Office Humor Cliches Improved Upon!
Okay, here are some office humor cliches–those things people say in response to typical office situations even though they know they’re not worth saying. And, assuming you don’t mind, we propose new cliches to take their place.
When Ted walks into the breakroom where you’re having a conversation with someone else:
OLD: “Right, Ted? Ha! Ha!” or “It’s Ted’s fault! Ha! Ha!”
NEW: “Hey uh…Ted.”
When grabbing a doughnut on free doughnut day:
OLD: “This is one of the ones with no calories, right? Ha! Ha!”
NEW: “I’ll eat this, I guess, but I know I’ll get this total sugar crash and get so depressed. Especially on a day like this, with all this fucking rain, pardon my French. I don’t even really like doughnuts; they’re too sweet. But…I don’t know…”
When you walk into the breakroom and a bunch of your coworkers are laughing at something they were talking about:
OLD: “You guys are having too much fun! Ha! Ha!” or “No laughing allowed! Ha! Ha!”
NEW: Ask what’s so funny and, after one of the nicer of the group takes the effort to repeat the whole dialogue, kind of shrug and say, “Guess you had to be there.”
When you have to do something like get a ream of paper, tear it open, and load it in the copier:
OLD: “Well, that’s my workout for the day! Ha! Ha!”
NEW: “It seems like everytime I use this fucking thing, pardon my French, I have to load some fucking paper in it, pardon my French.”
When out at lunch, getting burgers with coworkers, and it’s taking a slightly long time for the food to come out:
OLD: “What are they doing? Killing the cow? Ha! Ha!”
NEW: “I have so much work to do today. Ugh! Can’t stand that place.”
Whenever someone does anything that you may not have any other quick cliche response to:
OLD: “That was like on, uh, that one episode of ‘Seinfeld’! Ha! Ha!” For example, if a lizard falls from the ceiling tiles onto a monkey that someone brought into the office for some reason, refer to when Kramer did that and George gripes about when people talk to him in the bathroom, etc., because, believe us, there is an episode you can somehow match to anything that happens in life.
NEW: (Silence)
tags:cubicle,humor,office humor,silly
August 21st, 2006 at 12:50 pm
I have one, based on a recent experience in the office.
When a coworker starts telling you about the great Sinbad show they attended over the weekend in Reno (which is, in fact, an office cliche - right?):
OLD: “Heh, wow, yeah I bet that was a lot of fun. Sinbad can be pretty funny. I bet that was a lot of fun. Yeah.”
NEW: “Ew, nope. Stop, please. There’s no way I want to hear about this.”
August 21st, 2006 at 10:33 pm
Er, I’m re-reading my contribution, and I don’t think it’s funny any more. Plus it’s not even in line with the theme, since it wasn’t exactly based off a humor cliche. So this probably means that no one else could possibly think it was ever, at any time, one bit funny. Sorry. I’m a bit out of my league here.
I’m just sick of my coworkers talking about Sinbad. I don’t know what else to do. It’s not cool.
I just thought of a new one!
Any time one of my coworkers discovers that I have a college degree, they respond with 1) Then what are you doing here? or 2) So what do you want to do with your life?
OLD: Um, I like my job. This is good right now, and I’m learning a lot. Plus I’ll probably go to grad school kinda soon….
NEW: Well, I’m…um, juh, what are you saying?