Pen amnesty

I only use two pens.  I have a Parker Duofold fountain pen which I use for work as I think it makes we write better and I have a red pen for marking things off that I have done.  Occasionally I use another pen to take a note or to act as a back up.

In my bag I have seven pens of all descriptions, mostly biros and many of them freebies from conferences I have visited.  I also have a few pencils but I haven’t used one of those for at least a year.

In my pen draw in my office I have at least twenty three pens.  Yes, I have a draw dedicated to them.  So assuming that each pen is going to last me at least two months, I have over five years of pen supply at my immediate disposal.  What’s wrong with me?   What do I think I’m going to do that require such a surfeit of ink?

I’ve overstocked and I’ve batched my inventory.  My stock turn is way outside industry norms and  I’m over resilient.  The capital write down on my pen collection far outweighs any savings I would have made by buying in bulk.

I’m probably not the worst though.  I’m certain that there are people out there with much greater problems than me.  Someone will have a quill in their desk drawer, I just know it.  There are people who retire with full pen drawers and pass them onto their successors as an inheritance.

What we need is a pen amnesty.  A collection box inside the main office door, where we can drop of our unwanted writing utensils without shame or fear of retribution, no questions asked.

After a month, the contents of the box will be made known, perhaps on the local television news.  We’ll all gasp in horror at the sight of the unwanted half chewed instruments, shake our heads at the avalanche of brand new biros and question how we got into such a state in the first place.

We could write for millennia without ever needing another pen.  We’ll see the error of our ways and not buy any new pens. We’ll take one from the amnesty box instead. 

We’ll take a spare as well, just in case and we’ll put it in our empty pen draw.