Greensboro News & Record

AN UNABASHED PAEAN TO THE YELLOW STICKY

I adore yellow stickies. I can’t live without them. I guess you could say that I’m stuck on the yellow sticky.

I use all sizes – the mega, medium, and mini. And one look at my office desk would show these three sizes

in neat and abundant array.

Each has its own strengths. The mega, if you write very small and use the front and back, can hold a modest

dissertation. The medium is perfect for sound bytes, for bullets of information (fax memo to Mary in Budget).

And last but definitely not least (despite its name), the mini – that sweet little blessed square of paper – is

great for those tiny but crucial reminders (birthday flowers, diapers, taxes!).

As far as colors go – well, I’m a purist. I do, after all, love yellow stickies. They were the original.

The first generation was yellow; but then gradually, insidiously, with the rising tide of increasing cultural

diversity and inclusiveness that has inundated our political landscape, a few other colors were admitted. And

following this small relaxation was a flood of newfangled hues – cornflower and coral, indigo and orange –

every color of the rainbow and more in a burgeoning rainbow coalition of stickies. The purists, however, were

appalled.

But back to my yellow love; if you were to spy my desk at work, you’d notice all the signs of adoration: the use

of all three sizes; the fastidious arrangement; the very profusion, which is the clearest tip-off. You see, yellow

stickies do it for me – they keep me glued together.

I’m sure the psychoanalysts would have a field day with that one. They’d probably say my use of yellow

stickies reflects some deep-seated need for structure, or, it’s an effort toward creating order out of an internal

pathology of turmoil and chaos.

And maybe you’d agree with them. Yes, maybe so – if, that is, you failed to consider the yellow sticky’s

extraordinary functionality.

That is the reason they’ve become a staple of our offices (as much of a staple as staples). There are

thousands of people like me who’ve come to rely on yellow stickies; they’ll stick them almost anywhere –

briefcases, lunch bags, computers and coffee cups and phones. It’s not just desktops anymore. No. Yellow

stickies have proliferated.

Some people prefer a scattershot pattern – like the graph of randomness. Others, like me, go for

rectilinearness – you know, straight lines. We create borders around our desktops, around our computer

monitors. It’s a way to frame our work, to contain and corral it.

But the best thing about yellow stickies is that they hold information. And in this information-crazed age in

which we are now living, information is the currency of our work. It has almost replaced money as the bottom

line.

So, I know there are people out there who are resonating with what I’m saying. They know who they are.

They are nodding their heads and smiling to themselves right now. They are people like me who make those

occasional trips to the office supply room, and, are pulled up short when they see that the supply of yellow

stickies is running low – dangerously so.

They begin perspiring just a tad; their mouths start getting a little dry; their heart beat hastens, e v e r s o

g r a d u a l l y. And by degrees the panic sets in, their “fight or flight” response is triggered, and they can be

seen running down the hallway in office buildings across America, searching for the nearest secretary to help

them turn back this looming threat of turmoil and chaos.