![Bro, you are the J.O. king! J.O.K.! I'm just JOking, bro! [That sentence is a palindrJOme.]](http://hijinksensue.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2012-02-23-guest-comic-by-kris-wilson-of-cyanide-and-happiness.jpg "Bro, you are the J.O. king! J.O.K.! I'm just JOking, bro! [That sentence is a palindrJOme.]")
Wil Wheaton and I got excited and made this “Fighting Time Lords” shirt for you!
JoCo Cruise Crazy II Guest Week is stranded up on a desert island! I am surviving on the contents of the buffet trays that keep washing ashore and have constructed a rudimentary shelter out of David Willis. The good news is the drinks are now free. The bad news is the drinks are all sea water. Those of us that remain has formed a simple organizational hierarchy, but I fear for the safety of Piggy. I just don’t think he has what to takes to not be murdered. HEY A CRAB!
Sometime around 1997 Kris Wilson along with an elite group of boobies-obsessed preteens, middle aged engineers and Rupert Murdoch met in secret to write the original charter for the Internet. Kris was the one that decided on the “dot” in “.com” due to its ressemblance to both a dick hole and the dickhole-shaped birthmark he has on his dickhole. At only 15 years old, this dude was shaping the very web-o-tron that we live, work and prey on today. Was his early entry into the hall of eHeroes a case of child prodigy, lax parenting or both? The answer, like our collective innocence, is lost to the ages. The answer is also “both.”
There are few people on this planet whose company I enjoy more than Kris Wilson’s. And that is saying a lot considering he spells his name like a girl and he was born in Wyoming. We met at C2E2 2010 in Chicago and within moments we were singing karaoke’d Creed to a party of drunken bride’s-harpies. It was a fast friendship after that and an even faster, more furious courtship. I expect the court proceedings to be even more so 5ast and 5uriou5.
Kris is one of those guys that’s down for anything, ready to run with any joke premise no questions asked and would rather lift up those around him than bring them down or see them fail. These attributes are what has kept him alive all these centuries and what will make facing him in The Cartoonist Quickening all that much harder. Still, I shall have his head for my trophy belt. My belt of heads. It is impossible to sit down while wearing that thing.
He and his Explosm cohorts (one of which is on a boat with me right now! Hi Rob! Can you get me another rum punch? No? You’ve forgotten how to walk? Whale venom will do that to you.) are working on a TV pilot for Comedy Central right now. At least I’ll be able to say, “I knew him when…” and “Can I borrow like $40,000? I KNOW you got it man! I KNOW YOU GOT IT! YOU COCKSUCKER! THEY’RE GOING TO TAKE MY HANDS! MYYYY HAAAAAANDS!”
The above comic illustrates everything I love about being a self-employed cartoonist. The dialog comes straight from a BUSINESS EMAIL between me, Kris and a few others. BUSINESS. Like the stuff you get paid for. That kind of business. What?
COMMENTERS: What conversation, activity, or other whatever have you been the most shocked by (either positively or negatively) in a business setting? One time my old boss called me into his office to look at something that was wrong with his computer. When I got there he typed on his screen, “You can totally see down [female coworker]’s top from here. She keeps shaking her foot and making them bounce. I can’t get any work done. I don’t know what to do?”
One of my bosses and some fellow business leaders in the are were talking about industrial equipment. One of which was made by (I think) Seamens (some spelling of the word, at any rate). Who wanted 40,000 dollars to come out and fix up their machine (a new one from other companies was about that price). Which, in reply to such a number, one of the men replies. "That name is ironic, 'cause of what they pretty much just tried to do to you."
It took all I could muster to keep from laughing louder than the rest of the group (as well as throwing up). The awkwardness was also at max since the boss I was with also happens to me my Dad.
Y'know, until just now I never realized how Siemens (it's German) sounds when you pronounce it with an American accent… CANNOT UNHEAR!
That's it! I'm ashamed I didn't know it was German (the machine came over with our German engineer. I just failed to put 2 and 2 together).
And I'm sorry for breaking your head every time you hear that company's name again.
Easily the most awkward/shocking work related moment I've experienced happened while I was in a bar waiting for my friend's band to play. I started feeling something odd brushing my back a couple of times and turned around to see my VP and all the top sales people in my department drunk off their asses throwing peanuts at me and giggling like 7th graders. Even more awkward was later watching two of them (married, not to each other) slow dancing and half groping each other, once again like the aforementioned 7th graders.
On the plus side I learned that maturity is not a requirement for success, so hooray for that.
It could be a circle if you used your free hands to spin each other around like a centerfuge. That's how astronauts do it at any rate.
I write copy for business websites and one of our accounts in December was a sex shop. There was a web developer in the office who REALLY wanted to work on that site. It got weird.
I worked in a video store back in college (many moons ago when said business, whose name is also a tall edifice, was still a viable business) and one night Wil effing Wheaton came in. He was in town doing some show or something across the bay. I got his autograph and opened a new account for him so he could rent a not-small stack of pornos.
