— MELISSA EGGERTSEN
I
used to work at the unemployment office. I hated it because when they fired me, I had to show up at work anyway.
— WALLY WANG
M
y very busy boss placed this want ad in the newspaper: “Local photocopy shop looking for employee who has reproductive experience.”
— BRANDON JOHNSON
A
fter interviewing a potential employee, I walked him to the door. We shook hands, and he left me with this parting thought: “Don’t work too hard!”
— DAVE ZEDAKER
I
was furiously cranking out reports recently when my office mate got a phone call. I did my best to ignore what I heard him tell the person on the other end: “No, I’m not busy. I’m just at work.”
— LAURA SWANSSON
H
ow 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 .”
— MARIE ALCAREZ
C
onversation 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 coworker. “There’s a lot more of you than that.”
— DANIELLE PRIMAS
T
he other day, a manager sent me a form letting me know that one of his staff was no longer employed here. In the “Reason for separation” field, he wrote, “Employee deceased.” Under “Recommended for rehire?” he wrote, “Yes.”
— JEFF ZEILMANN
M
y real name is Wilton, but everyone at the plastics factory calls me Dub. And that’s where the confusion began. A woman from the front office came by with a form to fill out. But when she asked for my name, I wasn’t sure which one to give.
Waiting patiently for me to make up my mind, she said, “I don’t have any easier questions.”
— WILTON ROSE
O
ur friend worked in an office where an e-mail flame war erupted. Coworkers were blasting outraged notes back and forth. Finally, their boss stepped in. The e-mails stopped, and everyone got back to work. Then the boss sent one more e-mail.
“Thank goodness that’s solved. Does anyone have any questions?”
The flame war was rekindled when a woman, forgetting an important comma, responded, “No thanks to you.”
— SEND: THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO EMAIL FOR OFFICE AND HOME (KNOPF)
After months of fruitless searching, I ran across a job in the want ads that I knew I was qualified for. The posting read:
“Position may be filled by male or female only.”
— RACHAEL DANIELS
A
woman looking for a data-processing job at our company was nothing if not eager to please. When I asked, “Can you type?” she answered excitedly, “No, but my sister can.”
— MARCELLA THOMPSON
T
he best you could say about one job candidate was that she was honest. Her résumé stated, “I was entrusted to ruin our office in our partner’s absence.”
— JOANNA STOCK
I
work at a store manned by grumpy old men. One day a ray of light showed up in the form of a cheerful young customer. She was chatty and charming and left the store gushing. “How lucky we are to be alive!” she announced before the door closed.
“Wow! She was certainly jovial,” I remarked to a coworker.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I didn’t like her either.”
— DUANE BOEVE
W
ith a pile of 300 résumés on his desk and a need to pick someone quickly, my boss told me to make calls on the bottom 50 and toss the rest.
“Throw away 250 résumés?” I asked, shocked. “What if the best candidates are in there?”
“You have a point,” he said. “But then again, I don’t need people with bad luck around here.”
— BECKY HOROWITZ
I
was checking out a job website when I found a gig that left me wondering, How tough can it be? “Morgue assistant. Job requirements: Excellent customer-service skills.”
— DENISE DANIGELIS
A
few weeks after our office purchased expensive handheld organizers for everyone, our director asked an assistant at a staff meeting for the date of an upcoming event. Proudly flipping open her new PDA, she announced the date, then flipped it closed again.
“Are you sure about that?” he said.
“Of course,” she said. And with that, she reopened her PDA and handed the director the sticky note she had affixed to the screen with all the upcoming meetings listed on it.
— CHRISTOPHER DERAPS
J
ake is struggling with two huge suitcases when a stranger asks, “Got the time?”
Jake glances at his wrist. “A quarter to six.”
“Nice watch,” the stranger says.
“Thanks,” Jake says.
“I built it. It can speak the time aloud for any city, in any language. Plus, it’s got GPS and an MP3 player.”
“Wow!” the man says. “How much?”
“This is my prototype. It’s not for sale.”
“I’ll give you $1,000.”
“Can’t,” Jake says. “It’s not ready.”
“$5,000!”
“Well, okay, but…”
The man slaps a wad of cash into Jake’s hand, grabs the watch and starts to walk away.
“Wait,” Jake yells, running toward him with the suitcases. “Don’t forget your batteries.”
