No. More. Golf. Pencils!
We’ve had a few heavier weeks on this newsletter, and it’s time to talk about something that only I care about, passionately, and that will strike the rest of you as silly:
I fucking hate golf pencils, and we should all work together to wipe them from the Earth.
The Two Venues
The activities that involve the golf pencils are two that I enjoy:
Browsing libraries
(drinking beers at 7 AM like it’s totally normal at the) Golf (course)
And I am prepared to make the argument that both can do without the golf pencil.
Cost Part One
I imagine the golf pencil is designed to reduce costs in two ways.
First, because they are supposedly cheaper than regular pencils.
Let’s do some digging:
Golf pencils:
Amazon: 144 for $9.99
Office Depot: 144, $6.99
MSC: 144, $14.18
Wal-Mart: 144, $7.83
Alibaba: 3 cents per pencil
Doing some quick math, we throw out the outliers, average the other two numbers, and wind up with a price of 6 cents per golf pencil.
Full-size pencils, with erasers:
Amazon: $39.99 for 576 (7 cents per pencil)
Office Depot: $21.49 for 144 (15 cents per pencil)
MSC: 31 cents per pencil
Wal-Mart: $25.99 for 350 (7 cents per pencil)
Alibaba: 5 cents per pencil
Same process, we get an average of 11 cents per full-sized pencil.
All pencils are pre-sharpened, BTW.
This means we MIGHT see an average of about 5 additional cents per pencil, perhaps less, I only searched pretty mainstream sites, with no discount, for like 5 minutes. I guess, in the era of DOGE when we’re firing our cheapest employees in order to somehow save a lot of money for tax cuts for super rich people, 5-cents per pencil would seem like a good savings, but can we tease these numbers out a bit?
You would have to go through 1,000 pencils to save $50 bucks. About 8 boxes of golf pencils.
The savings exist, but I’m not so sure they’re significant.
I can hear someone saying, “$50 bucks is a lot for a smalltown library!” But, like, is a smalltown library going through 1,000 pencils in a year?
Cost Part 2: Making Them Less Attractive
I think the other cost consideration involved in the choice to get ungodly golf pencils is that they are a lot less attractive, so people will not take them, and therefore the same pencil can be used more times by more people.
And I suppose this might be true. It’s possible that someone will not take a golf pencil but WOULD take a full-sized pencil, although this one anecdote says they find people are more likely to return a full-sized writing implement, and there is a logic to that. When I’m given a golf pencil, I understand that I’m not only not expected to return it, the person at the desk would probably be a little annoyed if I did. It’s a disposable item.
My feeling is that if someone is hard up enough to take a pencil, just let ‘em. I mean, if someone came up to the desk and asked for a pencil with an eraser, I would give them one. I would. I wouldn’t even put a deposit on their card, I’m that nice.
Plus, it’s kinda THEIR fucking pencil. They pay taxes, libraries buy stuff with those taxes, so it’s not necessarily right for us to get uptight about people taking stuff that they, you know, paid for.
If someone asked me about my tax money being spent, I wouldn’t want anyone to get golf pencils. I wouldn’t buy them for myself, so why would I expect anyone else to buy ‘em?
The Marketing Side
Most libraries, at some point every year or so, buy a shitload of pencils as giveaways for one thing or another. They’re a good giveaway: they’re functional, they’re cheap, and they aren’t usually made of horrific plastics that will still be around 10,000 years from now (while lasting a long time may be a way of getting the word out, marketing-wise, I have a feeling that 10,000 years from now, when humanity is still dealing with all this plastic shit we made, they are not going to look upon companies who printed these up fondly).
If I order 50,000 golf pencils with no erasers, I can get the price down to 10 cents per custom pencil.
If I order 50,000 regular pencils with erasers, I can get the price down to 15 cents per custom pencil.
Here’s the deal: that IS $2,500 more dollars for 50,000 full-sized pencils, BUT I’m never going to use golf pencils as a giveaway. Ever. If all I have to give away is a goddamn golf pencil, I’ll just go ahead and not give anything away.
And I’m willing to bet that 50,000 pencils lasts a long goddamn time.
Ah, but wait! I checked Alibaba:
Custom Golf Pencils: 3 cents apiece
Custom Real Pencils: 2 cents apiece
Now, you DO have to order 200,000 pencils to get down to 2 cents apiece, and if you go less, we’re talking 4 cents per pencil.
In the custom game, the difference between a golf pencil and a full sized pencil with an eraser is almost nothing.
Why not just order one kind of pencil for all your pencil needs? Marketing pencils used in the library will serve the same purpose: They will be used by people in the community, spreading the library’s brand. I see no reason to think giveaway pencils at events will do that any better than pencils available at catalog computers.
And it makes it simpler. One, bulk order for all our pencil needs. We waste less time on this shit. We probably save a little money. If nothing else, it saves the effort of making multiple pencil orders. 200,000 pencils should last approximately the time it takes the sun to go red dwarf.
Good Will Pencil Hunting
I think the purpose of giveaway pencils is to give people a feeling of goodwill towards the library. Which is why you don’t want to get shitty ones, you don’t want someone to be frustrated every time they pick up a pencil with your logo on it.
Why not boost that goodwill with real pencils that can erase and actually, you know, write without gouging into the paper?
Why not remove from library visits that frustrating moment where someone picks up a golf pencil, an ALWAYS bad experience?
The Pencil’s Days Are Numbered
I’m betting most people will be taking pics of the catalog computer these days, if they need to remember a number to what have you, and the users of pencils and scrap paper will continue to decline.
We’ll be going through fewer pencils as time goes on, and I feel like that makes it easier to be a little more spendy.
One of Those Things…
I think that the golf pencil is just something we do because we’ve always done it. I’m sure, at one time, there was a highly significant savings to be had here, but in our increasingly digital world with worldwide shipping of bulk items, that savings is probably all but dried up by now.
Let’s stop doing this because it’s what we’ve always done. Let’s bring full-sized pencils, with erasers, to the people!
Oh, and Golf Courses
I mean, it costs $33.00 dollars at a cheap city-run course near me to play 18 holes with no cart. You’re telling me that isn’t enough to cover an extra 4” or 5 cents of pencil?
We Are So Fucking Stupid
This was going to be light and fluffy, and it’s taken a turn.
Look, guys, I believe in full-sized pencils for all. I believe this is a human right.
Golf pencils do not make economic sense. They are not conferring benefits of any kind to either the purchaser or the user. Everyone hates a golf pencil. Just the sound of those near-hollow rods rattling around in the box is enough to set me off for weeks.
The only reason we can honestly cite for the continuing use of golf pencils is because “we don’t want someone to get more than their fair share of something.”
When it comes to housing, healthcare, and pencils, I think people should just get what they need. I think these things are human rights. I don’t think it harms me in any way when someone else gets free healthcare, housing, or full-sized pencils.
As Americans, we’re spending twice as much for pencils, and we’re not getting any benefit from it:
Oh, whoops, that’s not the pencil chart I intended, that’s a chart that shows Americans spend more than twice as much on healthcare as most developed countries, and we live lives that are, on average, 6 years shorter. Almost like those other countries, which have universal healthcare, are both healthier AND paying less for their care. Almost exactly like that. To a fairly extreme degree.
Geez, I know that pencil chart was here somewhere…I’ll find it, hang on…