The Office. The Shredder

Moving to a new office is often not as written about as moving to a new home is. The various insufferable clichés of having “lived my childhood there”, or a popular variation “left my childhood behind in those 4 walls” , “grew up there”, “best memories” etc etc.

However, all of those are in fact true. Even for Americans.

An office though is a different ball game. Since most people shift offices only because they shift jobs and most people shift jobs only because they are getting more money/responsibility/no body liked them at their previous place (!) so they are generally pretty happy.

So the cartons (American  translation :boxes) upon cartons of old toys are actually akin to cartons upon cartons of due diligence reports in IM`s  (Investment Banker Speak for flyers of deals that they are peddling). Like the old toys, they seem to be from a bygone era. However, like the toys, they too hold some appeal and are not easy to throw.

Which brings me to my most prized office appliance. The Shredder. Shredder, meet yawning readers, YR, meet Shredder.  Some say that The Shredder was the one who nibbled away at Atlas` heels while he tried to keep the blue sphere balanced on his shoulder. Some say it was he, who shrugged and not Atlas. And Ms.Rand`s publishers were none too happy with The Shredder Shrugged as a title for her near lunatic ranting.

Wannabe funny hyperbole apart, The Shredder is very nearly the reason I come to work. Its an absolute Zen like delight to watch it gobble tonnes of what could have been and generate neat wisps of high quality shredded paper that would warm any hungry goats cockles.

Some of you may know about a Firm called Arthur Anderson which more or less shredded its once bright future away. (I find links redundant since the more intrepid of you would have already googled it and the others can do so now). I on the other hand. Think that The Shredder is like its much maligned movie star girlfriend Greed from the Gekko flick. Like Greed, The Shredder “clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit.” The fact that the Greed quote was used in reference to a company called Teldar Paper, only brings poetic legitimacy to my comparison.

Unlike Gekko, though, I like birthday cards. And I doubt I`ll shred them. But who knows. I`m not done as yet. Am I ?

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