I have so many inappropriate work stories, it actually makes me wish I could work somewhere a little more tame (and these aren't even all from the same job). Maybe it's just my industry that's so full of dirty birds…
Many years, and 3 jobs ago, one of the women in the department I supervised called me over to her computer. She wanted to show me pictures of the fun weekend she'd had. I was a little unsettled to see her load a "party bus" website's gallery, but that was nothing compared to the shock of hearing "Oh, there I am!" while my subordinate pointed to a pair of titties being flashed out the bus window… Yes, she had in essence just flashed her boss. On purpose.
Then, at the next company I worked for, the coworker in the cubicle beside mine provided me with MANY inappropriate work stories:
– Like the time I walked by his desk on my way to the printer, and got a face full of hardcore porn coming from his screen. At 10am. Right in the main path to the printer that everyone in the department shared and had to walk to several times a day (several times an hour for some).
– Or the time I overheard him making a call to set up an escort service — and planning out their evening together. From his desk phone. Again, right in the middle of the work day, in the middle of a dozen+ cubicles.
– I think the most awkward though was the time he decided to engage me in a conversation about an episode of the show "The L Word." Which he couldn't help but punctuate with gestures and lasciviously mimed bodily actions. Like twisting his nipples through his shirt, and thrusting his pelvis while discussing strap-ons and nipple clamps.
At my current place of employment, we have a coworker who daily regales us with stories of her sexual conquests, her husband's penile piercings, and descriptions of various injuries her genitalium has sustained.
Now, I'm a pretty open-minded guy. I'm queer, kinky, poly, and sex-positive in general. But I know when it's reasonable to discuss certain topics (even in the workplace, with the right setting/audience), and when someone is just bludgeoning others with their inappropriateness for the attention. That's the part that makes me shake my head.
Am I the only one who has ever found it totally inappropriate when the whole team (business unit, whatever) HAS to attend a bridal or baby shower for X-person who is getting married or having a baby? Happens all the effin' time, and I really hate it. I'm like, can't this be done at lunchtime?
Not at work, but about work: my mom (RN) and I were talking about the different qualification levels of nurses. My mom was giving a great example from a hospital which ended with: "This floor doesn't have aids".
I totally lost it.
The Cartoonist Quicken should totally be a thing.
Joel.
Comic.
Now.
Do it.
Sorry, he only accepts dares via Twitter.
I work at Medieval Faires so I think I may be disqualified for odd workplace conversations/comments,…but here is one that kind of sticks out,….. we were down in Ft Lauderdale doing a show and one of the booth workers decides to go out an party quite hard and ends up so screwed up the bartender actually calls him a cab and pays for it just to get him out of the bar,….he gets back to camp and proceeds to head to the tent of this girl he was interested in and attempts to persuade her to come back to his tent [or to let him in her tent],..he gets so loud and such that some of us come over to investigate what the yelling is about. We politely ask him to go back to his tent to sleep it off, he gets mad and starts to swing and flail around [trying to fight us all],….. one of the other people nearby decides to call the cops since she thought he had tried to force the girl instead of just persuade her [he may have been drunk but all he did was talk, he never touched her or never tried to],..when the cops get there the guy in question is laying on the ground with one of our friends sitting on him holding him down. Now the funny part is the fact that most of us have nicknames we use on the road and not our given names,….. at one point in the Police Report it says "and then Buddha sat on Jesus" because none of those involved agreed to give their given names instead using the name they answer to on a daily basis,…. to this day whenever anything odd happens at show we will look at the person and say "and then Buddha sat on Jesus,..the End",…..
See, those are the stories that are worth hearing. Write a book someday.
I would laugh and pull out my wallet if Joel made this into a T-Shirt. Or if you did. My wallet is still game.
fancy bastards unite! sharksplode.com is pimping a 'doctor is in' shirt that's pretty much a blatant ripoff of joel's 10th doctor shirt (theirs is 11, but they're not fooling me!) i posted a comment on their site — you know what to do! (this is friday, 22 feb – their shirts are only up for 24 hours…)
STUPIDSTUPIDSTUPID — i meant to say Shirt Punch: http://www.shirtpunch.com/index.php
Created an account and left a comment directing others to Joel's shirt. That design is close enough that I can't see it being a coincidence. 🙁
Well, this was at work but it wasn't really a very business-like setting, ha ha ha (physical labour eh). Still, I think the least business-like moment that I personally witnessed (I have heard tales of far worse) was when one of my coworkers came into the lunch room yelling "You guys are so GROSS!" to the guys in the hall.
Ends up they were trying to guess what the other guys had had for breakfast by smelling their burps.
Could have been worse; could have been dinner and farts, I guess? Gods, you guys.
Also there was the time I started a new job and on the first day my boss took me into his office to show me pics from the last year's Christmas party. Well, okay, one pic. Of a former female employee sitting almost naked (she had a G-string on) in his lap.
Wheeee.
In my first job, one of my managers was hazing me. She was hazing me a lot.
She pulled me aside (AFTER calling her on it in a note to the store manager) and tried to reassure me that she does that to *all* new employees.
I almost got her fired, but I left for a better job instead.
My boss once drunkenly told me that he'd "give me a frozen paycheck with his penis on it." It made sense in context (sort of), but I'm pretty sure he can NEVER fire me now.
Um… was it printed on the paycheck? Or did he freeze it to the paycheck?