Office Jokes

I’m known as a stickler for good spelling. So when an associate e-mailed technical documents and asked me to “decifer” them, I had to set him straight. “Decipher is spelled with a ph, not an f,” I wrote. “In case you’ve forgotten, spellchecker comes free with your Microsoft program.” A minute later came his reply: “Must be dephective.”

I get plenty of exercise – jumping to conclusions, pushing my luck, and dodging deadlines.

I can’t believe I got fired from the calendar factory. All I did was take a day off.

Nothing ruins a Friday more than an understanding that today is Tuesday.

My memory has gotten so bad it has actually caused me to lose my job. I’m still employed. I just can’t remember where.

Q: Why did the can crusher quit his job? A: Because it was soda pressing.

Sometimes I feel like there isn’t much difference between my commute to work and the Oregon Trail.

“Meet my coworker, the Boy Who Cried ASAP.”  

Analyst: I can give you the numbers, but you can’t go public with it. Marketing Manager: I’m not going to go public with it. I’ll just present it at a meeting. Analyst: Who’s going to be at the meeting? Marketing Manager: It’s a stakeholder meeting. So whoever wants to come. You know, it’s open to the public. From overheardintheoffice.com

From the police blotter, 
or, what a beat cop deals with 
every day: • A deputy responded to a report 
of a vehicle stopping at mailboxes. 
It was the mail carrier. • A woman said her son was 
attacked by a cat, and the cat would not allow her to take her son to the hospital. • A resident said someone had 
entered his home at night and taken five pounds of bacon. Upon further investigation, police discovered 
his wife had gotten up for a late-night snack. • A man reported that a squirrel 
was running in circles on Davis Drive, and he wasn’t sure if it was sick or had been hit by a car. An 
officer responded, and as he drove on the street, he ran over the squirrel. Source: uniformstories.com

Have you ever been a victim 
of a JIB (job interview breakdown)? These men and women have: • “I was so nervous at a job interview, when he asked me what I wanted to be in five years, I said, ‘Race car driver.’” • “The guy asked me to tell him 
a little about myself, and I literally forgot who I was.” • “I got asked about punctuality. 
I went on about how it was good 
to speak clearly and politely, and 
it was nice to use proper grammar 
in speech and writing.” Source: dailymail.co.uk

My friend, an intern, was given $50 to get the chairman of the bank some lunch. Told to get himself something, he bought a shirt. Source: storify.com

My wife, a phlebotomist at the Denver VA hospital, entered a patient’s room to draw blood. Noticing an apple on his nightstand, she 
remarked, “An apple a day keeps 
the doctor away, right?” “That’s true,” he agreed. “I haven’t seen a doctor in three days.” Larry Jensen, Englewood, Colorado

My colleague has been living 
in this country only a few months, 
and although normally chipper, he recently looked sad. When I asked what was wrong, he responded glumly, “Today, everything wrong is going in my favor.” Bacchus Johnson, Charlotte, North Carolina

My boss and I took a job applicant to lunch, where we tried, with little success, to get him to open up about his experience and qualifications. Frustrated, my boss set his salad aside and proposed a specific and complex situation to the young man, then asked, “What would you do?” The applicant hesitated, then, looking my boss straight in the eye, said, “Are you going to eat all those tomatoes?” John Richman, Webster, New York

A conference call is the best way for a dozen people to say “bye” 300 times. @DamienFahey

• I’m employed at a computer security company and have a colleague whose name is M. Alware. His e-mail address is [email protected] • My ex-boss’s name is R. Stone. His e-mail was [email protected] • My name is James Pan. Every other permutation of my name was taken (e.g., jpan, jamesp), so I’m stuck with [email protected] From quora.com

I have a question.     =     I have 18 questions. I’ll look into it.     =     I’ve already forgotten about it. I tried my best.     =     I did the bare minimum. Happy to discuss further.     =     Don’t ask me about this again. No worries.     =     You really messed up this time. Take care.     =     This is the last you’ll ever hear from me. Cheers!     =     I have no respect for you or myself! Source: thecooperreview.com

[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Michael Ward, via mcsweeneys.net

