Cutting Corners: How a Paper Cutter Saved My Flowers (and My Day)

This morning at the Flower District in New York City I was struck by the gorgeous displays of dahlias in buckets on the street and decided to buy a small bunch of flowers to bring back to my office.

But by the time I arrived, I realized I had two major problems:

1. I didn't have a vase tall enough for the flowers

2. I didn't have any scissors to cut the stems

After scrounging around under my desk, I found a small pot from a now-dead succulent that I decided to repurpose. But at only 5 inches tall, my 18-inch flower stems were far too lanky to fit. To make this work, I'd need to cut off at least 10 inches.

I quickly considered a few other options for containers: My water bottle (too narrow), my coffee mug (too shallow), even my trash can (too large and ugly). Tiny pot it was. But I just needed scissors.

I turned out every drawer, looking for scissors, or maybe even a plastic knife. But no avail. Then I took to the halls. At pre-8am in the office, no one else was at their desks, but I began poking through supply closets and peeking into the fishbowl offices to see if anyone had scissors immediately at the ready that I could possibly borrow later in the day.

That's when I saw it.

A massive, traditional paper cutter in the middle of the office, right next to the printer.

My eyes widened as I took it all in. A perfectly straight edge. An incredibly sharp blade. A perfect blend of precision and power.

I looked down at the flowers in my hand and looked back at the paper cutter on the table. Decision time.

Obviously, the paper cutter was designed to cut paper, not flowers...but could it still work?

I considered the risks of breaking the unspoken office rules about repurposing tools. It was, after all, a shared tool, but was it time to give this dusty paper cutter a new purpose?

This moment felt like a metaphor for how we often face challenges: Do we stick to the conventional path, or do we get creative with the tools at hand?

Sometimes, the solution isn’t obvious, and the tools available may not be the ones we expect. Sometimes, what felt like the obvious solution five or ten years ago might not be the best choice today.

Recently, I heard someone refer to "Doctor Google"—the idea that many people turn to search engines to self-diagnose medical issues. To me, even that reference felt like a relic. For the last 18 months, I’ve almost entirely shifted my own research and medical discovery to AI search and chatbot conversations. As technology advances at an increasingly rapid pace, the tools we rely on to solve immediate problems need to evolve as well.

It raises the question: What tools do we already have that could be repurposed? And what workflows might need to transition to the next generation of tools?

We're often conditioned to use things the same way every time, forgetting we can repurpose them. Whether it's a paper cutter or a piece of software, we get stuck seeing tools in one light. We find something that works, and we stick to it. But sometimes, a new tool comes along that can transform our workflows. Or, with a fresh perspective, we might see the hidden potential in an old tool—like finding the perfect blade to trim my flowers.

Obviously, you know what had to be done.

And you know what? It did the job perfectly.