Make your mark with a pen
Dec 27, 2007
PENS are cheap —they can go for as little as sh300 —but that amount can turn too much after losing so many pens in a day or two. I have suddenly realised how expensive these tools are especially if you keep lending out your pen. I am not a lone victim of pen borrowers, and neither are you.
By Jacobs Odongo
PENS are cheap —they can go for as little as sh300 —but that amount can turn too much after losing so many pens in a day or two. I have suddenly realised how expensive these tools are especially if you keep lending out your pen. I am not a lone victim of pen borrowers, and neither are you.
You will meet them anywhere — at the workplace, in the bank, on the streets — and you have to be selfless and lend. It does not even matter that you are strangers.
Pen borrowing is inevitable at times, but you should be weary of the pros and cons that come with doing so.
Arthur, a student, will never forget the day an official in the registrar’s office at his college loudly asked him to return his pen because it was not common property.
“I had forgotten to return the pen. It was one of those scented ball point pens, but the way he reacted to my oversight, with so many students laughing, I was ashamed,†he reminisces.
Job has an ordeal similar to Arthur’s but in his case, it was in the bank, the official pens provided for customers to use were all in people’s hands. Then in came a stranger who requested for a pen. Job too had none.
So he borrowed from another stranger next to him and passed it on to the original borrower. The latter swiftly disappeared with the pen and the owner turned the heat on poor Job, accusing him of being an ungrateful borrower. He had to buy another pen and give the lady.
Pauline who works with a media company says she has time and again lost pens to her bosses who ask for pens with which to sign documents she is presenting, but then forget to return them.
Of course, if it is the boss who has picked your pen to use, you will need rare courage to ask for that pen back.
Mercy, a cashier admits that in her profession, it is difficult to work the whole day without having to give favours that result in losing pens.
“When you tell someone to sign somewhere in a document, you are likely to see one shaking his or her hand in a gesture that says ‘a pen please’,†she says. Mercy adds that for people like her, they are used to pen borrowing. She, however, says at times she asks the borrowers to return the pens.
The new year is around the corner, what gift are you taking to your loved one? To many, a gift should be something special and a pen cannot be one. But to an ideal person, a pen can make such a wonderful gift, provided the giver has warm intentions. That is if he is sending cheap pens.
Gifts do not always have to be niceties like jewelry, neckties, rings, iPods, shoes and Teddy bears. Pens are available in a variety of types. The most common include roller ball pens, ballpoint pens (biro—pronounced bairo after its inventor Laszlo Biro), and fountain pens. Any of these types can make a wonderful gift.
You only have to know how to present it. Even the gifts you take sometimes need a short message to accompany them and you will use a pen to write these messages.
So, the best way is to have a pen wrapped along with any of those special gifts you are presenting.
Remember, all gifts serve a special purpose and recipients will always appreciate them.
So pens can go alone. Send a scented pen or a fountain pen.
But if you must complement it, add a pocket size notebook, to your loved one this season and he or she will live to remember December 2007
Besides, who knows you could have saved him or her the embarrassment of having to borrow one when in need this festive season.
The message you will deliver in a gift of a pen is that this small tool is indispensable in our day-to–day life. It does not matter whether you are in the white-collar job or not.
Sometimes even farmers meet people on the way who have important contacts to pass to them that they have to put these in writing. You do not have to be caught off-side on this.
PENS are cheap —they can go for as little as sh300 —but that amount can turn too much after losing so many pens in a day or two. I have suddenly realised how expensive these tools are especially if you keep lending out your pen. I am not a lone victim of pen borrowers, and neither are you.
You will meet them anywhere — at the workplace, in the bank, on the streets — and you have to be selfless and lend. It does not even matter that you are strangers.
Pen borrowing is inevitable at times, but you should be weary of the pros and cons that come with doing so.
Arthur, a student, will never forget the day an official in the registrar’s office at his college loudly asked him to return his pen because it was not common property.
“I had forgotten to return the pen. It was one of those scented ball point pens, but the way he reacted to my oversight, with so many students laughing, I was ashamed,†he reminisces.
Job has an ordeal similar to Arthur’s but in his case, it was in the bank, the official pens provided for customers to use were all in people’s hands. Then in came a stranger who requested for a pen. Job too had none.
So he borrowed from another stranger next to him and passed it on to the original borrower. The latter swiftly disappeared with the pen and the owner turned the heat on poor Job, accusing him of being an ungrateful borrower. He had to buy another pen and give the lady.
Pauline who works with a media company says she has time and again lost pens to her bosses who ask for pens with which to sign documents she is presenting, but then forget to return them.
Of course, if it is the boss who has picked your pen to use, you will need rare courage to ask for that pen back.
Mercy, a cashier admits that in her profession, it is difficult to work the whole day without having to give favours that result in losing pens.
“When you tell someone to sign somewhere in a document, you are likely to see one shaking his or her hand in a gesture that says ‘a pen please’,†she says. Mercy adds that for people like her, they are used to pen borrowing. She, however, says at times she asks the borrowers to return the pens.
The new year is around the corner, what gift are you taking to your loved one? To many, a gift should be something special and a pen cannot be one. But to an ideal person, a pen can make such a wonderful gift, provided the giver has warm intentions. That is if he is sending cheap pens.
Gifts do not always have to be niceties like jewelry, neckties, rings, iPods, shoes and Teddy bears. Pens are available in a variety of types. The most common include roller ball pens, ballpoint pens (biro—pronounced bairo after its inventor Laszlo Biro), and fountain pens. Any of these types can make a wonderful gift.
You only have to know how to present it. Even the gifts you take sometimes need a short message to accompany them and you will use a pen to write these messages.
So, the best way is to have a pen wrapped along with any of those special gifts you are presenting.
Remember, all gifts serve a special purpose and recipients will always appreciate them.
So pens can go alone. Send a scented pen or a fountain pen.
But if you must complement it, add a pocket size notebook, to your loved one this season and he or she will live to remember December 2007
Besides, who knows you could have saved him or her the embarrassment of having to borrow one when in need this festive season.
The message you will deliver in a gift of a pen is that this small tool is indispensable in our day-to–day life. It does not matter whether you are in the white-collar job or not.
Sometimes even farmers meet people on the way who have important contacts to pass to them that they have to put these in writing. You do not have to be caught off-side on this.