Little etiquette rules

I did finish the "Carousel" socks last night and a picture will come later. (I also did another "My Little Repaint" using nail polish, so I might photograph the pony fig as well).

But for now, I have a gripe. I came in this morning, looked at the calendar for next month, went "Holy cow, I need to make an exam review for one of my classes, like, naow!"

Fortunately, I had one from a previous semester that I could just tweak and print out.

But. But. Someone had used up ALLLLLLL the paper in the printer. And hadn't replaced it. And they had used up ALLLLLL of the couple of reams of paper that are SUPPOSED to be left in the print room (and apparently reams are getting smaller these days.)

So, at 7:30 am or whatever, I had to truck down to the storage room. (Really, the storage VAULT - this building used to be a USDA lab that used radionuclides, and the sources were apparently stored in a vault. Whether they were that valuable, whether it was to protect the scientists from gamma radiation, or whether there was some kind of Cold-War worry about them falling into the "wrong" hands, I know not. At any rate, the vault is now our storage closet. And I will note to my relief that someone jammed a piece of wood in the locking mechanism so I can never fulfill one of my nightmares about getting locked in there....)

Anyway, I went to get paper. But there were no open boxes. (It's the end of the fiscal year, in fact, we won't be able to buy anything more for a little while now). There were only a few boxes left, in fact.

So I went to open one. Have you ever worked with large quantities of paper, where eight or ten reams come in a box? The paper company straps the box shut with plastic straps that are only slightly less resistant than the average clamshell packaging.

I looked at the box. OF COURSE it would be strapped shut. OF COURSE I would have to try to open it.

So I looked around for a scissors. OF COURSE there were none in the storage room. So I looked in the AAs anteroom (she keeps her office locked, understandably, when she's not there). Nope, no scissors.

I contemplated going back upstairs to look for a pair but something in me kind of snapped - it was getting later, I still had to print the dang things.

So I picked up and dropped the box several times, while tugging on the strap. All that did was hurt my hand. Finally, I ripped one of the cardboard ends off - the feral option. I don't really care at this point that we usually save the boxes to pass on to students or others who are moving (paper boxes make excellent boxes for moving books in). I just needed the paper.

I will say my upbringing got the better of me - I took two reams up to the room with me even though I was going to use a small portion of one. (Though I did mutter, Milton Waddams-style, about hiding all the rest of the paper in my office so that I was the only one who had access to it).

But, crikey. If you use something up, replace it. It's not that hard. (I will say that for a little while, I was keeping a "secret ream" of paper in one of my office drawers, for those times when I was really desperate to print in a hurry, and someone had used all the paper. Maybe I have to start doing that again.)