Laughter Is the Best Medicine Read online

  “Can you do that?” I wondered.

  “She got her bum husband out of the house, didn’t she?” said a friend. “I’d call that a home improvement.”

  —MARTI MCDANIEL

  The employee refrigerator at the graphic-design office where I work is notoriously messy. But I realized things were really getting out of hand when I saw an old jar of Vlasic-brand pickles that sported a new, handwritten label: Jurassic Pickles.

  —HOLLY SPRINGER

  The Employee/English Dictionary

  Plutoed: To be unceremoniously relegated to a lower position without an adequate explanation.

  Clockroaches: Employees who spend most of their day watching the clock instead of doing their jobs.

  Prairie Dogging: Occurs when workers simultaneously pop their heads up out of their cubicles to see what’s going on.

  Carbon-Based Error: Error caused by a human, not a computer.

  Bobbleheading: The mass nod of agreement during a meeting to comments made by the boss.

  —FROM THE BUZZWORD DICTIONARY BY JOHN WALSTON (MARION STREET PRESS, INC.)

  A “safety message” sent out at my office warned: “Alert! The stress balls distributed at yesterday’s ‘How to Manage Your Stress’ class are exploding all over the building. Please do not squeeze or apply pressure to the stress balls!”

  —APRIL RICHEY

  To be perfectly blunt, our office receptionist could be a real witch. She’d been there 20 years and lorded over the place like she owned it. One recent, freezing day, she went so far as to order a coworker to warm up her car for her. Much to my surprise, he agreed.

  A few minutes later he came back holding a broom. Placing it on a heating vent, he told her, “Just give it a minute and it’ll be ready to go.”

  —JESSICA O’NEILL

  One morning at our small-town newspaper office, one of the editors was struggling to write a headline for the obituary of a woman who was noted for little besides a fondness for crossword puzzles. “What am I supposed to write,” the editor whined, “’She liked puzzles’?”

  Just then one of our copy editors piped up, “How about, ‘Crossword fan is now six down’?”

  —JAMES VLAHOS

  A coworker stormed into my friend’s office, yelling, “Did you tell Joan I was a witch?”

  Stunned, my friend sputtered, “No! I don’t know how she found out.”

  —GEORGE O’BRIEN

  An executive for a phone company, my father often rode his motorcycle to the office from his suburban home. He wore coveralls over his clothing for protection, and would hang them on his clothes tree when he arrived at work. Once when he was working late, my mother called the office. His secretary answered the call. “He’s not in his office,” she told my mother.

  “Has he left for the day?” my mother pressed.

  “Oh, no,” said the secretary. “He hasn’t left the building—his pants are still on the clothes rack.”

  —WILLIAM B. MAGRUDER

  I work in a small government office, and as part of the daily routine I take orders for doughnuts and pick them up on my midmorning run to the post office. A new employee looked bemused as I took orders for CCRs, GOFs and POFs—known to bakery staff as chocolate-covered raised, glazed old-fashioned and plain old-fashioned. When it was the new employee’s turn to order, she laughed and said, “You know you work in a government office when even the doughnuts have acronyms.”

  —CINDY BEVING

  Things you’ll seldom hear around the office water cooler:

  “I love my boss so much I’d gladly work for free.”

  “I’m going to run down to the cafeteria and ask the cook for his recipes.”

  “Boy, I wish I could make coffee as good as that vending machine on the third floor.”

  “I don’t want the promotion if it’s going to make my coworkers envious.”

  —EXECUTIVE SPEECHWRITER NEWSLETTER

  My coworker is Venezuelan and has trouble understanding some English phrases. She is a top salesperson in our company and is known for being very competitive. One day she was talking with a couple of employees, complaining about her job and how she felt mistreated.

  “Oh, be quiet,” said a colleague. “You know you’re queen bee at the office.”

  “Oh, really?” she replied indignantly. “And who is Queen A?”

  —DENISE MADDOX

  A woman and her daughter had just purchased a $1200 Persian rug at the store where I work. As they were leaving, I overheard the daughter say to her mother, “There’s no way that we can tell Dad we’ve always had this.”

  —MATTHEW LARSON

  “Harding is very security conscious.”

  Our company was conducting free body mass index checkups. When a stout colleague climbed onto the machine, it spit out a slip of paper telling him what his weight-to-height ratio was and what it ought to be.

  “What does it say?” I asked.

  He replied, “I need to increase my height by six inches.”

  —SOBBY KURIAN

  I work for an accounting firm where it’s not unusual to have an IRS agent in the office examining taxpayer records. We try to let clients know when an agent is present so they will watch what they say.

  One time a coworker handed a client a note that read “There is an IRS agent in the office.” The client scribbled a response and handed it back to the accountant. “I know,” the client wrote. “It’s my brother-in-law.”

  —KATHY BIGLER

  As an editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, I received many unwanted phone calls. My secretary was exceptionally gracious in screening callers and saving me from pests.

