OFFICE SUPPLIES OF THE DAMNED


Call me crazy, but I think Office Depot might be the most depressing place in the world.

Sure, there're a lot of sweat shops, gulags, and corpse-filled ditches out there vying for the "most depressing" top spot- an award it can proudly emblazon on the front of a sale-able sweat shirt- but no place else I've been in recent memory can match Office Depot's palpable stew of the forced hopefulness of embarking on a new and exciting career, and the smashed dreams of being fired and thrown off that career track as you slowly dissolve into spousal abuse and severe alchoholism.

I recently ventured into one, ironically to get some color copies made for this cheery poster...

...Now granted, getting copies made anywhere is an incredibly dull task (and there's really no way to change that until someone invents a copy shop that is also a topless whiskey bar) but walking into the deafening, cavernous silence of Office Depot on a rainy Tuesday night, joined only by three other disinterested shoppers and two detached, bored-off-their-tit teenage employees, where you've come only to get your job done for $.35 less per copy, is somehow as sad and shameful as waiting in line to buy porn at Walgreens.

Even with such a small group of lost souls sharing the shelter of Office Depot, there was still someone there shameless enough to argue with a 17 year old girl over a copy job. I didn't bother paying attention to what the guy was saying- the girl said she'd take care of me as soon the other guy was done fighting over a coupon for an additional three cents a copy off or some equal waste of time.

"If you could just hang out, it'll be a couple of minutes."

Hang out.

I really can't imagine a worse place to have to kill an indeterminate amount of time.

I managed to wander through the entire store- paper goods, "garage sale" signs advertising sales that haven't happened yet, fiber board office furniture, a display case featuring pens far too rare and priceless to be out on the floor for the public to experience first hand.

Everything in the place was completely foreign to me. Yes, I know people must get these things somewhere, but (like an auto parts store or some kind of bra shop) I've never needed any of this stuff.

I've had a lot of shitty Joe jobs in my life- bouncing from retail stores to kitchens to record shops, only recently managing to find a job where I even HAVE a desk. The idea that someone would need to go to a specific warehouse store to buy a magazine shelf, desk organizer, or overhead projector is kind of ludicrous to me. Every job where I've had my own specific chair-computer-and-flat-surface to work at, all that stuff has already been there. It never occured to me that an entire cottage industry for this dull shit could warrant not one, not two, but THREE giant nationwide warehouse store chains.

A bland vinyl banner overhead proclaims "CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF MAKING THINGS EASIER." Really? We've been buying all this stupid office shit for 25 years? And making what things easier? Certainly not things like building hospitals and roads or pinpointing the struggle of human existence - those things are still pretty difficult. And until somebody starts "Science Depot," it's still going to be kinda rough to diagnose a degenerative brain disorder.

While wandering around, dumbfounded at the number of dry erase marker-and-board set ups a person could purchase, wondering if buying some correct combination could make me ultra-efficient ("well I BOUGHT the dry ERASE board...") I accidentally bumped into a table that held the saddest thing I'd ever seen in a retail establishment:

A sale on motivational posters.

Here was a pile of glossy, sharp-focus pictures of bald eagles poised mid flight, and one of a cheetah, deep-in-thought, whose picture was snapped in the split section before the noble creature bolted through the tall grass of the savannah, each emblazoned with slogans that seemed to cancel each other out, like "Leadership: It takes only one" and "Teamwork: It takes more than one."

All were framed; ready to hang and inspire confidence.

It nearly brought a tear to my eye- how bad must the economy be that we have to closeout at rock-bottom prices artwork intended to inspire the United States workingperson and make them think about their place in this big, crazy, patriotic cog that is the American work force?

Fortunately I didn't have to think about it long. The argumentative guy at the copy desk had moved along, and I high tailed it over there to get my business taken care of so I could get back to my life.

I got my copies and headed outside, breathing deep. This must be how political prisoners feel as they take their first steps of freedom, I thought.

Well- political prisoners, and people that work at Office Depot.