I stepped out to buy some flowers for my wife while on break at work today. She’s an amazing woman and I like to bring her flowers from time to time for no other reason other than I love her and to make her smile. Walking back into the office with flowers in my hand always gets the same old, over-used, just-not-funny-anymore joke. Everyone I passed by said pretty much the same thing: “For me? Really, you shouldn’t have!” Seriously, every single co-worker I passed said that same phrase almost word for word. I get this every time I step in the office with flowers in my hand. I always do my polite, fake chuckle back, sometimes playing along. You kind of have to do that. It’s expected, even though the joke, that same old joke, is never funny.

Do you get this in your office? It’s not limited to my walking in with flowers either, there are a lot of repeated, over used, just not funny jokes that fly around. I’ll probably write about others in the future. If any of them were funny the first time I ever heard them… they’re sure not funny now after hearing it a hundred times. But people keep hammering on them over and over. They think they’re being witty and funny, but they’re not witty or funny. Not when it’s the same jokes every time. For a joke to be witty or funny, it has to be somewhat unexpected. These jokes are about as unexpected as the sun setting in the evening.

Don’t get me wrong – I both like and get along really well with my co-workers. I just don’t see the reason for the same stupid jokes each and every time [whatever] repeating situation arises. It’s like when someone burps and someone else replies with a “bless you” or “gazoontite” expecting a laugh because of it. Maybe they keep doing it because everyone keeps offering their fake polite laughs. Maybe it’s just a part of office culture everywhere. I’d be lying if I said I don’t do this myself sometimes, but in all honestly, at least I try to go for the lesser used gags rather than the obvious, already been-beat-to-death ones. Sometimes, I even come up with something genuinely funny and new… and then one of my co-workers will repeat it to everyone else in the office and end up getting wit-credit for MY joke. Grrr. That’s another annoying office trend, and a rant for another day.