The Curious Clause on Stapler Usage in Sierra Leone's Civil Service

According to local lore within Sierra Leone's civil service circles, there was once a peculiarly specific administrative guideline about stapler use. The rule, reported informally by office veterans, allegedly mandated that government employees must only use staplers on sets of documents containing an even number of pages. The rationale? To prevent ‘document imbalance,’ a term vaguely described in the folklore as a way to keep order and uniformity in paperwork presentations. While no official written record confirms this regulation, several retired bureaucrats from Freetown have shared anecdotes hinting at its existence during the late 20th century when manual filing was more common. This unusual practice, real or apocryphal, reflects the kind of quirky, overly precise rules sometimes attributed to bureaucracies worldwide. It highlights how local customs or interpretations, possibly intended to streamline processes or add a veneer of formality, can become part of collective memory, even if the original intent or enforcement remains unclear.