Office Jokes

During her retirement party from the Cook County State's Attorney's office, coworkers told stories about my less-than-worldly mother.

My favorite came from her supervisor, who recalled one of the first arrest reports Mom had created.

Under "Offense," she'd typed, "Possession of cannibals."

I called a temp agency looking for work, and they asked if I had any phone skills. I said, "I called you, didn't I?"

Going on a job interview? Take pity on the poor hiring managers, who filed these reports: "The applicant smelled his armpits on the way to the interview room."

"The candidate told the interviewer he was fired from his last job for beating up his boss."

"An applicant said she was a ‘people person,' not a ‘numbers person,' in her interview for an accounting position.

Humorist Phil Proctor does a lot of radio voice-overs. But his favorite part of the job is reading the character descriptions in the script:

• "We're looking for the voice of God, but not a goofy God, a real God."

• "Sounds good-looking."

• (For a fast-food campaign) "This is not a bitter chicken, but he is having trouble coping with the modern world."

• "Female voice. American. Sultry, like drinking chocolate from the back of a moose."

I opened the refrigerator at work to get my lunch. Instead of my dessert, I found this note: "IOU one banana cream. Sorry, it was an emergency. Sharon."

When my boss returned to the office, he was told that everyone had been looking for him. That set him off on a speech about how indispensable he was to the company.

"Actually," interrupted his assistant, "you left with the key to the stationery closet."

One read through this man's résumé and it was no wonder he was looking for a new line of work: Under "Previous Job," he'd written, "Stalker at Walmart."

A job application made me do a double take. After the entry "Sex," the applicant had written, "Once in Florida."

I won't be hiring this assistant soon, even if her résumé boasts, "I'm a team player with 16 years of assassinating experience."

While auditing one of our departments, an assistant asked me what I was doing. "Listing your assets," I told her.

"Oh," she said. "Well, I have a good sense of humor and I make great lasagna."

An employment website boasted that it provided training, counseling, and placement services. What's more, "many services are available in Spanish, and we arrange interrupters."

A friend had a waitressing position open at his diner and asked job seekers to fill out an application. Under "Salary Expected," a woman wrote "Friday."

A job interviewer asked me where I wanted to be in five years. I said, "Ideally, suspended with pay."

I had an inauspicious start as a dog groomer when one of my first clients bit me. Noticing my pain, my boss voiced her concern.

"Whatever you do," she said, "don’t bleed on the white dogs."

Our daughter took the afternoon off from her job at the funeral home to visit her daughter in preschool. When one of the kids asked what she did for a living, my granddaughter answered for her: "She sells underground furniture."

Before leaving my assistant job for greener pastures, I was asked to reply to applicants hoping to replace me. "Very smart and intelligent," my boss had written on one of the applications. "Too good for this job."

How do you get human resources to remember you? Try pulling some of these actual interview stunts.

Balding applicant abruptly excused himself and returned a few minutes later wearing a hairpiece.

Applicant asked to see the reviewer’s résumé to see if the personnel executive was qualified to interview him.

Applicant phoned his therapist during the interview for advice on answering specific questions.

During the interview, an alarm clock went off in the applicant’s briefcase. He apologized and said he had to leave for another interview.

Applicant challenged the interviewer to arm-wrestle.

During a conference, I was pleasantly surprised to be seated next to a very handsome man. We flirted casually through dinner, then grew restless as the dignitaries gave speeches. During one particularly long-winded lecture, my new friend drew a # sign on a cocktail napkin. Elated, I wrote down my phone number. Looking startled for a moment, he drew another # sign, this time adding an X to the upper-left-hand corner.

How do you get hiring managers to hire you? Don’t pull these actual, creepily creative stunts:

Applicant put up posters of himself in the company parking lot.

Applicant announced his candidacy with a singing telegram.

Applicant rented a billboard, which the hiring manager could see from his office, listing his qualifications.

Applicant delivered prepaid Chinese food, including a fortune cookie with his name and phone number.