As a Speech therapist, I was working with a preschooler on 
body-part identification and the 
k sound. To that end, I had him 
use Play-Doh to make a sculpture 
of me. “Is that my neck?” I asked, trying to get him to repeat the word. “No, that’s your chin,” he said. He added more Play-Doh. “Is that my neck?” I asked. “No, that’s your other chin.” Ilene Smith, Milan, Michigan

While I was out to lunch, my coworker answered my phone and told the caller that I would be back 
in 20 minutes. The woman asked, 
“Is that 20 minutes Central Standard Time?”  Jamie Hindman, Lewisville, Texas

Have You Ever Been Insulted And Complimented At The Same Time? It’s amazing how a person can compliment and insult you at the same time. Recently, when I greeted my coworker, she said, “You look so gorgeous, I didn’t recognize you.” Elaine Schyve, Cohocton, New York

The closest a person ever comes to perfection is when he fills out a job application form. Businessman Stanley Randall

Client: Please remove the unnecessary circle at the end of the sentence. Me: You mean … the period? Client: I don’t care what you designers call it; it is unsightly. Delete it. Source: clientsfromhell.net

I’ve been working on my PhD 
in engineering for the past five years, but my kids don’t necessarily see that as work. As we were driving past Walmart one day, my son spotted a Now Hiring sign and suggested that I could get 
a job there. Hoping to make a point, I asked, “Do you think they’re looking for an engineer?” “Oh, sure,” he said. “They’ll hire anybody.” Christopher Fields, Fort Collins, Colorado

An insurance agent called 
our medical office. One of our 
doctors had filled out a medically necessary leave-of-absence form 
for a patient, but, the agent said, the 
patient had altered it. The giveaway? 
The return-to-work date had been changed to February 30. J. L., via e-mail

I supervised an employee who had a negative view of everything 
I did. If I took a vacation day, I was “never there.” If I praised someone’s work, it was “too little, too late.” He eventually took another job 
but was fired six months later. Shortly thereafter, he contacted 
me, hoping to return to his old job. “Have you learned anything from this experience?” I asked. “Yes, I should have stayed here,” 
he admitted. “You’re too indecisive to have ever fired me.” Terry O’Connor, Chantilly, Virginia

I guess this is what happens after you’ve worked at the same place for a while. I was eating at a fast-food restaurant when an employee began his shift by walking into the kitchen area and calling out, “Honey, I’m home!” G. M., via e-mail

Before google, there were librarians. Here are some queries posed to the poor, suffering staff of public libraries: • A woman wanted “inspirational material on grass and lawns.” • “Who built the English Channel?” • “Is there a full moon every night in Acapulco?” • “Music suitable for a doll wedding to take place between a Shirley 
Temple doll and a teddy bear.” • “Can the New York Public Library recommend a good forger?”

Client to designer: “It doesn’t really look purple. It looks more like a mixture of red and blue.” Source: clientsfromhell.net

A woman called our airline 
customer-service desk asking if she could take her dog on board. “Sure,” I said, “as long as you provide your own kennel.” I further explained that the kennel needed to be large enough for the dog to stand up, sit down, turn around, and roll over. The customer was flummoxed: 
“I’ll never be able to teach him all of that by tomorrow!” From gcfl.net

I spend three minutes every 
day choosing a TV channel 
to leave on for my dog. Then 
I go to work, and people take me seriously as an adult. @damienfahey

After football fans in Philadelphia were treated to a particularly excruciating loss earlier in the season, a man phoned a sports-radio talk-show host to say, “Everyone should call in and give one word for that game.” “What’s your word?” the host 
replied. “Bored out of my mind,” said the caller. From Sports Illustrated

Librarians may be shy, but 
their patrons aren’t. Look at their oddball requests: A patron offered me $100 to steal 
a cactus from somebody’s yard. A patron wanted me to find a 
book to teach her dog German. A patron on his way to the casino asked to rub my red hair for luck. A patron once asked me for my home phone number so she could call me with reference questions when I wasn’t at work. Roz Warren, from womensvoicesforchange.org

