Category: Work


I don’t want to go to School!

The mother was having a hard time getting her son to go to school in the morning. “Nobody in school likes me,” he complained. “The teachers don’t like me, the kids don’t like me, the superintendent wants to transfer me, the bus drivers hate me, the school board wants me to drop out, and the custodians have it in for me. I don’t want to go to school.”

“But you have to go to school,” countered his mother. “You are healthy, you have a lot to learn, you have something to offer others, you are a leader. And besides, you are 45 years old and you are the principal.”

Broom Factory

A young Southern peasant girl of fourteen went to work in a broom factory. After two months she gave the boss a two-week notice. The boss was quite unhappy to let her go since she was hard working, knew her tasks etc.

He called her into his office, “But why?” he asked.

“Nothin, I just wanna quit that’s all,” she said sullenly.

“Look, I’ll give you a raise.”

“No,” she said.

“You can’t just quit like that. There must be a reason. Tell me.”

“Okay if you must know …” said the girl, and she took off her underwear and pointed to her pubic hair, “Look, I haven’t had this before, it’s the broom’s bristles, I tell you …”

Tickled by her innocence, he too took off his underwear and showed his, and said, “Ha, ha … my dear, it’s nature. Look, I have it, too …”

“Oh no!” the girl cried, “I can’t wait two weeks, I quit now! Not only do you have the bristles, but you’ve grown the handle as well.”

Shit Happens

In the beginning, there was the Plan.
And then came the Assumptions.
And the Assumptions were without form,
And the Plan was without substance.
And darkness was upon the face of the Workers
And they spoke among themselves saying, “It’s a crock of shit, and it stinks.”
And the Workers went unto their Supervisors and said, “It is a pail of dung, and we can’t live with the smell.”
And the Supervisors went unto their Managers saying, “It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none may abide by it.”
And the Managers went unto their Directors saying, “It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide it’s strength.”
And the Directors spoke among themselves, saying to one another, “It contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very strong.”
And the Directors went to the Vice Presidents saying unto them, “It promotes growth, and it is very powerful.”
And the Vice Presidents went to the President saying unto him, “This new plan will actively promote growth, and vigour of the company with very powerful effects.”
And the President looked upon the Plan, and said that it was good,
And the Plan became Policy.
And this is how shit happens.

Jesus in a Bar

An Irishman with a game leg walks into a saloon. He drags his bad leg up to the bar and orders an Irish whiskey. Then he looks around and sees a long-haired, bearded guy in a robe sitting at the end of the bar.

“Is that Christ our Lord?” he asks the bartender.

“Yes it is,” the bartender replies.

“Well, let me buy him an Irish whiskey too” the Irishman responds.

They’re sitting nursing their drinks when a hunchback Italian walks in and orders a glass of Chianti. He too spots Jesus.

“Is that the Son of the Blessed Virgin?” he asks the bartender, and the bartender replies in the affirmative. “Let me catch him a glass of Chianti too,” the Italian offers.

Just then the barroom door bursts open and a fireman swaggers up to the rail. “Gimme a cold one, bartender,” the fire-fighter orders. And, spotting Jesus, he adds, “Hey, is that God’s little boy? Get him a cold one too.”

Jesus eventually finishes his drinks and comes over to the Irishman, the Italian and the fire-fighter to thank them. He touches the Irishman’s shoulder and says thanks, and the fellow’s leg magically is fully functional. The Irishman does a jig in celebration.

Christ then approaches the Italian, thanks him and touches him on the shoulder, and the Italian’s back straightens for the first time in his life.

Then Christ approaches the fire-fighter, but the fire-fighter backs away. “Don’t touch me!” he screams. “I’m on disability!”

The “Honest” Lawyer

An investment counselor went out on her own. She was shrewd and diligent, so business kept coming in, and pretty soon she realized she needed an in-house counsel, so she began interviewing young lawyers.

“As I’m sure you can understand,” she started off with one of the first applicants, “in a business like this, our personal integrity must be beyond question.” She leaned forward.

“Mr. Peterson, are you an ‘honest’ lawyer?”

“Honest?” replied the job prospect. “Let me tell you something about honest. Why, I’m so honest that my father lent me fifteen thousand dollars for my education and I paid back every penny the minute I tried my very first case.”

“Impressive. And what sort of case was that?”

The lawyer squirmed in his seat and admitted, “He sued me for the money.”

“Give” Me Your Hand

A man had fallen between the rails in a subway station. People were all crowding around trying to get him out before the train ran him over. They were all shouting. “Give me your hand!” but the man would not reach up.

Jack elbowed his way through the crowd and leaned over the man. “Friend,” he asked, “what is your profession?”

“I am an income tax inspector,” gasped the man. “In that case,” said Jack, “take my hand!”

The man immediately grasped Jack’s hand and was hauled to safety. Jack turned to the amazed by-standers. “Never ask a tax man to ‘give’ you anything, you fools.”

Earring

Steve is at work one day when he notices that his coworker is wearing an earring. Steve knows his coworker to be a normally conservative fellow, and is curious about his sudden change in “fashion sense.”

Steve walks up to him and questions, “I didn’t know you were into earrings.”

“Don’t make such a big deal, it’s only an earring,” he sheepishly replies.

“So, really? How long have you been wearing one?”

“Ever since my wife found it in our bed.”

The Programmer

There was an engineer, manager, and a programmer driving down a steep mountain road. The brakes failed and the car careened down the road out of control. Half way down the driver managed to stop the car by running it against the embankment narrowly avoiding careening off the cliff. They all got out, shaken by their narrow escape from death, but otherwise unharmed.

The manager said, “To fix this problem we need to organize a committee, have meetings, and through process of continuous improvement, develop a solution.” The engineer said, “No that would take too long, besides that method never worked before. I have my trusty pen knife here and will take apart the brake system, isolate the problem and correct it.” The programmer said, “I think your both wrong! I think we should all push the car back up the hill and see if it happens again.”

Workplace Lingo

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

PRAIRIE DOGGING – When someone yells or drops something loudly in a “cube farm” (an office full of cubicles) and everyone’s heads pop up over the walls to see what’s going on.

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 – Printed computer software/hardware documentation.

CLM (Career Limiting Move) – Used among microserfs to describe ill-advised activity. Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious CLM. (Also known as CEB – Career Ending Behavior)

OHNOSECOND – That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you’ve just made a BIG mistake. (See CLM)

ADMINISPHERE – The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the admini-sphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

DILBERTED – To be exploited and oppressed by your boss. Derived from the experiences of Dilbert, the engineer in the job-from-hell comic strip character. “I’ve been dilberted again. The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week.”

SEAGULL MANAGER – A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, poops on everything, and then leaves.

SALMON WEEK – The experience of spending an entire week swimming upstream only to die, and someone else get the benefit.

404 – Someone who’s clueless. From the World Wide Web error message “404 Not Found,” meaning that the requested document could not be located. “Don’t bother asking him … he’s 404, man.”

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE – The fine art of whacking an electronic device “just right” to get it to work again.