Copier or Chairs? The $4,300 Question

An extra $4,300 in the Scranton branch budget sounded like good news. There was one condition: spend it by the end of the day or risk losing that amount from next year’s budget.

Oscar had a clear suggestion. Replace the copier.

The machine was unreliable, and every failed copy meant another interruption to the working day. Jim agreed. A copier that works would make a routine task easier for everyone who needed it.

Pam had a different priority: new chairs.

Everyone sits in a chair every day. Some of ours had been around for years, and Pam’s was particularly bad. Her argument carried extra weight because she handled much of the copying herself. She knew exactly how frustrating the machine was, yet still thought the chairs were the greater need.

The office split into two camps. Michael asked Hank to inspect both options, hoping for a decisive answer. Hank saw the problem: the copier needed replacing, but the chairs were difficult to sit in. Toby also suggested testing the office’s air quality, which gave the discussion a third option nobody was prepared to debate.

Then Michael learned that returning the surplus could earn him a $645 manager’s bonus. Faced with the prospect of buying nothing, Team Copier and Team Chairs reached an agreement remarkably quickly: buy the chairs.

The copier still needed attention. But the decision recognised something easy to overlook when equipment fails loudly: a worn-out chair affects someone for the entire working day, even when nobody complains about it.

We sell paper, so we understand the importance of a dependable copier. We also understand why the people using it wanted somewhere better to sit.