As a sort of stunt, I carried the Victorinox Midnite Manager as my only piece of EDC for a week. I did this three times, most recently about a month ago. The goal was to see just how well this combination light, tool, and pen did as my only EDC item. I carried a watch, phone, keys, and wallet too, but I don’t consider those true EDC items as everyone carries those things. What is the result? Well, its surprising. The reality is, the Midnite Manager really didn’t work, but it got me REALLY spun up thinking about tools and good design. This is sort of a backwards review, so I scored it at the bottom, just because I am a completist.

In case you are unaware the Midnite Manager is a 58 mm sized SAK with a pen, a button cell light, and a few of the normal SAK tools including an excellent Phillips driver, a fine pair of scissors, and a pen blade.  Thinking through what I carry on a regular basis, the Midnite Manager seems to have everything I need in one tool—a pen, a light, and blade.  In reality it was just torture to carry and use.  Here’s why.

I am a fan of small blades so the pen blade at around 1.9 inches didn’t really bother me all that much.  I was much happier when I switched back to an easier-to-deploy blade, but it wasn’t dreadful to use the pen blade at all.  The driver was outstanding. I use it all the time even when I am not carrying this multitool.  The scissors were, like all Vic scissors, great too.  None of the steel implements hit poorly at all.

A very useful configuration.