Arachnophobes, Take Note!
As the administrative assistant, it’s my job to keep office supplies well stocked and see to employees’ various ordering needs. This extends to everything but ergonomic furniture and computer mice, which need to be requested. If someone wants a miscellaneous item that makes work better, like purple pens, then I order it for them so long as the request is reasonable.
One of the supervisors is terrified of spiders. I didn’t realize to what extent until I told an anecdote about seeing someone on TV who put their clothes in plastic bags to keep spiders out, and [Supervisor] proclaimed that it was a brilliant idea! She already hung all her clothes so spiders couldn’t hide in the folds.
Eventually, I learned that her arachnophobia included the office when she asked me to help her shop for a footstool. She explained that she never put anything on the floor, and she even propped her feet up on a file box! Having been recently promoted, she decided that it was time to ask the company to spend a little money on a proper footstool.
Unfortunately, nothing on the supplies website was tall enough. The footstools they sold were designed for ergonomic sitting (the idea is that your feet are tilted up so you sit up straight), but even the most expensive ones were barely suspended off the floor. Unsure what to do and close to asking my boss for the company card so I could go buy [Supervisor] an ottoman, I did one final search. Instead of footstools, I looked for boxes.
To my surprise, there was a sturdy toolbox listed for cheaper than a desk footstool. It was exactly the height I’d been tasked to find. So, I told [Supervisor] what I’d found. She was elated! No need to find something conventional or tasteful. A toolbox that sat under her desk simply to keep her shoes free of spiders didn’t need to be pretty.
The toolbox arrived a week later, and I presented it to a delighted supervisor. I even wrote her name on the lid to keep Maintenance from accidentally walking off with it. My boss saw me unwrapping the toolbox, and we had a good chuckle over this amusing bit of problem-solving. We also made a note to be careful what decorations we put up during Halloween.