Anecdotal joke delivery styles, punchline pacing, and comedy formats for people with specific chaos preferences from Chaotic Meh — organized so the algorithm can pretend this place has adult supervision.
As an instructor in driver education at Unionville-Sebewaing Area High School in Michigan, I’ve learned that even the brightest students can become flustered behind the wheel. One day I had three beginners in the car, each scheduled to drive for 30 minutes. When the first student had completed his time, I asked him to change places with one of the others.
Gripping the wheel tightly and staring straight ahead, he asked in a shaky voice, “Should I stop the car?”
We’ve all been interviewed for jobs. And, we’ve all spent most of those interviews thinking about what not to do. Don’t bite your nails. Don’t fidget. Don’t interrupt. Don’t belch. If we did any of the don’ts, we knew we’d disqualify ourselves instantly. But some job applicants go light years beyond this. We surveyed top personnel executives of 100 major American corporations and asked for stories of unusual behavior by job applicants.
The lowlights:
“… stretched out on the floor to fill out the job application.”
“She wore a Walkman and said she could listen to me and the music at the same time.”
“A balding candidate abruptly excused himself. Returned to office a few minutes later, wearing a hairpiece.”
“… asked to see interviewer’s resume to see if the personnel executive was qualified to judge the candidate.”
“… announced she hadn’t had lunch and proceeded to eat a hamburger and French fries in the interviewer’s office – wiping the ketchup on her sleeve”
“Stated that, if he were hired, he would demonstrate his loyalty by having the corporate logo tattooed on his forearm.”
“Interrupted to phone his therapist for advice on answering specific interview questions.”
“When I asked him about his hobbies, he stood up and started tap dancing around my office.”
“At the end of the interview, while I stood there dumbstruck, went through my purse, took out a brush, brushed his hair, and left.”
“… pulled out a Polaroid camera and snapped a flash picture of me. Said he collected photos of everyone who interviewed him.”
“Said he wasn’t interested because the position paid too much.”
“While I was on a long-distance phone call, the applicant took out a copy of Penthouse, and looked through the photos only, stopping longest at the centerfold.”
“During the interview, an alarm clock went off from the candidate’s brief case. He took it out, shut it off, apologized and said he had to leave for another interview.”
“A telephone call came in for the job applicant. It was from his wife. His side of the conversation went like this: ‘Which company? When do I start? What’s the salary?’ I said, ‘I assume you’re not interested in conducting the interview any further.’ He promptly responded, ‘I am as long as you’ll pay me more.’ I didn’t hire him, but later found out there was no other job offer. It was a scam to get a higher offer.”
“His attaché case opened when he picked it up and the contents spilled, revealing ladies’ undergarments and assorted makeup and perfume.”
“Candidate said he really didn’t want to get a job, but the unemployment office needed proof that he was looking for one.”
“… asked who the lovely babe was, pointing to the picture on my desk. When I said it was my wife, he asked if she was home now and wanted my phone number. I called security.”
“Pointing to a black case he carried into my office, he said that if he was not hired, the bomb would go off. Disbelieving, I began to state why he would never be hired and that I was going to call the police. He then reached down to the case, flipped a switch and ran. No one was injured, but I did need to get a new desk.”
I kind of miss the “Bud Bowl” — not because I watched it so much as because I enjoyed hearing my stoner roommates snicker in between handfuls of Funyuns every time the phrase was uttered on TV.
A magazine recently ran a “Dilbert Quotes” contest. The writers were looking for people to submit quotes from their real-life Dilbert-type managers. Here are some of the submissions:
1. As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks. (This was the winning entry; Fred Dales at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, WA)
2. What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter. (Lykes Lines Shipping)
3. How long is this Beta guy going to keep testing our stuff? (Programming intern, Microsoft IIS Development team)
4. E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business. (Accounting Mgr., Electric Boat Company)
5. This project is so important, we can’t let things that are more important interfere with it. (Advertising/Mktg. Mgr., UPS)
6. Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule. No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We’ve been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I’ll let you know when it’s time to tell them. (R&D Supervisor, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing / 3M Corp.)
