3. Little Man, a clever but cautious person, considered what might happen next with the piece of paper. Most likely, the clerk would forget about it. Little Man held it above the wastebasket, but didn't let go.

The clerk might want it back. He might even want a report about it. The Little Man was good with reports -- he had experience in business. A nose for trouble, too. So he put the paper in his desk drawer and went out to get supplies.

4. This is what he got. 1. Some writing instruments (pens, probably, although they might have been styluses for a clay tablet or infrared pointing sticks -- that's the kind of story this is), and put them in one of the desk drawers, along with ...

... 2. Some blank paper, which, with his other supplies, we will call the "inventory." (Go ahead, say the word out loud! Kind of makes you feel important, doesn't it?)

The blank paper was three-hole punched, and all the same size (eleven inches long), which made it easier to line up the holes again when it fell out of the ...

... 3. Three-ringed binders. And some big rubber bands and clips, to turn right to the page you want.

5. Little Man was in a merry mood; the day was half over and he'd hardly worked at all. Now, where was that clerk's paper?

That's when he realized it -- his desk had had two drawers, and he'd forgotten which one he put it in. "It is enough to do the work of others, which must in any case be done," he reflected. "Then to do the work you've brought upon yourself, twice as bad as that."

6. If he put the paper with the inventory, he would only have one drawer to open. Putting it in the second drawer would make it easier to find things in the first. But that would mean opening two drawers. Which is a lot more work than opening just one.

Little Man was troubled by some little thought he could not name. It was the ambiguity, I guess. It seemed that now his office was no longer perfect. And he wondered -- would it ever be again?

"This is my first day on the job, and I want to do things right," said the Little Man to himself, which demonstrates that, in addition to being lazy, he had a positive attitude about his job.

So he went home with the piece paper right on his desk where it had been left, because he didn't have a good enough reason to put it somewhere else. And he was still a pretty happy guy.

7. When, the next day, a clerk came in, put a second paper beside the first, and left without saying a word, the thought occurred to Little Man: "Should I not be paid twice as much for having two pieces of paper in front of me as I was for having only one?"

The question was pressing. If he went home today without complaint, might not someone later ask that, since, on his first day here, he'd had only half as much work as at present, should he therefore not have been paid so much as he was?

8. Philosophy was leisure for Little Man. So he went on: "What are people paid for, really? Time goes on for everyone. Time cannot be sold and bought."

Now since it is a sin to sell one's freedom (though a virtue to give it away), "It must have been my choice," he concluded, "That brought me here. And my being chosen."

So this it was why he was paid, for better or for not. And leaving the two papers untouched on his desk, Little Man went home at the end of his day, and forgot all about it.

10. This accomplished two things. Firstly, papers would be sorted from bottom to the top according to the time they arrived. So if a clerk wanted something that had been delivered recently or long ago, that would be a clue where to find it.

Secondly, he could throw the old stuff away. "Where is my paper?" a hurried clerk would come in and ask.

"Your paper? I threw that away," Little Man'd reply. "It was old!" Which didn't win him friends, but the clerks were impressed by his knowledge.

This is how he did it. Once in a while or when the basket was quite full, he'd empty it on his desk upside down. Then for each paper, beginning with the oldest, shall it be the basket again, or, the wastebasket this time?

11. A month passed (quite pleasantly) before Little Man began to notice a small problem. Certain papers tended to gather at the bottom of the basket.

He called them his "reference papers" because he often referred to when making his reports. And so "files" came into the world, and this is what one is: a selection of papers held together, with a fastener, or in an envelope.

For now, he'd keep his files in the bottom of the basket, but you can guess as well as he did all where this was going. You get files, next thing you know, you got file cabinets. Then, sure enough, the day comes you've got to look through all of it. And if that ain't work!

12. So, to put off the day, the Little Man went out and got a second basket for his reference papers, and called the first basket his "in-box." A simple system, and remarkably effective.

Papers in the in-box are sorted by arrival date. The reference basket is for files and reference papers not in files. The fundamental difference between them is where their paper eventually goes. Papers in the in-box go to the wastebasket or to thereference basket, and papers in the reference basket go to the wastebasket or to a file.

13. All the more one needs are the tools to do the job right. Here's a list: Paper, to start with, and fasteners. Big rubber bands and clasps of all sizes, tacks, and three kinds of tape: mylar, masking and packing. Glues. Stapler, staples, and staple remover.

A knife to open packages, and scissors. A ruler for measuring and tearing straight edges. Things to write with, and in colors. The three-ring binders, and a three-hole punch. Envelopes and stamps (and rubber stamps). Checks, keys, clock and calendar.

Fourteen things that any office needs.

14. The little man realized there was a distinction to be made here: the difference between tools and supplies. One gets lost; the other, used up.

Two problems, two solutions. For tools, when they are lost, remember the first place you looked for them. Then, when they are found, either keep them there, where you found them, or in the first place you looked.

For supplies, keep a small, second, supply in reserve. Then when you have to go to this reserve, you'll be reminded you're almost out.

Or stick the empty box up on the bulletin board. Out of sight out of mind, and all that.

When the notebook was full, the older pages were transferred into a notebook on the shelf, in reverse order. In the process, each page was looked at one more time (and for the last time, probably). So the shelf notebook had the most recent days in front, and when it was full, pages could be thrown away from the back of it.

17. Symbols down the left-hand side showed what each paragraph was about. A name and open-headed arrow to the left meant that person had called him, and to the right meant he called them. Closed-headed arrows to the left showed what they said to him, and to the right showed his replies.

When the conversation included three people, he'd show who said what with their initials and a colon. Also in the left margin would be the time of day, if it mattered, and another person's name, if he took another person's call.

