I had just finished a very complicated conversation with a customer, when my boss Aditi poked her head through my doorway.

“Do you have a moment and a camera?” Aditi was fighting to control her expression. Was it a grin or a snarl?

I grabbed my smartphone and she led us both towards a group of people in her office.

As soon as they saw Aditi, the crowd parted and there was Andy, bent over her compact shredder.

*names have been changed to protect the identity of the people involved.

Aditi pushed me forward and tapped my phone, “be ready.”

“ANDY!”

Perfect shot as he tried to stand up! His expression was pure frustration and embarrassment, and no wonder. He was almost strangling himself.

“How, in the name of everything possible, did you manage to feed your tie into the shredder, Andrew?” Aditi had a hard time not laughing as well.

Andy had about 8″ of tie between him and the shredder. He was gripping the machine with both hands and pulling away as hard as he could. His face was going all kinds of interesting colours.

“You need a new shredder, this one’s jammed.”

She pressed the latest Office Plus flyer into my hand, “I’m one step ahead of you. I’ve put a flag on the page.”

Aha! This sounded great. The Swingline™ Stack-and-Shred™ 100X Shredder lets you stack the paper—up to 100 sheets—into the top, close the lid and leave it alone. There’s even a separate slot for credit cards—no need for any part of Andy to be too close to the machine. And it automatically clears jams. It’ll take paper clips or staples and cross-cuts to make it difficult to reassemble documents. The size is perfect to fit under a desk and, with a self-clean feature and warranties on the machine and cutters, and there’s a $100 Mail In Rebate!

“HEY! Get me out of this,” I’d almost forgotten about him. He was still braced, straining to pull his tie free.

“Sometimes, Andy, I think you should have full-time adult supervision,” I picked up a pair of scissors from Aditi’s desk and cut his tie, leaving 2″ of frayed fabric below his stunned face.