A pen is a pen of course of course.  This is what one would think, but it proves to be flagrantly inaccurate.  I used a Pilot G2 for nearly all of my tertiary education, and it preformed admirably.  The only problem I had with them was that I always broke the clip, but this was more my fault than the pen maker.  Then I thought that maybe I was missing a whole other world out there of click top pens, so I ventured into the unknown.  My next purchase was the Papermate equivalent, and it too rocked some serious note taking. So recently when I needed a new batch of pens after customers have slowly over time stolen mine, I figured any choice was a good choice.  I went cheap, and boy do I regret it.

Meet the OfficeMax GEL 0.7, a worthless pile of generic apathy.  Running somewhere around 5 bucks for a 6 pack, they are cheap compared to the Pilot G2s, but still not all that cheap, just crappy.  The pen offers a reasonable amount of comfort sporting a grip pad, but it is much more firm, and far less padded than its rivals.   That’s about where compliment(s) for the pen cease.

The plastic used it cheap, and thin.  After one week on the job, one has already broken under pressure.  Without warning a hairline fracture caused the bottom portion to shoot across the room with all its innards at an incredibly high velocity.

Then there’s the writing, oh you poor bastard of a pen.  It can write on very limited surfaces, and I mean very limited.  If the surface does not have mild padding like a stack of papers, you are royally fucked.  When it does work, the ink distribution is all wonky.  Often times it will lay ink on two distinctive lines, and have a very thin white gap in the middle.  This makes small writing hard to read.  You bastards at Office Max are going to cost me tips because I can’t make out what the hell people wrote on the credit card receipt.  It should be noted too that the Papermate pen could be held horizontal for some time before the ink would settle and you couldn’t write anything.  You can not write horizontal at all on this pen in the horizontal position, which might seem like a minor detail, but in my line of work there is a lot of writing that is done against a door frame.

While Pilot and Papermate R&D were pulling all-nighters, Office Max went with the ‘eh, that’s good enough’ approach.’  Due to my cheapness, I will probably ride this batch of pens out, though that should only take another month or so, then I’m going back to good pens.

Thank you Office Max for making a product that should be simple and reliable, and seriously fucking it up.

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Tags: Bullshit, household, School