At Work — worst jokes

Top 25 Engineer's Terms and Expressions (What they say versus what they mean)

• A number of different approaches are being tried. (We are still guessing at this point.)
• Close project coordination. (We sat down and had coffee together.)
• An extensive report is being prepared on a fresh approach. (We just hired three punk kids out of school.)
• Major technological breakthrough! (It works OK; but looks very hi-tech!)
• Customer satisfaction is believed assured. (We are so far behind schedule, that the customer will take anything.)
• Preliminary operational tests were inconclusive. (The darn thing blew up when we threw the switch.)
• Test results were extremely gratifying! (Unbelievable, it actually worked!)
• The entire concept will have to be abandoned. (The only guy who understood the thing quit.)
• It is in process. (It is so wrapped in red tape that the situation is completely hopeless.)
• We will look into it. (Forget it! We have enough problems already.)
• Please note and initial. (Let's spread the responsibility for this.)
• Give us the benefit of your thinking. (We'll listen to what you have to say as long as it doesn't interfere with what we have already done or with what we are going to do.)
• Give us your interpretation. (We can't wait to hear your bull.)
• See me or let's discuss. (Come to my office, I've messed up again.)
• All new. (Parts are not interchangeable with previous design.)
• Rugged. (Don't plan to lift it without major equipment.)
• Robust! (Rugged, but more so)
• Light weight. (Slightly lighter than rugged)
• Years of development. (One finally worked)
• Energy saving. (Achieved when the power switch is off.)
• No maintenance. (Impossible to fix)
• Low maintenance. (Nearly impossible to fix)
• Fax me the data. (I'm too lazy to write it down.)
• We are following the standard! (That's the way we have always done it!)
• I didn't get your e-mail. (I haven't checked my e-mail for days.)

USEFUL PHRASES AT WORK:

• I like you. You remind me of when I was young and stupid.
• I'm not being rude. You're just insignificant.
• I'm already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.
• It might look like I'm doing nothing, but at the cellular level I'm really quite busy.
• Thank you. We're all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view.
• The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist
• Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental
• I have plenty of talent and vision. I just don't care.
• I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about you.
• It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off.
• Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
• No, my powers can only be used for good.
• How about never? Is never good for you?
• I'm really easy to get along with once you people learn to worship me
• You sound reasonable... Time to up my medication
• I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter.
• I don't work here. I'm a consultant.
• Who me? I just wander from room to room.
• My toys! My toys! I can't do this job without my toys!
• At least I have a positive attitude about my destructive habits.
• You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.
• I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.
• Someday, we'll look back on this, laugh nervously and change the subject.

Thoughts and stories from on the job

My boss came in one morning and caught me hugging my secretary. He said in a rage, "Is this what you get paid for ?" I told him, "Nope ! I do this for free."

This same boss was into all this dumb inspirational and motivation stuff too. I remember once he posted a sign which read "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday." I couldn't resist and added a note: "And now you know why too".

Once I came upon this pretty new temp standing in front of the paper shredder with a confused look on her face. I asked if she needed any help and she said, "Yeah, how does this thing work ?" I took the papers from her hand and demonstrated how to work the shredder. She stood there a moment with yet another confused expression, so I said, "Any questions ?" She said, "Yeah, exactly where do the copies come out from ?"

People always say that hard work never killed anybody. Oh yeah ??? When's the last time ya ever heard of anyone who "rested to death".

Being punctual in our Office was of no benefit what-so-ever. There was never anybody around to appreciate it.

Our Office was always on the cutting edge of technology. Not only did we have computers which spoke as well as listened; Hell, some of them even got ulcers.

Did ya ever notice the people who complain the most about not having enough time to do all their work are the same ones who always stop & tell everyone that they don't have enuff time to do all their work.

RE: Quotes Taken from actual performance evaluations:

• "Since my last report, this employee has reached rock bottom and has started to dig."
• "His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity."
• "I would not allow this employee to breed."
• "This associate is really not so much of a has-been, but more of a definitely won't be."
• "Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap."
• "When she opens her mouth, it seems that this is only to change whichever foot was previously in there."
• "He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle."
• "This young lady has delusions of adequacy."
• "He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them."
• "This employee should go far - and the sooner he starts, the better."
• "This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot."

"You Know It's Your Last Day At Work When......"