7. My boss spent the entire weekend retyping a twenty-five-page proposal that only needed corrections. She claims the disk I gave her was damaged and she couldn’t edit it. The disk I gave her was write-protected. (CIO of Dell Computers)
8. Quote from the boss: “Teamwork is a lot of people doing what ‘I’ say.” (Mktg. executive, Citrix Corporation)
9. My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my boss, he said she died so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, “That would be better for me.” (Shipping Executive, FTD Florists)
10. We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees. (AT&T Long Lines Division)
11. We recently received a memo from senior management saying, “This is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the subject mentioned above.” (Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division)
12. One day my boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said, “If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!” (New Business Mgr., Hallmark Cards)
13. As director of communications, I was asked to prepare a memo reviewing our company’s training programs and materials. In the body of the memo one of the sentences mentioned the “pedagogical approach” used by one of the training manuals. The day after I routed the memo to the executive committee, I was called into the HR Director’s office, and was told that the executive VP wanted me out of the building by lunch. When I asked why, I was told that she wouldn’t stand for “perverts” (pedophiles?) working in her company. Finally he showed me her copy of the memo, with her demand that I be fired, with the word “pedagogical” circled in red. The HR Manager was fairly reasonable, and once he looked the word up in his dictionary and made a copy of the definition to send to my boss, he told me not to worry. He would take care of it. Two days later a memo to the entire staff came out, directing us that no words which could not be found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos. A month later, I resigned. In accordance with company policy, I created my resignation letter by pasting words together from the Sunday paper. (Taco Bell Corporation)
14. This gem is the closing paragraph of a nationally circulated memo from a large communications company: “Lucent Technologies is endeavoringly determined to promote constant attention on current procedures of transacting business focusing emphasis on innovative ways to better, if not supersede, the expectations of quality!”
This one is supposed to be a true story, told by a co-worker.
Any of you have those square electronic keys you press against a pad to open the building door? I worked at a relatively high-security building which had electronic locks. A thick plastic card pressed against the door pad unlocks the door so you can enter. Most of us guys kept the card in our back pocket and just pressed our ass against the pad to unlock the door.
A temporary worker was hired and we were surprised (and happy) to find that it was a young woman. Her first few days went by and one of us always happened to be nearby when she wanted in. I walked up one day and caught her rubbing her ass against the door pad — which didn’t unlock the door, since she didn’t have a card.
As I pressed my butt against the pad to let us both in, I told her, “You gotta fax your ass to corporate before you can get in this way.”
Since I was the first to arrive at our high-tech company one morning, I answered the telephone. When the caller asked for field engineering, I explained that it was before normal business hours, but that I would help if I could. “What’s your job there?” the caller asked me.
“I’m the president,” I replied.
There was a pause. Then he said, “I’ll call back later. I need to talk to someone who knows something.”
A friend from West Virginia was shopping at the Wal-Mart in Blacksburg, VA. At the cash register, my friend wrote a check.
The clerk asked for her driver’s license.
She presented her West Virginia driver’s license and the clerk grabbed it away from her and scoffed, “If you’re going to use a fake ID, you could at least use a real state!”
A manager was required to verify West Virginia’s statehood.
Several years ago there was an intern who was none too swift. One day he was typing and turned to a secretary and said, “I’m almost out of typing paper. What do I do?”
“Just use the copier machine paper,” she told him.
With that, the intern took his last remaining blank piece of typing paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five blank copies.
This guy walks into a bank and says to the teller at the window, “I want to open a fuckin’ checking account!”
To which the lady replied, “I beg your pardon, what did you say?”
“Listen up, dammit, I said I want to open a fuckin’ checking account right now.”
“Sir, I’m sorry but we do not tolerate that kind of language in this bank!” The teller left the window and went over to the bank manager and told him about her situation. They both returned and the manager asked, “What seems to be the problem here?”
“There’s no damn problem,” the man said. “I just won fifty million in the lottery and I want to open a fuckin’ checking account in this damn bank!”
“I see, sir,” the manager said. “And this bitch is giving you a hard time?”
The San Francisco Zoo has an elephant named Calle who has a chronic illness, requiring medication. The zoo people couldn’t get Calle to take her dose orally, so a California pharmacologist developed a suppository. The ten-inch-long, four-pound, cocoa-butter bullets are crafted by the good folks at Guittard Chocolates in Burlingame.
Administering the daily medication takes five zoo workers, including one person to distract Calle with treats and one person who wears a full-arm glove.
Why am I telling you this? Just think — five people have jobs worse than yours!
