Why Your Paper Order Should Be Boring

Boring is a feature

There are parts of running a business that deserve creative debate. Copy paper is usually not one of them.

A good paper order has a known product, an expected quantity, a delivery location and a person who can answer a question if something changes. Nobody creates a task force. Nobody searches three stores at 8:30 in the morning. The printer simply has paper.

Standardize the obvious

Most offices need a short list of standard products: everyday letter paper, perhaps legal size, a heavier customer-facing sheet and a few mailing items. If twelve departments each choose their own version, purchasing gets complicated without becoming better.

Keep real exceptions. Remove accidental ones.

Use the relationship for the exceptions

Online ordering is great when you need the same thing again. Your salesperson becomes useful when “the same thing” is not available, the quantity doubles, the delivery location changes or somebody needs a paper weight nobody can remember.

That is the ideal arrangement: technology for repetition, people for judgment. And if we do it correctly, you will spend almost no time thinking about Dunder Mifflin until you need us.