(It is a slow day, and my coworkers and I are clustered around my desk, talking. Slowly, the topic drifts around to workplace pranks. One of my coworkers has the following story:)

Coworker: “At my last job, we all kept playing pranks on each other. One day, I got the idea to put anchovies in people’s drinks. This one guy got like, three-quarters of the way through his drink before he saw the anchovies at the bottom. Then he puked, so he got sent home. I got that guy a whole day off of work. Somehow, he didn’t want to thank me.”

(Some coworkers and I are having our break in a lunchroom. It’s quiet in the lunchroom with some music softly playing. We’ve had a stressful, hectic morning, so we’re fine just eating our food and relaxing. Two women and a six- or seven-year-old boy come in and sit down at a table on the other end of the lunchroom. Within a minute, the boy gets up and starts running up and down the lunchroom with his arms spread, making noises like he’s a jet fighter. With every turn he makes he increases his volume to the point where he is screaming. The two women don’t notice this because they are completely absorbed in their phones. My Indian coworker grabs the boy by the arm as he passes our table again screaming at the top of his voice. In a quiet voice, my coworker tells the boy to sit down and shut up or he’ll take him to the toilets and flush him. The boy starts crying and one of the women comes storming at our table. When she’s near enough to hear him, my Indian coworker says:)

Coworker: “And that, my boy, is the reason why it is not nice to call people like me a brown ape.”

(The woman’s face turns red, she pulls the boy away from my coworker, and she leaves the place with her friend in a hurry. My coworker smiles and just says:)

Coworker: “Ah, peace. The most precious thing in our society.”

(I’m a receptionist. People can borrow beamers/projectors and laptops for presentations elsewhere in the building. A coworker hands in a set he borrowed.)

Coworker: “You gave me a broken projector!”

Me: “That’s odd. I hadn’t heard any other complaints about it. Let me check it.”

Coworker: “I had a presentation for guests and we had to huddle around the laptop. It was humiliating! And— What are you doing?”

Me: “Hooking things up. That way I know what is wrong and I can tell the service desk what needs to be fixed.”

Coworker: “You are hooking it up wrong! This cable needs to go here!”

(I look at our projector. It’s the fool-proof kind, color-coded and all. I also have quite the technical knowledge, but I double check, just in case.)

Me: “Well, let’s see what it does when I put the blue VGA-cable into the blue VGA-port… Huh, it works. Which port did you say you used?”

Coworker: “I, eh… I guess we picked the wrong port.”

(He hurried away. He apparently picked a port that said, “Monitor out,”’ to hook up an extra screen. I don’t even know why that projector has that port, but I guess I’ll now have to say, “The blue cable goes into the blue port,” for extra clearance.)

(Our company is multinational and, as such, we often get people in the office with different accents. Sometimes they are looking for specific people on the floor and they will approach an agent since people move around a lot.)

Agent: “Hi, I’m looking for Bin?”

Coworker: “Bin? Just a normal one? Or a secure one? They’re on the end of the row.” *gestures*

Agent: “Nah, nah, BIN. On the floor.”

(If you haven’t worked in a call centre, this is where everyone who doesn’t work in a specific office is,)

Coworker: “Oh, a fluid bin, for your coffee? There’s one in the kitchen; it’s just off the right.”

(He gets up and shows the agent, leading by his elbow, to the drinks bin, and, helpfully demonstrates how to dispose of coffee buy grabbing this man’s coffee, which happens to be completely full, pouring it slowly down the fluid repository and then placing the cup in one of the slots.)

Coworker: “See? Bin.”

Agent: “No, no, no, BIN [Last Name]! D’ya know where I can find BIN [Last Name]?!”

Coworker: *returns to his desk looking mortified* “So… he was saying BEN the whole time, right?”

Me: “Oh, yeah, the South African branch are visiting this week. Probably should have caught on to that. Sorry!”

(I currently share an office with [Coworker #1], and [Coworker #2] sits just outside. [Coworker #1] is having some problems with a project and has been asking me to put her out of her misery for a few hours.)

Coworker #1: *sighs* “[My Name], I need you to just take me out.”

Me: *immediately* “Sorry, you’re not my type.”

(There was a moment of silence before [Coworker #2] started laughing and [Coworker #1] decided to just ignore me.)