  One day I was talking with Howard F. Baer, a distinguished civic leader and chairman of the St. Louis Zoological Commission, when my wife called on another line.

  “I’m sorry, but he’s talking to Mr. Baer at the zoo,” my secretary said.

  “Really, Florence,” my wife said, “you need a better story than that.”

  —MARTIN LAWLER DUGGAN

  During a routine companywide drug screening, a coworker was sent into the bathroom with a plastic cup, while the attendant dutifully stood guard outside.

  She waited patiently for several minutes. More time went by, until finally she knocked on the door.

  “Are you all right in there?”

  From within, a timid voice responded, “Don’t I at least get a magazine or something?”

  “No,” said the nurse, without blinking. “It’s not that kind of test.”

  —MARTY GUFFIN

  I work at an aviation school that specializes in five-day refresher courses for aircraft mechanics. One day, I overheard a coworker talking on the phone with a potential customer. “Actually, we don’t call our classes crash courses,” he said. “We like to think of them as ‘keep up in the air’ classes.”

  —RANDY G. SMITH

  Who Took My Stapler?

  Is your cubicle neighbor driving you nuts? You’re not alone. Here are just some of the ways coworkers annoy each other, in your own words:

  “Employee eats all the good cookies.”

  “Employee’s body is magnetic and keeps deactivating my access card.”

  “Employee’s aura is wrong.”

  “Employee is too suntanned.”

  “Employee smells like road ramps.”

  “Employee wants to check a coworker for ticks.”

  —CAREERBUILDER.COM

  “We’ve been lucky. So far they’ve only downsized our cubicles.”

  A woman in my office recently divorced after years of marriage, had signed up for a refresher CPR course.

  “Is it hard to learn?” someone asked.

  “Not at all,” my coworker replied. “Basically you’re asked to breathe life into a dummy. I don’t expect to have any problem. I did that for 32 years.”

  —PAULETTE BROOKS

  At the company water cooler, I bragged about my children’s world travels: one son was teaching in Bo
livia, another was working in southern Italy, and my daughter was completing a yearlong research project in India. One coworker’s quip, however, stopped me short. “What is it about you,” he asked, “that makes your kids want to get so far away?”

  —TODD W. KAISER

  Following the announcement of an aggressive cost-cutting program at my company, each employee was encouraged to recommend ways to save money. A couple of days later, I stepped into an elevator where a large poster was hanging to remind workers of an upcoming blood drive. Underneath the huge words “Give Blood,” someone had scribbled, “I knew it would come to this.”

  —CHUCK BRADFORD

  The investment management firm where I worked had just moved into new offices, and the place was overflowing with gifts of large plants, mostly huge Boston ferns. Amid this jungle, I was showing off underwater photographs of sea life from a recent scuba-diving trip. Just then a senior member of the firm looked over my shoulder and asked, “Are those anemones?”

  “Of course not,” I replied. Then, pointing to the plants around us, I quipped, “With ferns like these, who needs anemones?”

  —DAVID A. CONARY

  Scene: Two coworkers conversing.

  Coworker 1: My son just turned 18 months old.

  Coworker 2: So, is that like a year and a half old?

  Coworker 1: You really aren’t sure if 18 months is a year and a half?

  Coworker 2: How am I supposed to know that? I don’t have kids.

  —ADAM FREDERICK

  One day while at work, I called home to talk to my college-student wife, forgetting momentarily that she would be at a class. After leaving a message on our answering machine, I closed with my customary “I love you.” As I hung up, I was startled by a coworker who was standing in the doorway and had heard me. With a look of contempt she said, “Your wife is holding on line one.”

  —JASON LEIFESTER

  On my rural postal route, I make deliveries only to roadside mailboxes that are accessible. For two days a woman met me at a disabled tractor that blocked her mailbox. “My husband says he’ll move it as soon as he can,” she said with a sigh as she accepted the mail.

  On the third day the tractor was still there. I expected the woman to appear, but instead saw that the mailbox had been removed from its post. It was now strapped with black tape to the fender of the tractor—at exactly the required height for delivery.

  —WILLMA WILLIS GORE

  My husband works in a former supermarket that was remodeled to accommodate professional offices. One day he overheard his receptionist giving directions over the phone. “Remember the old grocery store?” she asked the caller. “You’ll find us in the meat department.”

  —KAREN G. STOWE

  Following a blowout shindig the night before, a coworker was looking the worse for wear.

  “Are you feeling all right?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she answered slowly. “I think I’m suffering from post-partying depression.”

  —MAY-LING GONZALES

  Signs you don’t have enough to do at work:

  You’ve already read the entire Dilbert page-a-day calendar for 2012.

  People come to your office only to borrow pencils from your ceiling.

  You discover that staring at your cubicle wall long enough produces images of Elvis.

  The Fourth Division of Paper Clips has overrun the Pushpin Infantry, and General Whiteout has called for reinforcements.

  —LYNDELL LEATHERMAN

  Man to coworker: “I learn more from originals left in the copier than I do from the employee newsletter.”