For Martin Luther King Day, 
I asked my fifth graders how they’d make the world a better place. One said, “I’d make potato skins a main dish rather than an appetizer.” Jessica Castronovo, 
Manalapan, New Jersey

Scene: A radio newsroom. Caller: I just wanted to let you know you’re off the air. Host: Yes, we know. The engineers are working on it. Caller: It would be nice if you put something on the air that says that. Source: Overheard in the RADIO Newsroom

When my coworker answered his phone, the confused woman on the other end asked, “Who is this?” “This is Steve. With whom did you wish to speak?” After a pause: “Did you just say whom?” “Yes, I did.” The woman replied, “I have the wrong number,” and hung up. From gcfl.net

Gilding the lily is a job seeker’s birthright. Here are a few doozies, where the applicant claimed … ... to be a former CEO of the company to which he was applying. ... to be fluent in two languages—one of which was pig Latin. ... to be a Nobel Prize winner. ... to have worked in a jail when he was really in there serving time. ... he was fired “on accident.” From careerbuilder.com

A welsh politician asked the government for information about UFO sightings and if it might fund UFO research. Officials wrote back, “jang vIDa je due luq … ach ghotvam’e’ QI’yaH devolve qaS.” Which means, “The minister will reply in due course. However, this is a non-devolved 
matter,” in Klingon. Source: bbc.com

Here’s some advice: At a job 
interview, tell them you’re willing to give 110 percent. Unless the job is a statistician. Comedian Adam Gropman

I sent a reminder to a client that it was time to visit the eye doctor. 
He called back to inform me that he would not be coming in because, as he put it, “I have a new obstetrician.” Sarah Parchert, Hoschton, Georgia

A man called, furious about an Orlando, Florida, vacation package we had booked for him: He was 
expecting an ocean-view hotel 
room. I explained that was not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of 
the state. “Don’t lie to me,” he said. 
“I looked on the map, and Florida is a very thin state.” Source: hotelstories.freeservers.com

My ESL students try so hard and are so appreciative. One student paid me the ultimate compliment when she said, “You teach English good.” Another assured me, “I will always forget you.” And a third insisted, “I thank you from the heart of my bottom.” Ellen Israel, Alamo, California

New York Times writer Amy Chozick giving an example of what 
it was like working for a fashion magazine: “A girl got on [the elevator] with a Birkin bag, and her friend goes, ‘Oh, my God, I love your bag; 
is that new?’ and she goes, ‘No, I got it, like, a week ago.’” Source: cosmopolitan.com

The James Bond film Spectre opens in November. Writer Peter 
Anspach explains how he’d improve his odds if he were a film villain. • I will not fly into a rage and 
kill a messenger who brings me 
bad news just to illustrate how evil 
I am. Good messengers are hard 
to come by. • My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them. • If I’m eating dinner with the hero, put poison in his goblet, then have 
to leave the table for any reason, 
I will order new drinks for both 
of us instead of trying to decide whether to switch with him. • My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through. • When I’ve captured my adversary and he says, “Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?” I’ll say no and finish him off. Source: eviloverlord.com

Gauging from these exam 
excerpts, my college dance students had better stick with pliés. “The costumes were vindictive 
of the style of dance.” “I commend Bill T. Jones for 
his acts of true kindness and 
selfishness.” “Dancers must have long limps.” “At first, I had a hard time 
understanding and interrupting 
his movement.” “Savion Glover’s purpose is to cross all racial and ethical barriers with his dance.” Kathy Dubois, Onalaska, Wisconsin

During college, I worked on 
a conveyor belt. One day, I was 
on a blind date, and she asked me about my job. “I work at the end of a belt,” I said. With an ebullient smile, she asked, “Are you the buckle?” Skip Parker, Reno, Nevada

Client: We need you to log in to the YouTube and make all our company videos viral. From clientsfromhell.net

“Has your son decided what 
he wants to be when he grows up?” 
I asked my friend. “He wants to be a garbageman,” 
he replied. “That’s an unusual ambition to have at such a young age.” “Not really. He thinks that garbagemen work only on Tuesdays.” Source: guy-sports.com

