The pens and markers that I stole from 10 years of corporate work are finally running out of ink. I may now have only a dozen or so functional writing utensils, down from an earlier inventory of hundreds.
Many have dried of natural causes: evaporation and disuse. The inevitable last, choking scrawl of others came prematurely, blamed on upside down placement in a cup or holder.
With aging felt tip markers I sometimes try to rejuvenate the instrument by dipping it in water, a technique which sometimes works but never lasts – a spare tire type solution recommended only for emergencies.
I remember noting that in corporate a marker was never called a “magic marker.” At the corporate level the magic becomes “permanent” or “blackout.” Corporate markers are used not for coloring but to redact subpoenaed documents and to brainstorm on conference room whiteboards. Black markers were most common but red, yellow, and green markers might be wielded at exciting moments of thinking outside the box.
As for regular writing instruments, I preferred the Sanford Uni-Ball. I explained this to my secretary, feeling naked and preposterous for even having a secretary. My preference for writing instrument seemed rather personal, even intimate, as we thumbed through office supply catalogues commenting on the feeling of pens and pencils in the grip of our mutual hand.
“I don’t like the round stic,” I groused, “it just doesn’t roll and you can’t help but squeeze it until it bends. The ball points are bad.” “I like Number 1 pencils,” I remember her saying.
When I was corporate I never talked about being corporate. In 10+ years of posting to this web site I never let on where I worked or what I did there, until talking about the Tower Records closure included revelation of part of the fascinating secret.
I thought it would violate the corporate shroud of inscrutability. It would rock the boat, to use a bland corporate platitude blasted like profound poetry into water cooler chatter.
Not talking about it made me feel important. Talking about it now makes me feel stupid.
As I type this, the image of the office building where I had my first corporate job in New York appeared on the television. In the opening moments of The Professional, an aerial flyover view of Manhattan shows the 9 West 57th Street Building for a few seconds.