He used abbreviations, among them, "icb" for "I'll call back," "pcb" for "please call back," and "R" for a recorded message.

To illustrate, an open-headed arrow to the right followed by "ms/Mary, mtg Te/1 re Jones, Q/donuts? pcb," meant that he called Mary and left a message saying there was to be a meeting at 1:00 o'clock on Tuesday about Mr. Jones, and can you bring the donuts? Please call back."

18. A little open square in the left margin meant something he had to do; he checked it off when the thing was done.

A little open circle meant something he was owed.

A dollar sign meant a check he had written, a check mark meant a thing he had done.

And the Egyptian symbol, "ankh" (like a cross with a loop on top), meant here was a piece of information to be copied, to an address book, for example, or put in another journal.

Yes, other journals, in binders or files, as many as you please. And to show that a page was to be transferred somewhere else than to the shelf journal, in the upper left corner he would write where it should go.

19. One day when he had nothing to do, the happy little man stood looking out the window and thinking about the world.

Why should not other people profit from what he had discovered? It didn't really take a desk and an office. All that was required were two baskets (or something like a basket), a couple notebooks (one small, one large, and maybe others), tools, and supplies. A small bookshelf or little suitcase was enough to contain it.

That and a little knowledge. So he had something to say, but how could he? "No one would ever listen to me," he said, despite the fact that he listened to himself constantly (which counts for one).

Indeed, he was much amused at thinking himself quite clever, &c., upon the hours. Such foolishness was soon forgot. The next day, the clerks brought him a hundred papers, and he realized he could no longer put off deciding on a system for filing them away.

22. Here is a plan for throwing things away. For every file folder there is an envelope, large enough to contain perhaps more than one file, when the file is old or full but not right for discarding.

And when the filing cabinet gets full, some of the envelopes are marked with the word, "closed," (and the date of closure), and put in a box, probably, someplace far away.

And the thought occurred to the Little Man that there were some things that should "never" be thrown away (and the quotation marks were in his mind also). This is the "archive."

And among his files were papers for the "library," and intended for the archive, thereby to be preserved.

23. Now, as to the question of what, specifically, the files should be, the little man decided that about any piece of paper has two aspects.

One is a name, like "Smith" or "Jehosaphat." But besides what you call it, there is the kind of thing it is: a painter's bill ... a love letter ... that is to say, it's category.

So these two aspects would be his filing system, and, inclined as ever to simplicity, Little Man put them together, alphabetically. For example, if he had a file named, "Smith," he would put it under "S," and if he had a file that was a category, like "summer vacation," he would put that under "S" as well. I suppose you're wondering what he would have done with the Smith's summer vacation, but having only two places to look in is not so bad.

Most letters of the alphabet had a category and some had more than one. He chose categories that were appropriate to his situation (and easy to remember). Here are some examples: "A" for addresses, "B" for banks, "E" for equipment, "H" for home, "L" for letters, "O" for originals, "Q" for questions, and "V" for voyage. He typed up the list of these categories and put it under "I," which stood for "index" (as well as "insurance").

24. Eight and a half by eleven inches -- that was the size for his filing cabinet. But what about things that were too big for that, or too little not to get lost there? The solution was to put the odd-sized things together; because of their odd size, he would remember where they were.

And let me give you one more tip of his. With apparent courtesy, the clerks would sometimes write the word "important" on an envelope. In his long experience, the Little Man had learned that this almost always meant the thing was unimportant, and often, utterly so. Why should this be? Such are the mysteries of office procedure.

25. The days passed and everything was going great. Little Man was the only one who understood his filing system, and this made him feel important.

And he even solved the problem of having to get up from his desk. He put a basket on top of the filing cabinet, and practiced throwing papers into it from the other side of the room. Probably some of them would go into the same file anyway.

28. He could not undo this new form of work, but he did invent a new, secret sign: the sign of deletion. It was a little loop, on its side: the Greek letter, alpha.

The indication, "FYI" ("for your information") is a courtesy, indicating that, in receiving a document, the recipient incurs no obligation. The sign of deletion is like an "FYI" to oneself, and among its uses is to mark a copy as a copy, which therefore need not be filed, or to mark that a thing has been noted (not quite the same as crossing it off).

29. Now the Little Man was very clever, but one thing he probably never understood. The clerks, unlike him, wanted to work.

In fact, they wanted everybody to work. Why, the mere thought that somebody, somewhere, might not be working hard enough was enough to make them upset. (They were a little crazy.)

The copy machine made it possible for the clerks to have the same work done more than once, and they began to send the same papers to more than one office. (And when they got reports back, they'd copy those, too.)

They talked amongst themselves, and kept tallies of all the goings-on. You see, an office was considered prestigious if a lot of papers were sent to it, and the clerks who sent papers to prestigious offices were considered prestigious too.

"Here is a fellow who knows what's what," they would say to each other about the Little Man, and soon he was receiving a thousand papers a day.

He had wanted his office to be perfect again. Well, this was a perfection of sorts: he didn't have to do any work, because there was nothing to be done.

But still he had to answer to himself, and this was the question he asked: Since everything outside his office was now inside it as well, just what was the difference between the two?

And if there were no difference, how could it be said that he had an office at all?

And without an office, why was he here?

32. Looking out the window, contemplating the world and its passers-by, the Little Man reflected that whether or not there was justice in the world, at least there had been order in his office.

And, deciding, "no," to the question, "Should my pay have been reduced for the days I enjoyed by work?", he cast about for some means of making his life more fun.

He said "goodbye" to his office for the last time. He walked away singing, having no reason not to, and went off determined to go into business for himself.

(LM-18A)