March 25, 2005

Why are all the secretaries smiling today?

Here's the logic as far as I can figure it out.

  1. Large orders for office supplies are mostly placed by the secretaries, office managers, and administrative assistants of companies.
  2. The people holding these positions are, more often than not, female.
  3. When the shipments of office supplies arrive they are likely to be opened and distributed by the people who ordered them.
  4. If an office-supply-shipping company sends a free gift as a reward for placing a large order, it will probably end up in the possession of the person who opens the shipment.
  5. That person, as mentioned in #2 above, is likely to be female.
  6. If the reward-for-ordering system is going to work, the free gift should be chosen to appeal to the likely recipient.
  7. Did I mention that the likely recipient is a woman?

And this is why I got a handheld personal massager from Office Depot yesterday.

Posted by dianna at March 25, 2005 09:35 AM
Comments

Heh, heavy machinery companies often send out complementary naked-lady calendars to their clients. I guess this is the female-oriented version of the same sales tactic.

Hooray for our sex-obsessed consumer society!

Posted by: Andrew at March 25, 2005 12:30 PM

i ordered supplies for a year (but for a smaller company) and never got anything that nice. the best i think i got was a staples key chain. i may still have it--do you want it?

Posted by: marina at March 25, 2005 03:36 PM

That still doesn't explain why Staples sent us a butt plug this morning.

Posted by: sean at March 25, 2005 06:55 PM

When I was a paralegal the free shit I got was inevitably nut-filled foodstuffs of some sort. Curse you, office suppliers!

Posted by: holohan at March 25, 2005 07:12 PM

Marina, the personal massager is not actually all that nice. It makes a noise like a vacuum cleaner and doesn't vibrate all that much, but for its one saving grace, it's shaped like a sci-fi ray gun. I'm still waiting for the perfect punchline to occur to me, but I think it's going to be something about blowing us all to kingdom come.

Posted by: Dianna at March 26, 2005 03:19 PM
Cementhorizon