I don’t want you to slow down.

Nurse

Whatever it is that is dominant in your day today, one thing is for certain: lose one damn pen and the momentum that you have been doing since the start of the day will come to a stop.

Let’s face it. The workplace is like a VOID that sucks every single pen that is left out in the open. It could come in different situations. Either a workmate borrows it from you and forgets to give it back after she skipped home in a flash. Or you poked the pen through your ponytail and dropped it while jogging around the unit. Or you left your favorite pen on the table near the window –  the one that looks like a silver glittery pen from outer space – and there’s a crow outside your window which apparently likes shiny things so the crow took it for her collection.

I mean who can know these things? The possibilities are endless when you are inside the void so to speak.

All I am saying is, losing a pen is like a major catastrophe that seems to be so hard to avoid. Do you know how much time is lost with just the task of finding a pen? Doesn’t it drive you mad when you come in for work and suddenly you realize that there is not a single pen in sight for you to use?

And doesn’t it drive you even madder when you know that your pen was just here a few minutes ago… Then you realize that a fekking thief had clearly stolen your pen because that person is now holding a pen similar to yours? And the worst part is? He/she denies it. Ugh, doesn’t that annoy you so much so that it makes you want to commit murder in the ward?

So let’s rectify that ancient problem: This little baby here is a simple, active solution that can minimize the stress that often comes with having a day that could slow you down due to a single pen that you’ve lost.

You might say, meh, I can always buy another pen in the shop. No! You have to exaggerate the problem. The loss of your pen is slowing your productivity down.

And this little baby here? This is how you can get ahead.

Because you are worthy of this solution.

So here are five conversation starters that will convince you into buying one of these for your own use:

1. Satisfy the need to control: You can now be in control with these simple things. Instead of sticking your pen in the wrong places, now you have the conscious satisfaction of controlling where the little things should go in your perfect little world. Pen goes into the EZ! Now your obsessive-compulsive self is finally happy.

• Prevent confusion: This silver pen is your favorite. But guess what, so does Jill, the nurse in Ward B. And because of that, your pen is so identical with hers. So how to decide if this pen is yours or Jill’s? Just look down in your EZ. If it is not in your EZ, it is not yours.

• Save a pen, save the world: Are you more of a nature lover type of person? In this world that has gone completely indifferent with the amount of waste that we produce on a single day, it is no wonder that people are okay with losing a good working pen. This is not okay. I repeat. This is not okay. We should use the pen up to the very last drop of ink. Instead of wasting more money in buying another box of pen that you are so sure you will lose in the end, why not buy just one pen and be secure with the idea that this pen will surely last you for a month. You can definitely save mother earth with saving your plastic pen from littering the world.

• Help a friend save money. You see that one friend who is mad about her own pen and would go berserk if she loses one because she is on a tight budget? Give her one of these. Better yet, give all of your colleagues one each! Or you know what? Tell the ward clerk that this EZ pen retractor should be included in the new employment induction pack. Let the whole hospital employees use one! This is actually a cost-effective solution if the company provides pens for employees. If you can cut the cost of buying more pen? You can save more moolah.

• Boost productivity. Since you already know where you place your good ol’ pen, and since this is just clipped outside of your shirt, there is no more time wasted in fishing inside your scrub pockets trying to find that thin pen out of it. One very good example would be when you need a pen to record the vital signs of a patient. Loads of times you would have to rely on your brain cells to memorize the blood pressure of a person under your watch, just because you couldn’t find your pen, and by the time you are back in the nurses station – voila! Your pen is inside your pocket all this time! We do not need any distractions especially if we are up to our necks with too much paperwork during our shift. The less time trying to find stuff = the more time we have to focus on what matters to us in that particular shift.

I may sound like I am messing around with most of the things that I say in this post, but I am serious though with what I said about losing productivity because of losing a pen. It’s all lost in the end.

And one more thing to cement my whole point. The pen that is not inside the EZ? It is a possible victim of the void. And there is satisfaction in knowing that the void is not going to succeed this time.

– Sheena Saavedra RN