According to careerbuilder.com, a full 15 percent of workers admit to getting to the office late at least once a week. And here are some of their excuses:

I have transient amnesia and couldn’t remember my job.

I was indicted for securities fraud this morning.

Someone stole all my daffodils.

I had to go audition for American Idol.

I was trying to get my gun back from the police.

Here's a job to avoid: hiring manager. See what you'd have to contend with?

The candidate answered his cell phone and asked the interviewer to leave her own office because it was a "private" conversation.

The candidate told the interviewer he wouldn't stay with the job long because he might get an inheritance if his uncle died—and the old man wasn't "looking too good."

The candidate said she couldn't provide a writing sample because all her writing had been for the CIA and it was "classified."

When the applicant was offered food, he declined, saying he didn't want to line his stomach with grease before going out drinking.

The candidate flushed the toilet while talking to the interviewer during a phone interview.

I input a junior manager's self-evaluation, which said in part, "I have been on the job for three months, and I finally feel as if I've accomplished something." I made one mistake, however. I replaced the word job with John.

What's the finest example of fiction today? The résumé. Here are some classics sent to bemused hiring managers.

Candidate listed military service dating back to before he was born.
Candidate claimed to be a member of the Kennedy family.
Job seeker claimed to be the CEO of a company, when he was an hourly employee.
Job seeker included samples of work, which were actually those of the interviewer.

Johnson, who always shows up for work on time, comes in an hour late, his face scratched and bruised, his glasses bent.

"What happened to you?" his boss asks.

"I fell down two flights of stairs," Johnson answers.

"That took you a whole hour?"

Looking for a job? Try to avoid these résumé bombs, collected from bemused hiring managers:

Candidate specified that his availability was limited because Friday, Saturday, and Sunday was "drinking time."

Candidate explained an arrest by stating, "We stole a pig, but it was a really small pig."

Advertising is a tough business. Which may be why one prospective adman wrote a cover letter boasting, "I am getting to my goal, slowly but surly."

After my daily jog to work, I found a colleague standing outside our building, puffing on a cigarette. Seeing that I was sweaty and out of breath, she became concerned. "Just how far away did you park?"

Conversation at our business lunch turned to illegal immigration. "I read an article that said 60 percent of Americans are immigrants," commented one of my colleagues. "That can't be true," another said. "No," agreed a Native American co-worker. "There's a lot more of you than that."

We know you'd never do it, but some people concoct crazy stories for skipping work. Here are a few, collected by hiring managers:

Employee didn't want to lose his parking space in front of his house.

Employee said he had a heart attack that morning but that he was "all better now."

Employee's dog was stressed-out after family reunion.

Employee contracted mono after kissing a mailroom intern at the company holiday party.

When I phoned my employee to find out why she hadn't come to the office, I expected to hear a sob story about how sick she was, blah, blah, blah. Instead, her excuse was pretty plausible.

"When I was driving to work, I took a wrong turn," she explained. "And then I just decided to keep going."

How not to become a member of senior management:

During a meeting, our bosses held a contest to name a new project. As members of the management team read through the entries, our CEO picked one out and asked, "Who knows what a phoenix is?"

A junior manager answered, "It's a bird in Harry Potter."

"'That's a great place to work!" shouted my 16-year-old brother after coming home from the first day at his first job. "I get two weeks' paid vacation."

"I'm so glad," said my mother.

"Yeah," added John. "I can't wait to find out where they send me."

A waitress at our restaurant had a change of clothes stolen from the break room. Making matters worse, she"d planned on wearing them to the Christmas party.
As a brand-new employee, I didn't know any of this backstory, so I was a bit surprised to find this indignant note posted on the community board: "It has been two weeks since the Christmas party, and I still have not found my clothes."

The brave new memo about the company's revised travel policy read as follows: We were no longer allowed to buy cheap tickets via the Internet. Instead, we were required to use the more expensive company travel department. Furthermore, to show how much money we were saving, we were asked to comparison-shop for fares—on the Internet.

I thought the typo in the last line of the memo summed it up best: "The new process is ineffective today."

