I work in an office environment where I'm really not asked to do a lot of clerical work. This is partly because people know I'll say no (although I'm all about heavy lifting...weird). This is also because I have a tendency to do simple tasks, like loading staplers, wrong. People have stopped asking for my help.

Side note: this is not at all related to my intentional failures with regard to wedding planning - I recognize that I'll screw up something important, so I nip that in the bud and screw up early on. Same result, though: the fiancee has stopped asking for my help, except with heavy lifting.

Back on the subject: Since I have no idea how the staples enter their function-fulfilling apparatus, I don't know how many pages a staple can handle. Apparently, different staples do different tasks.

But...I do know how to open a stapler.

And so, for chronic simpleton screwups like me, I propose having the maximum number of staple-able pages printed on the crown of the staple strip in a repeated fashion.

The ink would be simple enough to apply, and because staples are thin, it would be unnoticeable on a single staple. Since it's repeated, you could open the stapler at almost any time in order to view the crown of the strip.
-- shapu, Nov 16 2006

never worry again, this one staples 210 pages http://www.staples....17579&cmArea=SEARCH
[xandram, Nov 16 2006]

I think that with enough experience in operating a stapler, you would eventually learn how many pages you can comfortably staple. Usually the rule of thumb is that if you can fit the stack of paper into the jaws of the stapler, its not too many pages.
-- Jscotty, Nov 16 2006


Nothing wrong wih this idea but I think each stapler is different despite what the staples say.
-- phundug, Nov 16 2006


//if you can fit the stack of paper into the jaws of the stapler// My current stapler struggles with 3 pages. 2 pages less and I'd get rid of it. I never thought to suspect the staples.
-- Worldgineer, Nov 16 2006


I get the feeling [Jscotty] has some sort of fantastical staplers...I can fit 50 or 60 sheets into my staplers, but noway nohow do they puncture it. Usually they just make an impotent little "pflonk!" noise and the staple is mangled, or if I'm lucky, crumpled through the top 2 or 3 sheets.

I think stapler effectiveness is related to the distance that the upper mechanism moves before the pushbar encounters serious resistance, but that's independent of staple quality and staple arm length.
-- shapu, Nov 16 2006


<shameless self promotion> my 'stapler with fangs' (same category, few ideas down) was my solution to this problem </shameless self promotion>
-- xaviergisz, Nov 16 2006


At my last job, I bought an *industrial* stapler to staple more than 20 sheets. There were all size staples available, with varied lengths, to accomodate a certain amount of pages or thickness.
-- xandram, Nov 16 2006


Yes, but imagine you weren't the one who loaded it...how would you know which of the types of staples were in the stapler?
-- shapu, Nov 16 2006


Stapler power depends both on stapler power and staple strength (width of metal, rigidity, and most importantly length of sharp bits). At t'office we have small personal staplers which can do up to about 25 pages and then a big daddy for larger documents. Fascinating! But the big one takes staples of different size (or at least different pointy bit lengths). There's probably a name for that.
-- therattle, Nov 16 2006



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