  —LITZLER IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

  First thing every single morning one of the secretaries in our office opened the newspaper and read everyone’s horoscope aloud.

  “Gwen,” said our boss finally, “you seem to be a normal, levelheaded person. Do you really believe in astrology?”

  “Of course not,” Gwen answered. “You know how skeptical we Capricorns are.”

  —DEAN MORGAN

  My daughter is in the cast of a dinner-theater company, which presents mysteries in a local restaurant. While the shows are entertaining, the food leaves a lot to be desired. Near the end of the play, each member of the audience submits a form, answering the question, “Who do you think is the murderer and why?”

  “It must be the cook,” answered one disgruntled guest. “He tried to poison the rest of us, too.”

  —A. G. HARTMAN

  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.”

  —KIP HARTMAN

  QUOTABLE QUOTES

  “The Brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up and does not stop until you get into the office.”

  —ROBERT FROST

  “I had the most boring office job in the world—I used to clean the windows on envelopes.”

  —RITA RUDNER

  “How to get a good raise: Request meeting with the boss. Outline accomplishments. Use words such as future and growth. Threaten to quit. Quit. Depart for higher-paying position. You did go in with another job offer, right?”

  —TED ALLEN

  “A cubicle is just a padded cell without a door.”

  —UNKNOWN

  “A raise is like a martini: it elevates the spirit, but only temporarily.”

  —DAN SELIGMAN

  “The human race is faced with a cruel choice: work or daytime television.”

  —DAVE BARRY

  “You moon the wrong person at an office party and suddenly you’re not ‘professional’ anymore.”

  —JEFF FOXWORTHY

  “It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.”

  —MUHAMMAD ALI

  “Hard work is damn near as overrated as monogamy.”

  —HUEY LONG

  As a new employee for a discount brokerage firm, I went for a month of classroom training. Warning us about the volume of information we were required to memorize, one instructor suggested we make lots of notes on file cards.

  When I completed the course, I was assigned to a team where, as suggested, I taped all the file cards, crammed with notes, onto my computer.

  On my first day of trading, a veteran broker sat with me. He immediately noticed all the cards—and my apprehension—and promptly made up a new card, which he taped to my computer. It read “Breathe!”

  —STEVE J. GAINES

  “Anderson, we’d like to talk to you about your stand-offish attitude.”

  Soon after I started a new job, a coworker named Elizabeth showed me how to clear the copier when it became jammed. A few days later the machine jammed again, and I began to punch buttons and slam doors to clear it as I was shown. “What’s going on?” asked a colleague.

  “I’m clearing the copier like Elizabeth taught me,” I replied.

  “Oh, but you have to understand,” the man explained. “Elizabeth has a temper.”

  —SHERRY MCNEAL

  Even though I’ve worked in many state government agencies over the years, I still don’t get the jargon. Here’s an example of what I read every day and—worse—am expected to understand:

  “Most of you will be developing subleases instead of subsubleases, so any reference to ‘subsubleases’ needs to be changed to ‘subleases,’ except for paragraph 38, which will become ‘subsubleases’ instead of ‘subsubsubleases.’ Also, there will no longer be any reference to ‘Subsublessor’ or ‘Subsublessee,’ which become ‘Sublessor’ and ‘Sublessee,’ respectively. I hope this information will get you started.”

  —TRU
DIE MIXON

  The elevator in our building malfunctioned one day, leaving several of us stranded. Seeing a sign that listed two emergency phone numbers, I dialed the first and explained our situation.

  After what seemed to be a very long silence, the voice on the other end said, “I don’t know what you expect me to do for you; I’m a psychologist.”

  “A psychologist?” I replied. “Your phone is listed here as an emergency number. Can’t you help us?”

  “Well,” he finally responded in a measured tone. “How do you feel about being stuck in an elevator?”

  —CHRISTINE QUINN

  I used to work in the business office of a water-slide park where hundreds of high school and college students are employed as lifeguards, gift-shop clerks and food vendors. For many this is a first job. One day I overheard a lunchroom conversation between two teenagers. “So how do you like your job?” one asked.

  “I guess it’s okay,” the other answered, “but it’s not at all what I expected.”

  “What do you mean?” the first teen asked.

  “Well, I thought it would be fun working here. I guess I’m more the customer type.”

  —KARENA SPACH

  Extraordinary Excuses

  One of my coworkers got a speeding ticket and was attending a defensive-driving course to have points erased from her license. The instructor, a police officer, emphasized that being on time was crucial, and that the classroom doors would be locked when each session began.

  Just after one class started, someone knocked on the locked door. The officer opened it and asked, “Why are you late?”

  The student replied, “I was trying not to get another ticket.” The officer let him in.

  —PATTY STEFFER

  “Sorry I’m late, boss! I had to take my wife to the maternity ward,” Konrád blurts out on arriving at his workplace.

  “You don’t imagine I’m going to swallow that, do you? That was your excuse last time. Your wife isn’t a rabbit after all.”