Office Supplies Day 2011

As you have probably heard, tomorrow is Office Supplies Day 2011 – a day, experts believe, optimal for the purchase of office supplies and one, we all acknowledge, apt for a celebration of all things stationery. We at Paperstone refuse to miss out on the festivities and serious stationery noodling and to celebrate we will donate £1 for every order placed on this day to Caudwell Children, a charity that provides specialist equipment, treatment and therapies for sick and disabled children across the UK. In addition, we’ll be donating a crate of lager to Stationery Club, that noted hotbed of stationery discourse.

This is, in fact, the inaugural year of Office Supplies Day. Towards the end of 2010, Paperstone Lab statisticians were analysing ring binder sales when they stumbled upon a remarkable chance discovery: certain days of the year are “better” than others for buying office supplies. Certain factors militate the appropriateness of a day on which to purchase stationery and office furniture such as people’s feelings towards everyday office materials like Paper, the general state of the stationery cupboard, the time of the fiscal year, and the weather.

Investigating further, our statistics bods developed a formula to uncover the “best” day on which to buy office supplies:

where f is people’s seasonal fondness for office supplies, w is the reciprocal of the mean temperature, i is the amount of printer ink needed, p is the amount of Paper needed, and t is the number of days remaining until the end of the fiscal year.

It turns out that in any given year the magic day is (usually) the last Wednesday of February. It is always a Wednesday because collective fondness for all things stationery peaks mid-week.

Says Co-Director of Paperstone, Max Trotter Landry: “Our statistical department has calculated that the last Wednesday of February is the optimum day of the year on which to buy office supplies.

“The amount of ink in people’s printer toners tends to be particularly low at this time of year.

“Combine this with mid-Q1 Paper shortages and ‘February Fondness’ for bricks-and-mortar filing systems and it’s a virtual no-brainer for office supplies buyers that they should make a large order on this day.

“But it’s not just a day for buying office supplies – it’s also a day for appreciating, even loving those everyday but essential things around which office work revolves and upon which office life itself relies.”