Workplace Humor

Created February 14, 1999 Last Modified: February 14, 1999

1. You ask the waiter what the restaurant's core competencies are.
2. You decide to re-org your family into a "team-based organization."
3. You refer to dating as test marketing.
4. You can spell "paradigm."
5. You actually know what a paradigm is.
6. You understand your airline's fare structure.
7. You write executive summaries on your love letters.
8. Your Valentine's Day cards have bullet points.
9. You think that it's actually efficient to write a ten page presentation with six other people you don't know.
10. You celebrate your wedding anniversary by conducting a performance review.
11. You believe you never have any problems in your life, just "issues"and "improvement opportunities."
12. You calculate your own personal cost of capital.
13. You explain to your bank manager that you prefer to think of yourself as "highly leveraged" as opposed to "in debt."
14. You end every argument by saying "let's talk about this off-line".
15. You can explain to somebody the difference between "re-engineering," "down-sizing," "right- sizing," and "firing people's butts."
16. You actually believe your explanation in number 15.
17. You talk to the waiter about process flow when dinner arrives late.
18. You refer to your previous life as "my sunk cost."
19. You refer to your significant other as "my co-CEO."
20. You like both types of sandwiches: ham and turkey.
21. You start to feel sorry for Dilbert's boss.
22. You believe the best tables and graphs take an hour to comprehend.
23. You account for your tuition as a capital expenditure instead of an expense.
24. You insist that you do some more market research before you and your spouse produce another child.
25. At your last family reunion, you wanted to have an emergency meeting about their brand equity.
26. Your "deliverables " for Sunday evening is clean laundry and paid bills.
27. You use the term "value-added" without falling down laughing.
28. You ask the car salesman if the car comes with a whiteboard and Internet connection.
29. You give constructive feedback to your dog.

1. Buy a stronger whip.
2. Change riders.
3. Say things like "This is the way we always have ridden this horse."
4. Appoint a committee to study the horse.
5. Arrange to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Rewrite the standards for dead horse performance.
7. Appoint a tiger team to revive the dead horse.
8. Create a training session to increase riding ability.
9. Compare the state of dead horses in today's environment.
10. Change the requirements declaring that "This horse is not dead."
11. Hire contractors to ride the dead horse.
12. Harness several dead horses together to increase speed and pulling power

• Quote from a recent meeting: "We are going to continue having these meetings, everyday, until I find out why no work is getting done".
• Quote from the Boss... "I didn't say it was your fault. I said I was going to blame it on you."
• A motivational sign at work: "The beatings will continue until morale improves."
• A direct quote from the Boss: "We passed over a lot of good people to get the ones we hired."
• My Boss frequently gets lost in thought. That's because it's unfamiliar territory.
• My Boss said to me, "What you see as a glass ceiling, I see as a protective barrier.
• My Boss needs a surge protector. That way her mouth would be buffered from surprise spikes in her brain.
• I thought my Boss was a bastard, and quit, to work for myself. My new Boss is a bastard, too ... but at least I respect him.
• He's given automobile accident victims new hope for recovery. He walks, talks and performs rudimentary tasks, all without the benefit of a SPINE.
• Some people climb the ladder of success. My Boss walked under it.
• Quote from the Boss after overriding the decision of a task force be created to find a solution: " I'm sorry if I ever gave you the impression your input would have any effect on my decision for the outcome of this project."
• HR Manager to job candidate "I see you've had no computer training. Although that qualifies you for upper management, it means you're under-qualified for our entry level positions."
• Quote from telephone inquiry "We're only hiring one summer intern this year and we won't start interviewing candidates for that position until the Boss' daughter finishes her summer classes.

"As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks."

(Fred Dales at Microsoft Corp in Redmond, WA.)

"What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter."

(Lykes Lines Shipping)

"E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business."

(Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company)

"This project is so important, we can't let things that are more important interfere with it."

(Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)

"Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule. No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them."

(R&D supervisor, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/3M Corp.)

My Boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that only needed corrections. She claims the disk I gave her was damaged and she couldn't edit it. The disk I gave her was write-protected.

(CIO of Dell Computers)

Quote from the Boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say."

(Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)

"How About Friday?" My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my Boss, he said she died so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, "That would be better for me."

(Shipping executive, FTD Florists)

"We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees."

(Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division)

We recently received a memo from senior management saying: "This is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the subject mentioned above."

(Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division)

One day my Boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said "If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!"

(New business manager, Hallmark Greeting Cards.)

