, chronic back pain, eyestrain and more. By making sure your chair has even a fraction of these adjustment options, you’re well on your way to customizing your workspace in a way that fits you.

A great resource I found is Ergotron, which has an ergonomic calculator  that tells me that I’ve got my desk set up all wrong. A couple of small tweaks and I can feel it working already, though I’m nowhere near perfection. Hopefully my new chair, whatever it ends up being, will help fix all that.

In conclusion, let’s sum up by saying there are three things to consider when buying a chair: comfort, quality, and price, and they all inter-relate while you are shopping. Set a price point that’s within your budget, and look for a high-quality chair from a reliable dealer that has features that allow you to adjust it to fit your comfort. Any retailer worth their salt should offer a buying guide for the chairs they sell, and don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and call them (or the chair manufacturer) with any questions. We’re all here to help.