i am now, and have always been some sort of administrative assistant. i have worked in offices for my entire working career. that’s a lot of years. i know my way around an office, with my eyes closed. i am familiar with the majority of office machines and their requirements. as well, with having the hobby of making invitations, i also speak “paper”. yes, i speak paper. i have an affinity for all things related to writing including paper, pens, pencils and every tool needed to scrapbook (although, i’m not a part of that cult).

in the last few years, i have found that offices tend to “go green” due to the amount of copies and duds that take place. but even still, there are a few that remain reserved and conservative and require hard copies of everything. i have recently ended employment with one such place. and it is because of that employer that i will need to join the arbor day foundation. the number of copies i made was insane. INSANE! there were four copies required of everything. everything. there were PACKAGES of copies required for each day, each week and each month. none of those packages was less than thirty pages, sometimes up to sixty for one of them. i literally used a box of paper a week. THASSALOTTAPAPER!!

my office was not really an office. it was paper storage. solely. other than the space that my desk and i occupied, there was nothing but paper, in stacks, piles and boxes. even my desk with four drawers had two drawers full of paper. a large, four-drawer file cabinet also full. i had a book shelf on top of the file cabinet, full. and there were no less that twenty to twenty five banker’s boxes full of paper. any of the available storage anywhere in the building was completely full of banker’s boxes full of paper. just prior to leaving, i had requested an additional filing cabinet. i don’t know exactly where i was going to put it, but i needed a way to try and keep myself and my office from drowning in paper. i honestly had dreams and nightmares about filing and paper storage.

i will have to plant a tree a year for the rest of my life to make up for what i have done. i can see the way that trees look at me when i walk by and hear their leafy whispers “there she goes, the one who’s killed every tree we’ve ever known, all by herself”. if they weren’t rooted, i’m sure they’d reach out and grab me. scary stuff. yes, i’m going to have to plant trees, make amends with the tree world and if at all possible, never make another photo copy in my life.