OT - Jobs with Jokes

[AndyC]

It's census time here, and I just had someone come to the door yesterday around dinner time. When she said she was here for the census, my first thought was to invite her in for fava beans and a nice chianti. Then, upon further thought, I kept my mouth shut. It seemed that while she might find it funny and clever, I might also be the tenth idiot to make the joke that day. I decided to err on the side of caution.

It got me thinking about occupations that get a lot of the same jokes over and over, from people who are not aware that it is such an obvious joke, they aren't likely to be the first one to think of it. When I was a reporter, the common one was "You're a reporter? Everyone watch what you say!" That joke gets old very quickly. After a while, you just want to smack anybody who says it.

Anybody else had a job where you had to listen to the same "funny" comments from person after person?

[The Burgomaster]

When I was in my early to mid twenties I worked in a couple of shoe stores.  When MARRIED WITH CHILDREN came on TV in 1987, I started hearing the Al Bundy jokes.

[trekgeezer]

My first 15 years in the computer biz were with a company called Wang Labs. I hated it every time I met a new customer and they started in with the little jokes like they thought them up .

Example:

Did you know that Adam was the first computer operator? He had an Apple in one hand and a Wang in the other.  (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

[odinn7]

I worked as an auto mechanic for 15 years...I can't say there were too many funny jokes associated with it but I will say that many people just assumed I was a rip-off mechanic and I'm sure that fueled some unfunny jokes behind my back.

[PSlugworth]

When I was a customer service phone rep, I got a lot of "wow, you don't have an Indian accent!"  But that wasn't so much a joke, I don't think, as it was genuine surprise.

[LH-C]

For two weeks in the summer of 1998, I was a census worker. At least I made $500.

[LilCerberus]

The Burgomaster Wrote:
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> When I was in my early to mid twenties I worked in
> a couple of shoe stores.  When MARRIED WITH
> CHILDREN came on TV in 1987, I started hearing the
> Al Bundy jokes.


You're lucky. My name is Al.

Let's see; a Disney character, an SNL comedian, an accordian player, a shoe salesman, a cannibal,....

[LilCerberus]

This is my cousin's website

http://users.htcnet.org/bookbank/

He & his wife own a beautiful little spread in a small town up in the Alleghenies, where they converted an old bank office into a children's library, and he's converted a couple of old CM91 scooters into a pair of fine looking (and performing) racing machines.

I'm pretty proud of him...
And for some reason, people really hate that.

You see, the problem is that I can never talk about him without someone interrupting me with a litany of dry jokes about how he's a public defender in a part of the country that got in the papers a few years ago following a raid on an illegal distillery, where most people don't have money, so they often trade livestock in return for goods & services.

In other words, every time I talk about him, I have to put up with the same old stupid cracks about sheep farmers & moonshiners.

So, for example, I’ll be telling someone about that time he was at the off road trials, & he t- “No, he raises them for slaughter.” So, anyway, he took a wrong turn onto the pro co- “No, I can’t ‘hook you up’, that was in another county.” So, anyway, he doesn’t realize that he’s on the pro course, and he spots this b- “Uh, you’re thinking of the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion.” So, he spots this big-ass log sitting right across the trail, and he man- “YEAH, YEAH, I KNOW, I KNOW! IT WOULD’VE BEEN CALLED A TEETHBRUSH!” So, he spots this big-ass log just in time to jump it, and he sees that he’s just launched himself the wrong way over a twenty foot- “FOR THE LAST TIME, HE RAISES THEM FOR SLAUGHTER! OKAY? HE KILLS THEM, AND HE EATS THEM! SHEESH!”

[Shadowphile]

Elevator Operators.  I wonder how many times they're asked if the job has it's ups and downs...

I did encounter one guy at a Disney park playing the role of a character named Graves, the butler at a comedy club.  He started in with funeral puns immediately (probably as a defense) and I of course had to chime in.  He won the battle (it's hard to work against a prepared script) but he seemed to enjoy the exercise and we had everyone within hearing range groaning....

[LH-C]

I checked out your cousin's site - That is pretty cool! A lot of towns don't have anything like that!

[LilCerberus]

I used to be what they called a "mail inserter" at a local newspaper. No, I wasn't that guy with the cheap tie who showed up pushing a big cart around 11:am everyday. As a matter of fact, I can't understand whr my official title was "mail inserter" when I was actually diong Binder's Assistant's work.

But I digress. Basicly, I was part of the opperation that puts all those ads & coupons in your Sunday paper.

Whenever I told people that I put all those ads & coupons in their Sunday paper, they would always reply with "So now we know who to blame." This changed, however, after modified my description from "I put all those ads & coupons in your Sunday paper" to "I put all those *annoying* ads & coupons in your Sunday paper." After I started adding the word "annoying", people would get defensive & say how much they loved all those annoying ads & coupons.

Anyhoo, I don't think anyone's mentioned dentists yet.
Something I've noticed over the years is that younger dentists really despise dentist jokes, whereas older denists, eh, don't seem to mind. In the movies, dentists always despise dentist jokes, but my stepdad, who's an 81 year old dentist seems to love them.

I guess, like some occupations, it's just something that we mere mortals may never understand.

[Mofo Rising]

lilcerberus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anyhoo, I don't think anyone's mentioned dentists
> yet.
> Something I've noticed over the years is that
> younger dentists really despise dentist jokes,
> whereas older denists, eh, don't seem to mind. In
> the movies, dentists always despise dentist jokes,
> but my stepdad, who's an 81 year old dentist seems
> to love them.

Damn Anti-Dentites.

[Mr_Vindictive]

I work as network administration for a medium sized ISP, and I get a few jokes every now and then.  On occasion I'll bump into someone from high school and they'll ask what I'm doing now. I tell them network admin, and 9 times out of 10, they'll make a Nick Burns joke which gets on my nerves more and more each time I hear it.  The Nick Burns sketches on Saturday Night Live weren't that funny, and I can't stand Jimmy Fallon.  I guess I'm in the minority there.

As someone else mentioned, I used to get the "wow, you're American" joke when I used to do tech support.  Decently funny the first time, not so much after about the hundreth call.

[AndyC]

I Just remembered another one, but it might require some explanation. A few years back, Canadian broadcasters started showing little "heritage minutes" featuring great Canadian achievements. These were cheesy little dramatizations that would often make great fodder for jokes. One, featuring the pioneering neurosurgeon Dr. Wilder Penfield, had him poking around in a woman's brain to find the source of mysterious seizures that were always preceded by the smell of burning toast. The big moment had him finally hitting the spot, at which point the woman joyfully declares "I smell burnt toast!" This became kind of a catchphrase for a while.

Anyway, a guy I used to work with was telling me about a procedure he had, in which a wire was threaded up into his brain and his responses studied. Of course, he said "Dr. Penfield, I smell burnt toast!" The doctor just groaned. Apparently, every patient had been saying that since the spot began to air, and the poor guy had to listen to it over and over and over. The great shame of it is that the joke is really funny if you only hear it once.

[trekgeezer]

The one thing I liked about those skits was when he tell the end user to get out of the way and let him have the keyboard.

Myself and the other network guys where I work used like the CDW commercials with Fred the IT guy (the ones before they actually started showing Fred). Anyway they were first person and always had some clod telling Fred he helped by deleting those files off the server or something. We found them amusing because they were so true to life.


(Back in the old Windows 3.1 days I actually did have a guy delete those "pesky .dll's" because they kept generating errors.)