— MICHAEL & EDITH MILLER
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.”
— DAVID BUTTS
C
ustomer: “Can I please get your name and position with the company?”
Employee: “This is Ryan, and I am sitting down.”
— MELANIE LOEB
J
ohnson, 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?”
— ETHAN PATTON
C
omputers are great for modernizing the world, putting information at our fingertips, and keeping techies busy answering silly customer questions like these.
Tech Support: “Click on the My Computer icon to the left of the screen.”
Customer: “Do you mean your left or mine?”
— ANNA HANSEN
During a job interview at my granddaughter’s pharmacy, an applicant was asked, “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?”
“No,” he answered.
“My hearing is scheduled for next week.”
— SHIRLEY ELLIOTT
E
veryone knows I’m a stickler for good spelling. So when an associate e-mailed technical documents asking 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, spell-checker comes free with your Microsoft program.”
A minute later came his reply: “Must be dephective.”
— TERESA FISHER
I
�
�d recently started my new job at an insurance company when I noticed something peculiar—six employees had daughters who also worked there.
“That’s incredible,” I remarked.
My boss nodded.
“We ask a lot of our employees,” he said, “including their firstborn.”
— SUSAN PIELASA
V
oice mail is my sworn enemy—I have never understood how it works. Finally, I broke down and called the office operator to walk me through it.
“I can send you an instruction sheet,” she said.
“Great, fax it over.”
“Sure,” she said. “But fax it right back. It’s my only copy.”
— ROBERT BALK
I
work in the library’s Local Studies section. Recently, my colleagues and I received invitations to attend a presentation at the town hall. The invites were computer-generated and used abbreviations for job titles.
So, the Reference Librarian became Ref Lib and so on.
I’m not sure whether my coworkers were impressed or amused when my invitation arrived—addressed to “Local Stud.”
— ALAN DUCKWORTH
I
spent 20 minutes explaining life insurance options to one of our employees. After reviewing the different plans and monthly deductions, he decided to max out, choosing $100,000 worth of life insurance. But he had one last question.
“Now,” he said, “what do I have to do to collect the money?”
— MICHELE CUNKO
A
computer-illiterate client called the help desk asking how to change her password.
“Okay,” I said, after punching in a few keys. “Log in using the password 123456.”
“Is that all in caps?” she asked.
— SUSAN KESSLER
M
y laptop was driving me crazy. “The A, E, and I keys always stick,” I complained to a friend.
She quickly diagnosed the problem. “Your computer is suffering from irritable vowel syndrome.”
— ANGIE BULAKITES
M
y friend was job hunting with little luck. “Maybe I’ve set my sights too high,” she said. “I’m looking for a position that’s mentally challenging but not intellectually challenging.”
— CHRISTOPHER BREEN
W
hen hiring new staff at her public library, my daughter always asks applicants what sort of supervision they’d be most comfortable with.
One genius answered, “I’ve always thought Superman’s X-ray vision would be cool.”
— DAVE GLAUSER
Tech Support: “What does the screen say now?”
Customer: “It says ‘Hit Enter when ready.’”
Tech Support: “Well?”
Customer: “How do I know when it’s ready?”
— BECQUET.COM
Customer Service
A
customer in our pharmacy yelled at one of the technicians before storming out. Another customer asked if everything was all right.
“Sure,” said the tech. “You have to understand, most of our customers are on drugs.”
— MINERVA REYES
I
t was the usual busy day at our bank. A woman came up to customer service and demanded, “What do I have to do to change the address on my account?”
Without looking up, I replied, “Move.”
— CAROL GOODWIN
A
customer brought her car into our Saturn dealership complaining of rattling noises. Later the technician said the problem was no big deal. “Just a case of CTIP: Customer Thinks It’s a Porsche.”
— ERIK DAVISON
E
ven though a patient owed our medical office $95, when I contacted him, I was told in no uncertain terms that he didn’t appreciate our calls or the bills stamped “Past due.”
“I want to be removed from the mailing list,” he insisted.
“No problem,” I assured him. “Just one thing: There’s a $95 processing fee.”
— MEGHAN COCHRAN
Y
ou didn’t have to be a brain surgeon to figure out that a customer at our post office was an off-duty mail clerk from another plant. He’d written on his package, “Fragile: Toss Underhand.”
