Marissa looked down at the stack of notepaper on her desk and smiled. It was held together with a new binder clip she’d found at the store yesterday. Her weakness when it came to impulse spending was cute office supplies. As vices go, it was a minor one and not even worth noting for a workaholic.

The new binder clip had a smiling face cut out of its metal body and made even making a to-do list seem like more fun. Marissa pulled a pen out of the cup on her desk and went to write her list for the day.

“Hello,” the binder clip said. “Are we going to work together today?”

Marissa dropped the pen and her mouth fell open. This was it; she was finally having a nervous breakdown from having worked too much.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Just want to help.” The binder clip went back to smiling.

“Okay,” Marissa said as she picked up her pen. “If I’m breaking down, I might as well get help from the office supplies.”

An hour later when Marissa’s colleague passed her office door, he heard laughter. He peaked in through her window to see if she was goofing off, but she was working on a large spreadsheet, chuckling and talking to herself. He shrugged and went back to his office.