Real Life "The Office" Moments

[DTH]

In (belated) celebration of Season 5 of The Office coming back on air, I was thinking about my own cringe-worthy memories. You know, those moments when you open your mouth, words come out, only what everyone else hears isn't what you thought you were saying resulting in everyone within earshot is staring at you and you really don't know why...

The worst (best?) moment I remember actually took place in my childhood. This was at lower school (I think I was about 7?) and I specifically remember we were learning about other countries.

We'd done America and Canada (I knew they were different because Canada invented maple syrup) and it was time for China.

There may have been other countries in between. They weren't as interesting as the land of maple syrup.

"China Day" involved not so much learning about the culture of China or their hundreds and hundreds years of history but more that they ate fried rice and apparently had skin the colour of lego men.

For you see, our head teacher (and this being 1983) wasn't the most enlightened of gentlemen and he thought it would best acclimatise us to the chinese by wearing yellow chalk on his face.

There, my first exposure to utter bewilderment and also, passive racism.

I would love to hear your "Office Moments"

[dex]

That's harsh, DTH. How old was the guy?

My "Office Moment": During recruit training an ensign gave a talk about WMD. His stance on nuclear weapons: overrated -- they are not as bad as you think. His argument: If they were really as devastating as everyone claims, there wouldn't be any Japanese around anymore to yammer about them, would there now?

I'm happy to say that no one agreed and no other officer ever voiced similar opinions. Still we never could figure out how this ensign's peculiar mind worked.

[DTH]

Oct 13, 2008 15:04:58 GMT -5 dex said:

That's harsh, DTH. How old was the guy?

I *think* he was born when the Old Testament first came out. But now I consider it, he was probably closer to 50.

If they were really as devastating as everyone claims, there wouldn't be any Japanese around anymore to yammer about them, would there now?

Aren't there just some lovely people in this world?

[TheLuckyOne]

I don't think this one compares to those told so far, but our team's been having bimonthly meetings at work to coordinate with the sales team and figure out ways to increase revenue. At our last one they had one of the salespeople talk about tactics she's used to increase sales, and she starts off by saying something along the lines of "Well, I start off every day with a nice healthy prayer. I mean, who knows if it really does anything, but it never hurts to have God on your side, right?" She says this half-joking, but in a voice that makes clear it's only half.

Now, without getting too personal, I do believe in God, and I do pray. And if you think He heard your prayer and decided to step in to help you close a big client, well hey, who am I to say otherwise? In which case you should certainly thank Him on your own time. But bringing it up in a business meeting, in front of a group of professionals from various backgrounds with personal beliefs you don't know, at least one of whom is Indian by culture... I mean, seriously? My boss later told the story to my wife and remarked that I have a great poker face because I didn't seem to react at all when everyone else blanched, but you could have fooled me. I thought my face probably showed the exact same thing it does when Michael Scott puts his foot in his mouth.

-D

[DTH]

Oct 13, 2008 22:24:17 GMT -5 TheLuckyOne said:

"Well, I start off every day with a nice healthy prayer. I mean, who knows if it really does anything, but it never hurts to have God on your side, right?"

Eesh. Either she's got "moxie" and "chutzpah" "coming out of the nines" (can anyone tell me what I just said?) or, just maybe, she needs to go on some kind of "How not to offend and alienate your colleagues" course.

And that's also the first time I said "Eesh".

I was discussing "Office Moments" with my girlfriend and her brother last night. He told me a great one.

He's a supervisor at a call centre that sells coal (I think its to give naughty children at christmas). He has a colleague we'll call "Mike".

"Mike" has a genuine gift to say EXACTLY the wrong thing at the wrong time.

A woman from their office, we'll call her "Phyllis", had been going on for weeks and weeks and weeks about her upcoming wedding. Naturally, it became a big event in the office. "Mike" couldn't make it.

So, wedding rolls by and Phyllis goes off for marriage and honeymooning. She comes back and Mike saunters in to the office and makes a beeline for her. He welcomes her back with gusto, asking after the wedding, going on about how nice it must have been, punching her on the arm and making a big song and dance.

By this time, the call centre has gone dead silent as everyone is sat staring at Mike in utter disbelief.

Mike eventually stops, realising that all he can hear are phones going in the background. No one is actually answering them.

Phyllis looks up at Mike and in a low voice says, "My fiancé dumped me by text an hour before the wedding. I went on holiday on my own. It was the worst week of my life."

Mike's face went a funny shade of purple.

[coccatino]

wow. wow. These are ridiculous.
My now-former-boss (yay!) ummm... "Steve" actually called me at my home at 10pm while I was on maternity leave to invite me to his house to attend a pitch for a get rich quick scheme. Once I returned to work he nagged me about it constantly. He insisted it wasn't a pyramid scheme but a 'multi level marketing plan.' riiiiight. He once poulled me into his office and shut the door, trying to convince me he's making 3K a week, and showing me his website- he keeps claiming it isn't a pyramid scheme, and the best part is, on his website, there is a graphic that shows where you are in "building your team" and it's an effing PYRAMID.

[PoolMan]

Is it selling some kind of juice? My mother's showing alarming tendencies in this category...