 

 

 

One Saturday night my boss and her family came to our house to play cards. As they were driving away at the end of the evening, I discovered that she had left her purse in a corner next to the dining-room hutch. I was about to call her house, intending to leave a message on the answering machine, when my son reminded me that they had a cell phone. As I dialed the number, I marveled at the technology that would alert them before they had driven all the way home. A few seconds later the purse began to ring.  

Who says companies only care about the bottom line? Ours is socially conscious and offers employees fun outdoor activities throughout the complex.

Both of these admirable elements were driven home one day when a voice over the loudspeaker boomed "Everyone who signed up to donate blood, please report to the rifle range!"

 

Problems with my laptop required calling the dreaded company help line. The service rep, based in another country, did not speak English very well. So I tried to explain it as simply as possible:

"I can't get the computer to work."

"Ah, I see," he responded. "You are unable to transport your computer to your place of employment."

 

Although desperate to find work, I passed on a job I found on an employment website. It was for a wastewater plant operator. Among the job requirements: "Must be able to swim."

 

A fellow cop from our precinct had only a few months left on the job, and he could always be heard ticking off the weeks, days, hours and minutes. Our chief was not amused.

"I've been on the job for 43 years, and I've never counted off the days until I'm outta here," he said.

I couldn't help agreeing with him. "That's because everyone else is counting for you."

In Hong Kong on business, my friend Rocky was in a cab, and the driver pointed to some Asians on the sidewalk. "They are Americans," he said.

"How can you tell?" asked Rocky.

"They're fat."

Pointing to his gut, Rocky asked, "Well, what about me?"

Since insulted fares are the worst tippers, the driver responded, "You are not fat. You are prosperous."

 

Even though it was warm outside, the heat was on full blast in my office at the hospital. So I asked our nursing unit secretary to get someone to fix it. This was a one-man job, so I could not figure out why two guys showed up -- until I was handed the maintenance request form. It read "Head nurse is hot."

When my daughter was preparing for her school's "career week," a time when career options are discussed and often led by representatives of different professions, we talked about my job as an airline customer-services representative. I mentioned that one of my responsibilities was to load passengers' luggage at the check-in counter. I later found out to my dismay that my daughter had listed my occupation as "Bag Lady."

 

 

When employees of the restaurant where I work attended a fire-safety seminar, we watched a fire official demonstrate the proper way to operate an extinguisher. "Pull the pin like a hand grenade," he explained, "then depress the trigger to release the foam."

Later, an employee was selected to extinguish a controlled fire in the parking lot. In her nervousness, she forgot to pull the pin.

Our instructor hinted, "Like a hand grenade, remember?"

In a burst of confidence, she pulled the pin—and hurled the extinguisher at the blaze.

 

 

A New York retail clerk was suffering from aching feet. "It's all those years of standing," his doctor declared. "You need a vacation. Go to Miami, soak your feet in the ocean and you'll feel better."

When the man got to Florida, he went into a hardware store, bought two large buckets and headed for the beach.

"How much for two buckets of that seawater?" he asked the lifeguard.

"A dollar a bucket," the fellow replied with a straight face.

The clerk paid him, filled his buckets, went to his hotel room and soaked his feet. They felt so much better he decided to repeat the treatment that afternoon. Again he handed the lifeguard two dollars. The young man took the money and said, "Help yourself."

The clerk started for the water, then stopped in amazement. The tide was out. "Wow," he said, turning to the lifeguard. "Some business you got here!"

 

 

On the afternoon of Administrative Professionals Day, my co-worker and I finally found the time to get gifts for our secretaries. While at the store, my colleague noticed my disappointment when I discovered the shop didn't provide gift wrapping. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"They won't wrap the gifts for us," I answered.

"No problem," he said quickly. "I'll ask my secretary to do it."

I was delighted to discover that I could play compact discs in the new computer my company had given me. One morning I was enjoying one of my favorite Beethoven pieces when an administrative assistant stopped by to deliver a stack of papers.

Hearing classical music filling the air, she stopped and exclaimed, "Poor you. They put you on hold?"

