Business Jokes — worst jokes

The incredibly dumb ATT fired President John Walter after nine months, saying he lacked intellectual leadership". He received a $26 million severance package. Perhaps it's not Walter who's lacking intelligence.

Police in Oakland, California spent two hours attempting to subdue a gunman who had barricaded himself inside his home. After firing ten tear gas canisters, officers discovered that the man was standing beside them, shouting please to come out and give himself up.

An Illinois man pretending to have a gun kidnapped a motorist and forced him to drive to two different automated teller machines. The kidnapper then proceeded to withdraw money from his own bank accounts.

A 9-year-old boy in Manassas, Virginia received a one-day suspension under his elementary school's drug policy last week - for Certs! Joey Hoeffer allegedly told a classmate that the mints would make him "jump higher."

A student in Belle, West Virginia was suspended for three days for giving a classmate a cough drop. School principal Forest Mann reiterated the school's "zero-tolerance" policy...not to be confused with the "zero-intelligence" policy.

Fire investigators on Maui have determined the cause of a blaze that destroyed a $127,000 home last month - a short in the homeowner's newly installed fire prevention alarm system. "This is even worse than last year," said the distraught homeowner, "when someone broke in and stole my new security system..."

There once was a rich man who was near death. He was very grieved because he had worked so hard for his money and he wanted to be able to take it with him to heaven. So he began to pray that he might be able to take some of his wealth with him. An angel hears his plea and appears to him. "Sorry, but you can't take your wealth with you."

The man implores the angel to speak to God to see if He might bend the rules. The man continues to pray that his wealth could follow him. The angel reappears and informs the man that God has decided to allow him to take one suitcase with him. Overjoyed, the man gathers his largest suitcase and fills it with pure gold bars and places it beside his bed.

Soon afterward the man dies and shows up at the Gates of Heaven to greet St. Peter. St. Peter seeing the suitcase says, "Hold on, you can't bring that in here!" But, the man explains to St. Peter that he has permission and asks him to verify his story with the Lord. Sure enough, St. Peter checks and comes back saying, "You're right. You are allowed one carry-on bag, but I'm supposed to check its contents before letting it through."

St. Peter opens the suitcase to inspect the worldly items that the man found too precious to leave behind and exclaims, "You brought pavement?!!!"

An efficiency expert concluded his lecture with a note of caution. "You don't want to try these techniques at home."

"Why not?" asked somebody from the audience.

"I watched my wife's routine at breakfast for years," the expert explained. "She made lots of trips between the refrigerator, stove, table and cabinets, often carrying a single item at a time. One day I told her, 'Hon, why don't you try carrying several things at once?'"

"Did it save time?" the person in the audience asked.

"Actually, yes," replied the expert. "It used to take her 20 minutes to make breakfast. Now I do it in seven."

Money isn't everything but it sure keeps you in touch with your children. - J. Paul Getty
A man explained inflation to his wife thus: 'When we married, you measured 36-24-36. Now you're 42-42-42. There's more of you, but you are not worth as much.' - Lord Barnett
Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That's how rich I want to be. - Rita Rudner
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. - Dorothy Parker
My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income. - Errol Flynn

Below are fine examples of what happens when marketing translations fail to reach a foreign country in an understandable way.

Coors put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhea."

Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron, into German only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the "manure stick".

Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.

The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem-Feeling Free", was translated into the Japanese market as "When smoking Salem, you will feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty."

When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the beautiful baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the label of what's inside, since most people can't read English.

An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of "I saw the Pope" (el Papa), the shirts read "I saw the potato" (la papa).

In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into "Schweppes Toilet Water."

Pepsi's "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave," in Chinese.

When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." However, the company mistakenly thought the spanish word "embarazar" meant embarrass. Instead the ads said that "It wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."

The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, "ko-kou-ko-le," which can be loosely translated as "happiness in the mouth."

Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."

When General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South America, it was apparently unaware that "no va" means "it won't go." After the company figured out why it wasn't selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets to the Caribe.

Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.

These are fabricated corporate slogans that would never have made if far if they entered the real world.

Microsoft: "How much are you going to pay today?"
MTV: "Loud and easy to spell."
Saks 5th Avenue: "You Could Shop Here if You're Poor, But That Would be Stupid!"
Iguana: "The other green meat."
Nike: "Just buy the shoes, you flabby spineless lump!"
Daisy Air Rifles: "Keeping kids off your lawn for over forty years."
Canon Photocopiers: "Quit calling them Xeroxes!"
Apple MacIntosh: "Hey, we thought of it first!"
Radio Shack: "You've got questions, we've got geek losers!"
Professional Bowling on NBC: "Oh, why don't you just go ahead and kill yourself instead?"

How many Bill Gateses does it take to change the lightbulb?
→ None. He just calls a meeting and makes darkness the standard.

An organization is like a tree full of monkeys, all on different limbs at different levels. Some monkeys are climbing up, some down. The monkeys on top look down and see a tree full of smiling faces. The monkeys on the bottom look up and see nothing but assholes.

A man walks into a very posh Rodeo Drive furrier with a gorgeous blonde on his arm. "Show the lady your finest mink!" the fellow exclaims. So the owner of the shop goes in the back and comes out with an absolutely gorgeous full-length coat. As the lady tries it on, the furrier sidles up to the guy and discreetly whispers, "Ah, sir, that particular fur goes for $65,000."

"No problem! I'll write you a check!"

"Very good, sir." says the shop owner. "Today is Saturday. You may come by on Monday to pick it up, after the check has cleared."

So the man and the woman leave. On Monday, the fellow returns. The store owner is outraged: "How dare you show your face in here?! There wasn't a single penny in your checking account!!"

"I just had to come by," grinned the guy, "to thank you for the most wonderful weekend of my life!"

- Customer: Do you have any cockroaches?

- Clerk: Yes we sell them to the fisherman.

- Customer: I would like 20,000 of them.

- Clerk: What would you want with 20,000 cockroaches?

- Customer: I'm moving tomorrow and my lease says I must leave my apartment in the condition in which I found it.