Client: The blue looks OK, but it would be great if it was a little more orange. Like “blorange.” Source: clientsfromhell.net

I phoned a local restaurant to 
ask if it was on the north or south side of Main Street. The person on the other end answered, “That 
depends on which direction you’re coming from.” Patricia Thompson, Shawnee, Kansas

“Halt!” shouted our drill 
instructor. He had noticed that, for the umpteenth time, a recruit kept going to his right on a left command. Our instructor approached the 
directionally challenged Marine 
and stomped on his left foot. “Now,” he said, “when I say ‘left,’ it’s the 
one that hurts.” Wayne Schroeder, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

My son was born while I was serving abroad, so he was three 
before we met. When I got home, I decided it was time for a little father-son bonding time. I bought him a 
toy razor and invited him to “shave” with me. In the bathroom, I took 
up my razor and started shaving. 
I looked around to see how my son was doing. His foot was up on the side of the bathtub, and he was 
running the razor up and down 
his leg. So much for male bonding. James F. Day, Prichard, West Virginia

One of the most popular questions asked at our family restaurant is “What’s good tonight?” Now, we would never serve anything we didn’t think was good. So 
I braced myself one Saturday night when I heard the dreaded question posed to my husband. He calmly replied, “Anything over $17.95.” From gcfl.net

I’m a dog trainer. Before I met with a new client, I had her fill out a questionnaire. One question asked, “Why did you choose this breed?” My client responded, “I often ask myself this very same question.” Cindy Mauro, West Milford, New Jersey

What are the wildest things national park guides contend with? Questions from tourists, like these: • How much does Mount McKinley weigh? • Would the lightning be faster if 
it didn’t zigzag? • What do you do with the snow when it melts? Source: msn.com

I was in a couple’s home trying to fix their Internet connection. 
The husband called out to his wife 
in the other room for the computer password. “Start with a capital S, then 123,” she shouted back. We tried S123 several times, but 
it didn’t work. So we called the wife in. As she input the password, she muttered, “I really don’t know what’s so difficult about typing Start123.” A. R., via Internet

My daughter Amy was holding down two jobs: The first was as a manicurist at a salon; the other was raking leaves for a housing development. One day, she came back from lunch at the raking job to find a note. Her boss, who didn’t know about 
her other job, had taken down this phone message: “Amy, you have a man to cure on Thursday at three.” Nancy Billings, Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts

A client called my help desk saying she couldn’t send an e-mail. When I was done troubleshooting the problem, she interrupted me to ask, “Wait a minute, do I type @ in lower- or uppercase?” Swati Khatri, New Delhi, India

Any time a person with a journalism degree writes a story about 
a celebrity getting bangs, Walter Cronkite punches an angel. @JENNYJOHNSONHi5

My granddaughter was 
graduating from college, so I asked about any plans she had for the 
future. She hadn’t any, but she 
did know this much: “I certainly don’t want to sit in one of those 
cubicles and think all day.” B. O., via Internet

...was spotted on a billboard ad for the law office of Larry L. Archie: “Just because you did it doesn’t mean you’re guilty.” Source: funnyordie.com

• “I have to make payments on my BMW and iPhones.” • “You are too wrapped up in the whole concept of ‘money. ’ ” • “So ... you’re talking to me only 
because the rent’s not paid? Is that all I am to you? A tenant?” Source: the Landlord Protection Agency (thelpa.com)

An applicant for an open 
teaching job submitted a résumé. Under the heading Qualities and Skills, she listed, “Impeachable 
character and integrity.” M. O., via Internet

“Now hiring,” read the classified ad. “Cemetery superintendent. The ideal candidate must be able to supervise in a fast-paced environment.” A. S., via Internet

My favorite game  is “Professional Dog Walker or Crazy Person?” @KenJennings

We were making leaflets for a 
local church, and the client wanted 
a logo designed with Earth being shielded by the hand of God. I sent the client a proof. Shortly thereafter, 
I got a call. Client: The hand looks too human. Please use a hand that looks more like God’s. Source: clientsfromhell.net

Try an internship! Internships give you all the experience of a summer job without the hassle of a paycheck. Stephen Colbert