Some observations — and advice — for working in an office:

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• To err is human, to forgive is not company policy.

A blonde who had been unemployed for several months got a job with the County Public Works. She was to paint lines down the center of a rural road.

The supervisor told her that she was on probation and that she must stay at or above the set average of two miles per day to remain employed.

The blonde agreed to the conditions and started her new job right away. The supervisor checking up at the end of the day, found that the blonde had completed four miles on her first day, double the average! “Great,” he told her, “I think you’re really going to work out.”

The next day, however, he was disappointed to find that the blonde only accomplished two miles. The supervisor thought, “Well she’s still at the average and I don’t want to discourage her, so I’ll just keep quiet.”

On the third day, the blonde only did one mile and the boss thought, “I need to talk to her before this gets any worse.”

The boss pulled the new employee aside and says, “You were doing so great. The first day you did four miles, the second day two miles, but yesterday you only did one mile. Why? Is there a problem? An injury, equipment failure? What’s keeping you from meeting the two mile minimum?”

The blonde replied, “Well, each day I keep getting farther and farther away from the bucket.”

Following the problems in global economy, uncertainty has now hit Japan.

In the last seven hours Origami Bank has folded, Sumo Bank has gone belly up and Bonsai Bank announced plans to cut some of its branches.

Yesterday, it was announced that Karaoke Bank is up for sale and will likely go for a song, while today shares in Kamikaze Bank were suspended after they nose-dived.

Samurai Bank is soldiering on, following sharp cutbacks, Ninja Bank is reported to have taken a hit, but they remain in the black.

Furthermore, 500 staff at Karate Bank got the chop and analysts report that there is something fishy going on at Sushi Bank where it is feared that staff may get a raw deal.

A newly married sailor was informed by the Navy that he was going to be stationed a long way from home on a remote island in the Pacific for a year.

A few weeks after he got there he began to miss his new wife, so he wrote her a letter.

“My love,” he wrote, “we are going to be apart for a very long time. Already I’m starting to miss you and there’s really not much to do here in the evenings.”

“Besides that,” he continued. “we’re constantly surrounded by young attractive native girls. Do you think if I had a hobby of some kind I would not be tempted?”

So his wife sent him back a harmonica saying, “Why don’t you learn to play this?”

Eventually his tour of duty came to an end and he rushed back to his wife.

“Darling” he said, “I can’t wait to get you into bed so that we make passionate love!”

She kissed him passionately and said, “First, let’s see you play that harmonica.”

A very small female janitor (4′10″, 90 pounds) worked at an amusement park and was told to go out and sweep up the grounds.

As she was getting ready to head out to clean up, her supervisor noticed her putting rocks in her pockets.

When asked what she was doing, she pointed out that it was so windy out she was afraid of getting knocked over by the wind.

“And you think this is going to help?” asked her boss.

“Sure,” she said, “now I weigh me down to sweep.”

A mathematician, an accountant and a public relations officer all applied for the same job with a large company.

The interviewer called in the mathematician first and asked, “What does two plus two equal?”

The mathematician replied, “Four.”

The interviewer asked, “Four, exactly?”

The mathematician looked at the interviewer incredulously and said, “Yes, of course: four, exactly.”

Then the interviewer called in the accountant and asked the same question, “What does two plus two equal?”

The accountant said, “On average, four — give or take 10 percent, but on average, four.”

Then the interviewer called in the public relations officer and again posed the same question, “What does two plus two equal?”

The public relations officer got up, locked the door, closed the shade, sat down next to the interviewer and whispered, “What do you want it to equal?”

Motivation

Motivation: It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I just don’t care.