Stress: the mother of invention *
By: Sheryl-Lee Kerr
(* a favourite column)
Upon my desk at work now sits a foam stress ball, on loan from a colleague who, for some odd reason, thinks I need it.
As a wild guess, it may have something to do with my deranged ``die, evil technology, die'' mood ever since the neighbor's car alarm woke me every hour on the hour last week, leaving me red-eyed, half mad and crooning I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General at 3am. Just a guess.
I am sceptical about how the stress ball is supposed to work. But a better question is: where did they come from? Some fevered mind thought: “Foam ... stress ... squeezy balls ... waitaminute ... Eureka!”
Actually, I'm in awe of all these odd bits and pieces that appear from nowhere and are instantly deemed office necessities, even though we happily lived without them before. Things like water coolers, chocolate-dispensing machines and middle management.
But these are nothing compared with the defining moment in office innovation, which occurred many years ago: some guy, whose name now is lost to the vagaries of history, twisted on a piece of wire, a bit to the left, then a twist to the right. And he looked down and realised he had hurt himself.
A few years later, another guy invented the paperclip. Immediately, he linked them all together because he could. It annoyed the hell out of everyone else.
Now that's the sort of ingenuity I am talking about.
The paperclip was a very handy invention for another reason, because it meant that reports could now come attached with that other top invention: the office memo. No report was complete without a 3 ˝-page memo telling you that underneath the memo was a report. It was a groundbreaking moment in inter-office communications.
Another item that came and conquered was Liquid Paper. Shortly thereafter, in an even better innovation, someone worked out you could read what was whited out by turning the page over and holding it up to the light.
This saved a lot of time and effort otherwise spent appropriating the same top-secret information from the tea lady and the cleaning guy.
The next obvious stride forward came with the state-of-the-art manager's swivel chair. What made this a manager's chair was the extra-high back and imposing armrests. The armrests were very necessary, as managers needed extra support for their elbows, given this vital piece of anatomy helped hold up their pointing finger - a most essential tool for effective management.
Suddenly they could point and swivel, swivel and point and without getting worn elbows in the process. A truly golden age of management ensued.
And, for some strange reason, that was right about the time someone invented the stress ball.
Well, after much deliberation and examination of my borrowed stress ball, I have now determined it does work. By flinging it repeatedly at one's boss's door with enough intensity to flatten small cities, it does indeed cause the boss stress - exactly as advertised.
Marvellous invention.
The Advertiser, Edition 2 - Metro TUE 18 MAY 1999, Page 030