Why Skinny Uncle Sam Looks Like Fat Uncle Fred

This is a story about a Xerox machine that lived on the tenth floor of the building that housed my government agency. Nothing fancy, mind you, but it got the job done. In the old days, I suppose, our copier was sometimes abused. It was said, for example, that some of the secretaries had used it to run off recipes. I confess myself to having used it to copy the canceled check I was submitting to some creditor as proof that I had really paid a long-since-forgotten bill.

When the new regime took over the office, they first busied themselves with requisitioning more office space and hiring hirsute deputies who were dedicated to making ours truly a “people’s agency.” With all the money they were spending on additional personnel and office equipment, I was surprised one Monday morning to find that special interest was being given to our humble Xerox bill. For the next several weeks, we had to fill out and sign a form whenever we used the machine: a nuisance, perhaps, but no one contested the fairness. If it didn’t altogether stop the reproduction of personal items, it certainly inhibited me. Not long after, I walked in one morning to find a new employee prettily perched atop a barstool next to our Xerox machine.

This is a story about a Xerox machine that lived on the tenth floor of the building that housed my government agency. Nothing fancy, mind you, but it got the job done. In the old days, I suppose, our copier was sometimes abused. It was said, for example, that some of the secretaries had used it to run off recipes. I confess myself to having used it to copy the canceled check I was submitting to some creditor as proof that I had really paid a long-since-forgotten bill.

When the new regime took over the office, they first busied themselves with requisitioning more office space and hiring hirsute deputies who were dedicated to making ours truly a “people’s agency.” With all the money they were spending on additional personnel and office equipment, I was surprised one Monday morning to find that special interest was being given to our humble Xerox bill. For the next several weeks, we had to fill out and sign a form whenever we used the machine: a nuisance, perhaps, but no one contested the fairness. If it didn’t altogether stop the reproduction of personal items, it certainly inhibited me. Not long after, I walked in one morning to find a new employee prettily perched atop a barstool next to our Xerox machine.