Staplers

We’ve been here for a month, and some things have started to become normal to me. I used to love the sound of the subway, the groans and creaks and whooshing, but now I put on my headphones like everyone else and read a book. I’m no longer amused by Smart Cars, individually wrapped sugar cubes, or the keys to the apartment. It’s nice to feel a little more comfortable, but I hope I never lose some level of fascination with France.

Today at work I spent a good five minutes trying to figure out how to load staples (agrafes) into my French stapler (agrafeuse). I swear I have an engineering degree. Really, I do. When one of the guys in my group came by my desk to discuss a software issue, I handed it to him and said “open, please”. He looked at me like either I was a princess who couldn’t be bothered to open her own stapler, or an idiot.

Philippe swung it open, very easily, and handed it back. I marveled at this stapler technology and opened and closed it a few times myself. Then I moved the staple holder back and forth and heard a small twang. Philippe looked up in surprise, then across my desk the spring landed on the head of a visiting German.

It’s a good thing I’m on good standing with said German, who handed it back to me after a laugh. Philippe and I performed a small operation to reassemble the spring, load staples, and finally attach two documents I wanted to keep together.

Over lunch we discussed stapler culture. They tell me that in France, they use the regular staplers that I’m used to only in the home. For casual stapler use. At work they use the more industrial gadget I couldn’t crack into without assistance.

Hervé: “Bunch of cowboys. Using the same kind of stapler for everything. How crude”.

Me: “Typical French. Think you’re more sophisticated than everyone else, so you have to have two kinds of staplers for good no reason at all.”

Then came an extended debate on the pros and cons of each kind of stapler. I really have to get these guys a copy of Office Space.