 

 

Our copier was on the fritz so I put a note on it: "Service has been called." When the technician told me he had to order parts, I added a second note: "Parts have been ordered."

During the next five days, when we had to use an older, slower copier on the other side of the building, someone taped a third note to the machine: "Prayers have been said."

 

 

Everyone at the company I worked for dressed up for Halloween. One fellow's costume stumped us. He simply wore slacks and a white T-shirt with a large 98.6 printed across the front in glitter. When someone finally asked what he was supposed to be, he replied, "I'm a temp."

 

 

Anytime companies merge, employees worry about layoffs. When the company I work for was bought, I was no exception. My fears seemed justified when a photo of the newly merged staff appeared on the company's website with the following words underneath:

"Updated daily."

 

 

Our office building's only elevator was acting up. When I rode it to the lobby on my way to lunch, the door refused to open. Trying not to panic, I hit the emergency button, which triggers an automatic call to the repair service.

Through the speaker in the elevator, I heard the call going through and then a recorded announcement: "The area code of the number you dialed has been changed. The new area code is 810. Please hang up and dial again."

 

 

 

Some of my co-workers and I decided to remove the small, wooden suggestion box from our office because it had received so few entries. We stuck the box on top of a seven-foot-high metal storage cabinet and then promptly forgot about it. Months later, when the box was moved during remodeling, we found a single slip of paper inside. The suggestion read, "Lower the box!"

 

One of my pet peeves as a musician in a symphony orchestra is trying to follow the erratic beat of famous guest conductors. I didn't realize how strongly the rest of the musicians felt until we were talking to someone from a university physics department at a reception. When I asked him what his field was, he answered, "I work with semiconductors." "So do we," I heard a colleague mutter.

 

 

My husband, Daniel, had been promoted to a newly created position. He was eager to find out what his official title was, so when his business cards finally arrived, I was surprised that he seemed reluctant to show me. After some persuasion, Daniel gave me a card, naming him director of product efficiency. "Wow," I responded, "that sounds impressive." "Not really," Daniel replied as he removed my thumb from the acronym underneath. It read DOPE.    

During the latter stages of my pregnancy, I brought a cushion to work to make my chair more comfortable. One afternoon I returned from lunch to find my chair had been pushed to the far side of my work area.

"Looks like someone's been sitting in my chair," I commented to one of my co-workers.

Glancing down at my stomach, she said, "Looks like someone's also been sleeping in your bed."

 

 

Overheard: "Yesterday I got my tie stuck in the fax machine. Next thing I knew, I was in Los Angeles."

 

 

A female attorney in a law office found a typewriter on her desk with this note: "We are short of secretarial help and need your assistance." Recognizing that this was yet another prank by her male colleagues, she quickly typed a response that forever squelched the jokes: "I wold lov to hep out eny wey I kan."    

When I was a rookie police officer, I was flustered by citizens who got upset if I gave them a traffic ticket. They would accuse me of trying to complete my quota for the month. Then a veteran officer gave me some useful advice. The next motorist I stopped sarcastically commented, "I guess this will help you reach your quota." I smiled and, repeating my mentor's words, replied, "No, sir, they took our quota away. Now we can write as many as we want."

A friend and I used to run a small temporary-staffing service. Our agency did mandatory background checks on all job candidates, even though our application form asked them if they'd ever been convicted of a crime.

One day after a round of interviews, my co-worker was entering information from a young man's application into the computer. She called me over to show me that he had noted a previous conviction for second-degree manslaughter. Below that, on the line listing his skills, he had written, "Good with people."

In honor of my brother's retirement from the police force, my sister-in-law decided to throw a surprise party for him. Plans made in secrecy over a two-month period included catering and entertainment decisions as well as travel accommodations for over 100 friends and relatives from around the country.

At the party, my brother stood up to address his guests. As he looked around the room at everyone who had secretly gathered on his behalf, he shook his head and said, "After 25 years on the police force, I finally know why I never made detective."

