Drew's employer, 3M, was originally known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company#A semi-transparent tape had been on the market since 1900, manufactured by a French company and called "AP"#Nothing is more frustrating than losing the 'end' of your roll of adhesive tape. You can scan the roll with your thumbnail in search of it, but there is still no entirely satisfactory answer to this problem#Early adhesive tape would dry out, and could not be used after 30 days. To combat the problem 3M provided small electric heaters to the car industry so that they could make the tape sticky again#Adhesive tape is a useful indicator of personality. One half of the world's population cuts adhesive tape neatly with a pair of scissors; the other tears it with their teeth. Everybody belongs to one group or the other#Drew was not 3M's only inventive employee. In the Seventies, Art Fry invented the "Post-It" note for the company#It is reputedly almost impossible to open an envelope undetected if it has been sealed with adhesive tape. The secret services of the world have been trying for decades to find a method for doing so - but without success#In Russia the generic term for all adhesive tape is "skoch". In Soviet times a roll of it was gold-dust on the black market
