Eat Your Heart Out, Richard Dean Anderson!

I am a paper pusher. Literally. In my capacity as an administrative lackey, I touch reams and reams of the stuff every day. Which means that I am one of the nation’s leading Band-Aid consumers. I get THOUSANDS of paper cuts per year.

I took a stained glass class when I was a pre-teen – the same summer I started French classes – when my mother was desperately trying to get me out of the house during my time off. I loved it. And I made some fantastic, artistic pieces. Ok, I made a crummy stained glass lily and a mirror with a toy soldier on it (which my mother has kindly kept on her walls for the last 20 years). However, my strongest memory of that course was the pain of scores of tiny cuts on my fingers.

When you solder pieces of stained glass, you can’t just apply heated metal to glass. First, you have to wrap it in an aluminum tape that adheres to the glass, and then solder the pieces together. That aluminum tape must be cut to size and then pressed tightly to the edge of the glass. While doing so, one is likely to incur the need for multiple Band-Aids per hand.

I am reminded of this constantly at work. You might think that getting cut with paper is better than metal tape, but you’d be wrong. I cut myself on manila folders, envelopes, thick expandable folders, and various office implements (e.g., staples and thumbtacks). Cutting yourself on thick folders doesn’t yield a paper cut – it makes you bleed like you were cutting a bagel and the serrated knife slipped (which might be an example specific to my youth).

A recent unscientific survey confirmed that I have the greatest finger-to-paper-cut ratio in my office. People know this, which is why everyone comes to me for bandages and Neosporin ointment. (I can’t stand the cream, it’s too runny.)

After a normal office-related paper cut, I take a moment to quietly curse, wipe off the blood and slap on a Band-Aid. However, when I found myself in the copy room this afternoon, tamping down a stack of newly copied documents, I was unprepared for the sting of the 22-pound multipurpose paper slicing my fingertip.

Did I stop preparing the documents, which needed to be sent to the clients immediately? No!

Did I curse and wipe off the blood? Well, yes.

Did I pause to go back to my desk for a Band-Aid? NO!

Instead, I went all MacGyver and did what I could to stop the bleeding until after I had done my job:

Yes, that is scotch tape on my ring finger.

MacGyver has NOTHING on me!