The clinic where I work promoted a co-worker to head the payroll department, or Payment Management Systems. The title on his door now reads "PMS Director."

 

 

Our local newspaper ran several stories about a study that tied male obesity to a virus. One evening my brother came in exhausted from a long day at work. "Did you read the paper?" he asked.

"I won't be going in to work tomorrow. I'm calling in fat."

An acquaintance of mine was hired as a research assistant by the physics department of a West Coast university to investigate the thermodynamic properties of wood. Two weeks after starting work he was approached by an encyclopedia salesman who explained that purchase of the encyclopedia entitled the buyer to have any three special questions answered completely. To save himself a great deal of work, the researcher bought the encyclopedia, stipulating for his first free question a full dissertation on the thermodynamic properties of wood.

Three weeks later the head of the physics department called the research assistant into his office and said, "We have a request from an encyclopedia company. One of their customers has asked for a report on the thermodynamic properties of wood. Please prepare the report for them."

It was our new receptionist's very first job, and it showed in the way she dressed—her revealing clothes screamed "college" more than "office." As diplomatically as he could, our boss sat her down and told her that she would have to dress more appropriately. "Why?" she asked. "Are we going out to lunch?"

 

 

When a fellow piano tuner was ill, I took over his assignment of tuning a piano in a girls' boardinghouse. While I was at work, several of the girls strolled casually through the room in various states of undress. The climax came when a young lady in startling deshabille appeared to pay the bill. As I was writing the receipt, she suddenly gave me a bewildered look, then fled, screaming, "That's not our regular man!" Their regular man is blind.  

I was working as a short-order cook at two restaurants in the same neighborhood. On a Saturday night, I was finishing up the dinner shift at one restaurant and hurrying to report to work at the second place. But I was delayed because one table kept sending back an order of hash browns, insisting they were too cold. I replaced them several times, but still the customers were dissatisfied.

When I was able to leave, I raced out the door and arrived at my second job. A server immediately handed me my first order. "Make sure these hash browns are hot," she said, "because these people just left a restaurant down the street that kept serving them cold ones."

 

 

The boss placed a sign directly over the sink in the men's room at work. It had a single word on it: "Think!"

The next day when the boss went to the men's room, he saw another sign had been placed immediately above the soap dispenser.

It read: "Thoap!"

 

 

Being the office supervisor, I had to have a word with a new employee who never arrived at work on time. I explained that her tardiness was unacceptable and that other employees had noticed that she was walking in late every day. After listening to my complaints, she agreed that this was a problem and even offered a solution.

"Is there another door I could use?"

Another man and I share a locker at work. Noticing that it needed a new combination lock, my partner said he would pick one up on his way to work the next day. It occurred to me later that I might not see him in the morning. How would I find out the combination? I needn't have worried. When I arrived at work I found that he had used the locker before me and had left a note reading: "To find the first number subtract 142 from your high score the last time we went bowling. The second number is 16 less than that. To find the third number subtract 1.87 from the amount you owe me."

Hard to believe, but many of our customers at the bank still don't know how to swipe their card through the ATM card reader. Because of this, my fellow tellers and I often find ourselves having to explain how it's done. One teller complained that she kept getting odd looks every time she explained it. I found out why when I overheard her tell one man, "Strip down facing me."

My brother Jim was hired by a government agency and assigned to a small office cubicle in a large area. At the end of his first day, he realized he couldn't see over the panels to find his way out, so he waited until he saw someone else leaving and followed him. He did the same the next day. On the third day he had to work late, long after his colleagues had left. He wandered around lost in the maze of cubicles and corridors, but then, just as panic began to set in, he came upon another employee in a cubicle.

"How do you get out of here?" Jim asked.

The fellow looked up from his desk, smiled and said, "No cheese for you."

The company where I work provides four-foot-high cubicles so each employee can have some privacy. One day a co-worker had an exasperating phone conversation with one of her teenage sons. After hanging up, she heaved a sigh and said, "No one ever listens to me."

Immediately, several voices from surrounding cubicles called out, "Yes, we do."