As a former employee, if I was the customer, I'd start considering changing vendors. Staples and Depot are going to be tied up in litigation for months, unless, the can reach a settlement quickly with the FTC. My opinion, that would mean they need to shed more of the commercial divisions of both companies and/or lines of business.
Furniture and Facilities are large enough to be spun off into their own companies and bring value to the shareholder. Commercial in general can be sold to Essendant, my experience with them on the wholesale level, thy truly care about the customer, from DC management down to the warehouse personnel.
Mr. Customer, you have options out there! WB Mason is in expansion and has a long history of being a great independent supplier. There's still the smaller relatively unknown suppliers, like MyOffice Products. There's a host of suppliers affiliated with AOPD, that can service you're account nationally, under a single billing system, but, you still can receive the sam local service from a small independent supplier.
You have choices, research them before your next bid or if you want to get out from underneath this poorly managed, non-customer centric supplier.