[coccatino]

nope- selling video phones. because clearly I should own one of these, and so should everyone else in my family. Because I really do need the visual confirmation that my father calls me while in his skivvies.

[PoolMan]

I thought of one, although it's pretty minor league compared to the ones above. However, it's MINE.

I used to work with a guy named Jagjeet, who was born in Canada but has dual citizenship with India, and still has lots of family there. He would occasionally go back to visit, etc.

After one such vacation, when he came back, I asked him, "So, Jag, how were things back in East India? <brain fart... Jag's incredulous stare> I mean, uh, just, um, India..."

We knew each other well enough that he knew it was harmless, but boy, that was a fun afternoon...

[BlackCatWhiteCat]

Oct 13, 2008 22:24:17 GMT -5 TheLuckyOne said:

"Well, I start off every day with a nice healthy prayer. I mean, who knows if it really does anything, but it never hurts to have God on your side, right?" She says this half-joking, but in a voice that makes clear it's only half."

Guh? Okay I'm certainly not one to attack beliefs, so please don't take this that way. But does that logic seem convoluted to anyone else?

" I mean, who knows if it really does anything...".
Why are you praying if you don't believe it does anything? And to that point, wouldn't a prayer prayed without belief fall on deaf ears?

"...but it never hurts to have God on your side, right?"
I'm not sure He's going to be on your side if you doubt he's going to help you.
And...well assuming He were on your side then it wouldn't matter, because you don't think He's going to help anyway!

I don't want this to turn this around into a religious conversation AT ALL. I just wanted to point out what I think is some strange logic coming from someone who already seems as if she's logically impaired.

[TheLuckyOne]

The only other "The Office" connection I can think of isn't particularly funny, so I apologize in advance; it's simply that my wife and I met at work, and five years later, still work at the same place. Now, I'm not entirely Jim and Lady Luck is definitely not Pam, but I still feel a slight twinge of kinship every time they show Jim and Pam's little in-jokes or them cracking up about the weird stuff coworkers do.

I guess the only funny aspect of it is that our company had just moved into a new office. I usually take the stairs, but that particular time I rode the elevator, and Lady Luck happened to be in it as well. Now, our lobby has big glass doors leading into the main office, with identical handles on each side of the door, and at the time there was no "push/pull" label. You probably see where this is heading... I gallantly tried to get the door for her, pushed, figured it was stuck and pushed harder, and after about two seconds she leaned forward and just said "...Pull." It opened, of course, I said something insanely witty at my own expense (which she to this day pretends not to have heard), then I walked (or as she tells it, fled) down the hall in the other direction. The end.

-D

[pfrsue]

Drew, that story never fails to bring tears to my eyes.

[Head Mutant]

A great pastime here at church is me giving the senior pastor Steve a hard time. I try not to be too obnoxious about it, but sometimes he leaves openings that have to be exploited.

Yesterday our church hosted a community Trunk-or-Treat event, where people decorated the trunks of their cars and kids from town would come and get a whoooooole bunch of candy in about 20 minutes. Really creative stuff. So we all dressed up in costumes -- I wore a gas mask and a bright yellow wig -- and Steve comes out in his traditional Pilgrim outfit.

Now, Steve just LOVES Thanksgiving and Pilgrims and all that. It's one of the foundations of our denomination (Congregationalists) and any opportunity to wear that outfit, he's all over it. So he comes walking over and I say,

"Heya, whatcha supposed to be? A Puritan superhero?"

"It's a Pilgrim outfit, Justin," he growls. "I wear it all the time."

"Yeah, but it has a cape in the back. Did the Pilgrims fly? Because why did they need the Mayflower then?"

He glares and stomps off. Round one to me.

Another funny Steveism is a couple months ago when a new member successfully convinced him to create a brochure for the church. Now Steve is many things, but marketing is a huge hit or miss with him, and he missed when he let the new member influence this pamplet, which was supposed to be a cheeky reference to what great strengths the Congregational church has and try to get away from stereotypes. We have stereotypes? I guess we do. So anyway, for SOME reason he references the Salem Witch Trials with the bold, attention-grabbing title of:

THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH: WE HAVEN'T BURNED A WITCH FOR 200 YEARS.

I swear on all that's holy, that's what he printed up. Nevermind, as I told him, that nobody got burned at the stake at the trials, or that pointing out a stupid incident in the past isn't a great marketing technique to get people to try out your product. Nope, we're the ex-witch burning church now.

/facepalm

[BlackCatWhiteCat]

Oct 20, 2008 12:56:51 GMT -5 Head Mutant said:

THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH: WE HAVEN'T BURNED A WITCH FOR 200 YEARS.

I swear on all that's holy, that's what he printed up.

You just.....CAN'T make stuff like that up. I hope you got a picture of that. That's priceless.

[DTH]

Oct 20, 2008 12:56:51 GMT -5 Head Mutant said:

I wore a gas mask and a bright yellow wig

Whoah, whoah whoah there, Mr Justin. You tried to slip that one right by us by burying it amongst a seemingly innocent game of "Wind Up The Pastor".

With that costume, I can only imagine that the aim of Trunk & Treat to terrify the little kids in to behaving?

"Remember kids, if you misbehave, Scary Gas Mask Man will come and DEVOUR YOUR SOUL!"