Speaking the Same Language: As director of communications, I was asked to prepare a memo reviewing our company's training programs and materials. In the body of the memo one of the sentences mentioned the "pedagogical approach" used by one of the training manuals. The day after I routed the memo to the executive committee, I was called into the HR director's office, and told that the executive vice president wanted me out of the building by lunch. When I asked why, I was told that she wouldn't stand for "perverts" (pedophilia?) working in her company. Finally he showed me her copy of the memo, with her demand that I be fired - and the word "pedagogical" circled in red. The HR manager was fairly reasonable, and once he looked the word up in his dictionary, and made a copy of the definition to send back to her, he told me not to worry. He would take care of it. Two days later a memo to the entire staff came out directing us that no words which could not be found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos. A month later, I resigned. In accordance with company policy, I created my resignation memo by pasting words together from the Sunday paper.

(Taco Bell Corporation)

This gem is the closing paragraph of a nationally-circulated memo from a large communications company: "(Company name) is endeavorily determined to promote constant attention on current procedures of transacting business focusing emphasis on innovative ways to better, if not supersede, the expectations of quality!"

(Lucent Technologies)

• I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.
• I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.
• Am I getting smart with you? How would you know?
• I'd explain it to you, but your brain would explode.
• Someday we'll look back on all this and plow into a parked car.
• There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable application of high explosives.
• Tell me what you need, and I'll tell you how to get along without it.
• Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue..
• Needing someone is like needing a parachute. If they aren't there the first time you need them, chances are you won't be needing them again.
• I don't have an attitude problem. You have a perception problem.
• Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and thought to myself, "Where the heck is the ceiling?!"
• My Reality Check bounced.
• On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key.
• I don't suffer from stress. I'm a carrier.
• You're slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter.
• Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, 'cuz you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
• Everybody is someone else's weirdo.

Interviews

1. Said he was so well-qualified [that] if he didn't get the job, it would prove that the company's management was incompetent.
2. Stretched out on the floor to fill out the job application.
3. Brought her large dog to the interview.
4. Chewed bubble gum and constantly blew bubbles.
5. Candidate kept giggling through serious interview.
6. She wore a Walkman and said she could listen to me and the music at the same time.
7. Balding candidate abruptly excused himself. Returned to office a few minutes later, wearing a hairpiece.
8. Applicant challenged interviewer to arm wrestle.
9. Asked to see interviewer's resume to see if the personnel executive was qualified to judge the candidate.
10. Announced she hadn't had lunch and proceeded to eat a hamburger and french fries in the interviewer's office.
11. Without saying a word, candidate stood up and walked out during the middle of the interview.
12. Man wore jogging suit to interview for position as financial vice president.
13. Said if he were hired, he would demonstrate his loyalty by having the corporate logo tattooed on his forearm.
14. Interrupted to phone his therapist for advice on answering specific interview questions.
15. Wouldn't get out of the chair until I would hire him. I had to call the police.
16. When I asked him about his hobbies, he stood up and started tap dancing around my office.
17. Had a little pinball game and challenged me to play with him.
18. Bounced up and down on my carpet and told me I must be highly thought of by the company because I was given such a thick carpet.
19. Took a brush out of my purse, brushed his hair and left.
20. Pulled out a Polaroid camera and snapped a flash picture of me. Said he collected photos of everyone who interviewed him.
21. Candidate asked me if I would put on a suit jacket to insure that the offer was formal.
22. Said he wasn't interested because the position paid too much.
23. While I was on a long-distance phone call, the applicant took out a copy of Penthouse, and looked through the photos only, stopping longest at the centerfold.
24. During the interview, an alarm clock went off from the candidate's brief case. He took it out, shut it off, apologized and said he had to leave for another interview.
25. A telephone call came in for the job applicant. It was from his wife. His side of the conversation went like this:

"Which company? When do I start? What's the salary?"
I said, "I assume you're not interested in conducting the interview any further."
He promptly responded, "I am as long as you'll pay me more. "
I didn't hire him, but later found out there was no other job offer. It was a scam to get a higher offer.

26. An applicant came in wearing only one shoe.. She explained that the other shoe was stolen off her foot in the bus.
27. His attache [case] opened when he picked it up and the contents spilled, revealing ladies' undergarments and assorted makeup and perfume.
28. He came to the interview with a moped and left it in the reception area. He didn't want it to get stolen, and stated that he would require indoor parking for the moped.
29. He took off his right shoe and sock, removed a medicated foot powder and dusted it on the foot and in the shoe. While he was putting back the shoe and sock, he mentioned that he had to use the powder four times a day, and this was the time.
30. Candidate said he really didn't want to get a job, but the unemployment office needed proof that he was looking for one.
31. He whistled when the interviewer was talking.
32. Asked who the lovely babe was, pointing to the picture on my desk. When I said it was my wife, he asked if she was home now and wanted my phone number. I called security.
33. She threw-up on my desk, and immediately started asking questions about the job, like nothing had happened.
34. Pointing to a black case he carried into my office, he said that if he was not hired, the bomb would go off. Disbelieving, I began to state why he would never be hired and that I was going to call the police. He then reached down to the case, flipped a switch and ran. No one was injured, but I did need to get a new desk.
35. Asked if I wanted some cocaine before starting the interview.

