If you’ve seen the movie “Office Space,” you may have wondered: what’s so great about a Swingline stapler that the character Milton clung to his so desperately? Reader Bradley can’t vouch for the red, small-capacity type of stapler, but his office regularly uses a high-capacity stapler with a broken strike plate. Would they have to replace the whole expensive stapler? Noooo!

Bradley writes:

I thought I’d pass on some good news about a corporation. We use a high-capacity stapler in our office that is capable of fastening 210 pages together. The strike plate recently broke, and we thought we would have to replace the $100+ stapler. I found the problem and called the company about a replacement part. I learned that the product doesn’t have replacement parts, but the company said the stapler had a limited lifetime warranty and that they would send a full replacement with a simple faxed letterhead request.

The stapler was not new, but this company (Swingline, division of ACCO Brands) stood behind their product. That’s pretty darn good customer service.

It’s disappointing that they couldn’t provide parts when only one small and replaceable part is broken, but still very nice to hear. Staplers can take a lot of abuse in some environments, and it’s good to hear that Swingline stands behind theirs and intends for them to last.

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