The Cubicle Crucible: Managing Office Supplies

It's harder than it looks and it's a pretty big responsibility to shoulder. The fact is that managing office supplies for your company is a thankless task. You have to deal with the pettiness of co-workers upset because their purple pen is out of ink and you have to deal with bigger issues like running out of toner on the workhorse printer. Some office managers could operate their own office supply store with the amount of products they keep in storage whereas others are always in a crisis mode because they neglected to spot check their supply stash. Generally, it's a good idea to have two extra toner cartridges around at all times just in case one happens to be defective. If you can't print, your business is in trouble. So, making sure you have an adequate amount of copy paper and toner is vital. With office supply deliveries only a day away, how much of your company's money do you really need to tie up in supplies. If you have basics, chances are you can survive until the next delivery is received.

Consider using half cases of paper...also called convenience cases. They come 5 reams per carton as opposed to the usual 10 ream case. The advantage to you is that they are obviously much lighter and can be therefore be easily placed where needed the most.