— DENISE MARTIN
O
n her first full day working at a discount store, my niece encountered her first cranky customer. The man had brought over mouse poison and demanded to know why it cost so much. “What’s in there?” he said sarcastically. “Steak?”
“Well, sir,” said my niece, “it is their last meal.”
— BELINDA ANDERSON
T
he phone rang. It was a salesman from a mortgage refinance company. “Do you have a second mortgage on your home?”
“No,” I replied.
“Would you like to consolidate all your debts?”
“I really don’t have any,” I said.
“How about freeing up cash for home improvements?” he tried.
“I don’t need any. I just recently had some done and paid cash,” I parried.
There was a brief silence, and then he asked, “Are you looking for a husband?”
— NANCY JORDAN
W
hen you’ve got a long list of things to buy at a department store, you tend to tune out announcements like “All cashiers to the front register” or “Associate, pick up line three.” But one did catch my attention: “Customer service needed in men’s boxers.”
— PAT ROMANO
O
ur routine was always the same when unloading the delivery truck for our department store: clothes in the morning and special orders in the afternoon. That wasn’t good enough for one antsy customer. He wanted his special-ordered pool table that morning.
“Okay,” I reassured him. “Just as soon as we take off our clothes.”
— KEITH BARRY
T
he dynamic young saleswoman was offering a lot of unsolicited advice as my mother was trying on pants. Each time Mom came out of the dressing room, it was “Too short” or “Too baggy” or “No, no, no. Wrong color.”
It ended when my mother stepped out and heard, “Those are the worst yet.”
“These,” Mom said, “are mine.”
— STACY BAUGH
W
hen I overheard one of my cashiers tell a customer, “We haven’t had it for a while, and I doubt we’ll be getting it soon,” I quickly assured the customer that we would have whatever it was she wanted by next week. After she left, I read the cashier the riot act.
“Never tell the customer that we’re out of anything. Tell them we’ll have it next week,” I instructed her. “Now, what did she want?”
“Rain.”
— MARGARET ARTHURS
F
or the umpteenth time in one shift, my coworker at the grocery store somehow managed to offend a customer.
“Do you ever think about the things you say before you say them?” I asked.
“No,” he admitted.
“I like to hear them for the first time along with everybody else.”
— PATRICK CHENOWETH
M
y brother delivered prescriptions to people too ill to go out. Since the neighborhoods he visited were often unsafe, he decided to get some protection.
“Why do you need a pistol?” asked the clerk at the gun shop.
My brother had to explain, “I deliver drugs at night and carry a lot of money.”
— LAURA LOFTIS
I
t seems the manager of the vegetable department at my grocery store doesn’t tolerate picky customers. He posted this sign: “Notice! Take lettuce from top of stack, or heads will roll!”
— RICK PARKER
O
ne afternoon the manager of our grocery store saw a somewhat bewildered man staring at his shopping list. When the manager approached, he noticed these words printed in large capital
letters at the bottom of the page: “YOU ARE NOW DONE SHOPPING—COME HOME!”
— BECQUET.COM
Just as my husband pulled his delivery van away from the florist, the manager came running out. There was a cancellation on one of the orders, and he needed it back.
“Which one?” my husband asked.
“The one that reads, ‘Susan, I will love you forever. Bob.’ ”
— JACKIE SETTLE
M
y wife and I were living in Cambridge, Massachusetts—the quintessential college town. Rushing through the supermarket checkout, we didn’t notice we were in a 12-item line and what we had was way over the limit.
The weary cashier looked at all our groceries. “Are you from Harvard and can’t count or from MIT and can’t read?”
— BRADFORD CRAIN
W
atching us fill balloons with helium at our gift shop, a customer asked the price.
“It’s a quarter per balloon,” a coworker said.
“It used to be ten cents,” she complained.
Another customer concluded, “Well, that’s inflation.”
— MELISSA BURNS
B
eing very organized came in handy when I put an extension on my house. I made sure all my bills were paid promptly. So I was mortified when I received a letter from an electrician that stated in bold letters, “Second and Final Notice!”
“I’m sorry,” I said when I called him. “I never saw the first notice.”
“I didn’t send one,” he told me. “I find second notices are much more effective.”
Laughter Really Is the Best Medicine: America's Funniest Jokes, Stories, and Cartoons Page 2