BOB LEVEY'S WASHINGTON POST

Alpha Geek:

The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group. "Ask Larry, he's the alpha geek around here."

Assmosis:

The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.

Batmobiling:

putting up emotional shields (from the retracting armor that covers the batmobile, as in she started talking marriage and he started batmobiling)

Beepilepsy:

The brief seizure people sometimes have when their beeper goes off (especially in vibrator mode). Characterized by physical spasms, goofy facial expressions and interruption of speech in mid-sentence.

Betamaxed:

when a technology is overtaken in the market by inferior but better marketed competition, as in Microsoft betamaxed Apple right out of the market

Blamestorming:

Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

Blowing your Buffer:

losing your train of thought

Body Nazis:

Hard-core exercise and weight-lifting fanatics who look down on anyone who doesn't work out obsessively.

Chainsaw Consultant:

An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee headcount, leaving the top brass with clean hands.

Chips and Salsa:

Chips = hardware, salsa = software. "Well, first we gotta figure out if the problem's in your chips or your salsa."

Cobweb:

a WWW site that never changes

Cube Farm:

An office filled with cubicles.

Dancing Baloney:

Little animated GIFs and other Web F/X that are useless and serve simply to impress clients. "This page is kinda dull. Maybe a little dancing baloney will help."

Depotphobia:

Fear associated with entering a Home Depot because of how much money one might spend. Electronics geeks experience Shackophobia.

Ego Surfing:

Scanning the Net, databases, print media and so on, looking for references to one's own name.

Elvis year:

the peak year of popularity, as in 1993 was Barney the dinosaur's Elvis year

Flight Risk:

Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave a company or department soon.

Generica:

fast food joints, strip malls, sub-divisions, as in we were so lost in generica that I couldn't remember what city it was

Going Postal:

Euphemism for being totally stressed out, for losing it. Makes reference to the unfortunate track record of postal employees who have snapped and gone on shooting rampages.

GOOD Job:

A "Get-Out-Of-Debt" job. A well-paying job people take in order to pay off their debts, one that they will quit as soon as they are solvent again.

High Dome:

egghead, scientist, PhD

Idea Hamsters:

People who always seem to have their idea generators running.

Irritainment:

annoying but you can't stop watching, e.g. the O.J. trial

Keyboard Plaque:

The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on computer keyboards.

Meatspace:

the physical world (as opposed to the virtual), also carbon community, facetime, F2F, RL

Midair Passenger Exchange:

Grim air-traffic-controller-speak for a head-on collision. Midair passenger exchanges are quickly followed by "aluminum rain."

Mouse Potato:

The online, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

Ohnosecond:

That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a big mistake.

PEBCAK:

Tech support shorthand for "Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard." (Techies are a frustrated, often arrogant lot. They've submitted numerous acronyms and terms that poke fun at the clueless users who call them up with frighteningly stupid questions. Another variation on the above is ID10T: "This guy has an ID-Ten-T on his system."

Percussive Maintenance:

The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

Prairie Dogging:

When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.

Seagull Manager:

A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, sh-ts over everything and then leaves.

Siliwood also Hollywired

the coming convergence of movies, interactive TV and computers

SITCOMs:

What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. Stands for Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.

Square-headed Girlfriend:

Another word for a computer. The victim of a square-headed girlfriend is a "computer widow."

Squirt the Bird:

To transmit a signal to a satellite.

Starter Marriage:

A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids, no property and no regrets.

Stress Puppy:

A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

Swiped Out:

An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

Telephone Number Salary:

A salary (or project budget) that has seven digits.

Tourists:

People who take training classes just to get a vacation from their jobs. "We had three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists."

Treeware:

Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.

Umfriend:

A sexual relation of dubious standing. "This is uh.. Dale, my...um...friend..."

Uninstalled:

Euphemism for being fired. Heard on the voicemail of a vice president at a downsizing computer firm: "You have reached the number of an uninstalled vice president. Please dial our main number and ask the operator for assistance." See also Decruitment.

Vulcan Nerve Pinch:

The taxing hand position required to reach all of the appropriate keys for certain commands. For instance, the warm re-boot for a Mac II computer involves simultaneously pressing the Control key, the Command key, the Return key and the Power On key.

World Wide Wait

WWW

Xerox Subsidy:

Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.

Yuppie Food Stamps:

The ubiquitous $20 bills spewed out of ATMs everywhere. Often used when trying to split the bill after a meal: "We all owe $8 each, but all anybody's got is yuppie food stamps. "

• If you must eat a live toad, then eat it now, for tommorrow it will only get bigger.
• Eat a live toad first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you all day.

Feedback or comments? Mail to: John Schultheis /