You hand a bank teller an envelope, and when she asks, "What's this?", you realize you just dropped the company's deposit in a mailbox.

A woman comes into the store, you turn to the other salesman and say, "I waited on the last fat ugly old lady. This one's your turn". Your boss is standing behind you. It's his wife.

While your boss is at lunch, you sneak in and look at some confidential information on his computer. You spill coffee on the keyboard. It shorts out.

You return from a week's vacation to find that you had scheduled this week as vacation, not last week.

You take a "sick" day. The next morning the boss asks you, "So, how was the fishing on Rock Creek yesterday?".

You wake up hung over. You have a black eye and barked knuckles. You're in jail. Last night was the company Christmas party.

Quote from a recent meeting: "We are going to continue having these meetings, everyday, until I find out why no work is getting done".

Quote from the Boss... "I didn't say it was your fault. I said I was going to blame it on you."

A motivational sign at work: The beatings will continue until morale improves.

A direct quote from the Boss: "We passed over a lot of good people to get the ones we hired."

My Boss frequently gets lost in thought. That's because it's unfamiliar territory.

My Boss said to me " What you see as a glass ceiling, I see as a protective barrier."

My Boss needs a surge protector. That way his mouth would be buffered from surprise spikes in his brain.

I thought my Boss was an idiot, and quit, to work for myself. My new Boss is an idiot, too ... but at least I respect him.

He's given automobile accident victims new hope for recovery. He walks, talks and performs rudimentary tasks, all without the benefit of a SPINE.

Some people climb the ladder of success. My Boss walked under it.

Quote from the Boss after overriding the decision of a task force he created to find a solution: " I'm sorry if I ever gave you the impression your input would have any effect on my decision for the outcome of this project!"

HR Manager to job candidate "I see you've had no computer training. Although that qualifies you for upper management, it means you're under-qualified for our entry level positions."

Quote from telephone inquiry "We're only hiring one summer intern this year and we won't start interviewing candidates for that position until the Boss' daughter finishes her summer classes."

The job security quiz will help judge how long you'll end up at your current job and what will become of you.

The boss appears at your cubicle and finds you playing DOOM at your desk, you...

• A. Swear to take the game off your hard drive forever, but first make a copy for his kid.
• B. Inform him that you're planting a virus in the program so that everyone who plays it on company time will get reported to Human Resources.
• C. Tell him that whatever he wants will have to wait until you've finished the level.

There's a cush job opening in the mail department, stuffing envelopes with free samples. It pays twice as much as your current position. What do you do?

• A. Meekly suggest to your boss that transferring you might improve the morale of everyone who's been working with you.
• B. Politely ask your boss for a transfer and offer to split the salary increase 50/50 with him.
• C. Barge into your bosses office and demand reassignment so that you, "Won't have to work under someone who should have retired before he became a laughingstock."

When your boss throws a party and invites everyone in the office except you, what do you do?

• A. Stay home and watch 'I Love Lucy' reruns.
• B. Show up at the party anyway, with a really expensive bottle of wine and a briefcase full of small, unmarked bills.
• C. Go over to your bosses house after everyone has left and throw rocks at the windows, shouting obscenities.

Your boss criticizes your work unjustly; what do you do?

• A. Listen politely, and then apologize.
• B. Blame someone else.
• C. Climb on top of your desk, and hold up a piece of paper on which you've written the word "union."

When the CEO parks his car in your spot, you...

• A. Wash and wax it, then leave your business card under the windshield wiper.
• B. Key it ... then tell the CEO's secretary you saw your boss near it, loitering suspiciously.
• C. Key it ... then proudly tell the CEO's secretary that you did it.

Your boss asks you to play Kooky the Clown for his kid's fifth birthday party, what do you do?

• A. Offer to pay for the costume rental and cake, too.
• B. Agree to do it, then blackmail a co-worker into doing it while pretending to be you.
• C. Agree to do it, then show up as yourself and tell the children that Kooky is dead.

The boss accuses you of not keeping the office clean; you...

• A. Clean the office while he supervises.
• B. Tell him that you delegated the job, then fire the underling you supposedly gave the job to.
• C. Clean the office again, but this time, you use your boss' face.

