This year I have no intention of making any New Year Resolutions. It’s not because I don’t believe in them, or even think they don’t work, they are a great idea and can set you off on a positive mindset for the new year. I’m just not prepared to put myself through the same torment as I went through last year when I revealed to all my work colleagues what my resolutions were going to be.

You may be aware that I am a stickler for rules and some people even call me a ‘jobsworth’ (which I still find a compliment), so last year I wanted to get the whole office buying into my ideas. For example, it has always been me that has emptied the shredders. However, I cannot spend my whole day monitoring shredder usage so I put a note by all the machines saying “This Year. Please take responsibility for shredder management. If you fill it, empty it. Don’t expect others to do it for you.”

A simple request. Not for Bob the Accounts Assistant though, he thought it would be hilarious to take the message literally and empty the shredder bin all over the office floor creating what looked like an indoor snow scene. Not content with leaving the mess, he then thought it would be funny to come running down to my desk shouting “quick, quick, have you left a window open upstairs? The snow is pouring in and covering all the desks – we have lost Jane in a snow drift!”

As the person responsible for health & safety this immediately put me into a panic, I don’t know why I even contemplated the idea that snow had come through the window, but so worried was I about having a health & safety issue on our hands, I over-reacted and made a complete fool of myself in front of everyone.

However, my real reason for the panic was nothing to do with the shredded paper snow scene (or the thought of Jane lost in a snow drift), but the moment Bob came running down to my desk I had just that minute realised that I had not ordered a new Accident Book for the office having filled the previous one up at the end of the previous year following a spate of accidents to report at the work’s Christmas party.

Honestly, you would not believe it. I pride myself on never running out of any supplies, but who would have thought in one morning I’d be logging a head stuck in a waste bin, a photocopier burn (on a part of the anatomy that I won’t name), a staple piercing a thumb, a broken arm from falling over during a chair race and a choking incident when the apprentice tried to eat the evidence from an abusive post-it message he had been tricked into leaving on the bosses desk.

It was always my intention to order a new Accident Book in the new year, but I had been so busy implementing my New Year Resolutions that I completely forgot all about it, hence my panic when I thought I was going to be faced with a snow-covered office scenario. Somebody was bound to slip or get injured; they would take any opportunity for a day off work and it is my job to log that accident and follow company procedures.

Although last year’s situation was just a prank, it did make me realise how I had let silly New Year Resolutions get in the way of doing my everyday job. You see, top of my list of resolutions was to never let the office run out of essential supplies…and I had failed miserably within the first week!

Fortunately we buy our office supplies from a local independent source who are much more empathetic to the needs of a business like ours so I don’t really need to make any silly promises about never running out of supplies because I know that if I did ever again let a supply slip, there will be a friendly voice at the end of the phone to help me get the product delivered quickly. Or if I know what I want, their online website is excellent and convenient also.

So if you like, my resolution this year is to make no resolutions and stick to doing what I know I’m already good at, managing stationery and business supplies for the office.