Scoring this test
Mostly A's: You have nothing to worry about. They'll never fire you because you're a doormat.
Mostly B's: You're not just going to keep your job, with your complete disregard for other peoples feelings, you'll positively shoot up the ladder of success. Congratulations! You're a real jerk.
Mostly C's: You are a career kamikaze. The boss would have fired you long ago, but he's terrified of what you might do.

New Corporate Buzz Words for the 90's

• Blamestorming: Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.
• Body Nazis: Hard-core exercise and weight-lifting fanatics who look down on anyone who doesn't work out obsessively.
• Seagull Manager: A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, and then leaves.
• Chainsaw Consultant: An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee headcount, leaving the top brass with clean hands.
• Cube Farm: An office filled with cubicles.
• Idea Hamsters: People who always seem to have their idea generators running.
• Mouse Potato: The online, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.
• Prairie Dogging: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.
• SITCOMs: What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. Stands for Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.
• Squirt the Bird: To transmit a signal to a satellite.
• Starter Marriage: A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids, no property, and no regrets.
• Stress Puppy: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.
• Swiped Out: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.
• Tourists: People who take training classes just to get a vacation from their jobs. "We had three serious students in class; the rest were just tourists."
• Treeware: Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.
• Xerox Subsidy: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.
• Going Postal: Euphemism for being totally stressed out, for losing it. Makes reference to the unfortunate track record of postal employees who have snapped and gone on shooting rampages.
• Alpha Geek: The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group. "Ask Larry, he's the Alpha Geek around here."
• Assmosis: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.
• Chips and Salsa: Chips = hardware, Salsa = software. "Well, first we gotta figure out if the problem is in your chips or your salsa."
• Flight Risk: Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave a company or department soon.
• GOOD job: A "Get-Out-Of-Debt" job. A well-paying job people take in order to pay off their debts, one that they will quit as soon as they are solvent again.
• Irritainment: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying, but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trials were a prime example.
• Percussive Maintenance: The fine art of attacking an electronic device to get it to work again.
• Uninstalled: Euphemism for being fired. Heard on the voicemail of a Vice President at a downsizing computer firm: "You have reached the number of an uninstalled Vice President. Please dial our main number and ask the operator for assistance." See also Decruitment.
• Vulcan Nerve Pinch: The taxing hand positions required to reach all the appropriate keys for commands. For instance, the warm re-boot for a Mac II computer involves simultaneously pressing the Control Key, the Command key, the Return key and the Power On key.

MURPHY'S LAWS ON WORK

• A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the pants.
• Don't be irreplaceable, if you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
• The more crap you put up with, the more crap you are going to get.
• You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a clipboard.
• Eat one live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
• Never ask two questions in a business letter. The reply will discuss the one you are least interested in, and say nothing about the other.
• When the bosses talk about improving productivity, they are never talking about themselves.
• If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.
• There will always be beer cans rolling on the floor of your car when the boss asks for a ride home from the office.
• Mother said there would be days like this, but she never said there would be so many.
• Keep your boss's boss off your boss's back.
• This is what I'm doing wrong.
• Everything can be filed under "miscellaneous."
• Never delay the ending of a meeting or the beginning of a cocktail hour.
• To err is human, to forgive is not company policy.
• Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing.
• Important letters that contain no errors will develop errors in the mail.
• The last person that quit or was fired will be the one held responsible for everything that goes wrong - until the next person quits or is fired.
• There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but there is always enough time to do it over.
• The more pretentious a corporate name, the smaller the organization. (For instance, The Murphy Center for Codification of Human and Organizational Law, contrasted to IBM, GM, AT&T ...).
• If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are really good, you will get out of it.
• You are always doing something marginal when the boss drops by your desk.
• People are always available for work in the past tense.
• If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done.
• At work, the authority of a person is inversely proportional to the number of pens that person is carrying.
• When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried.
• You will always get the greatest recognition for the job you least like.
• No one gets sick on Wednesdays.
• When confronted by a difficult problem you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"
• The longer the title, the less important the job.
• Machines that have broken down will work perfectly when the repairman arrives.
• An "acceptable" level of employment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.
• Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse.
• All vacations and holidays create problems, except for one's own.

Success is just a matter of luck, just ask any failure.

"Do you believe in life after death?" the boss asked one of his employees.

"Yes, Sir." the new recruit replied.

"Well, then, that makes everything just fine," the boss went on. "After you left early yesterday to go to your grandmother's funeral, she stopped in to see you."