(My coworkers and I are technical writers. The product that we document includes an automatic tester feature. My coworker is reviewing a draft of the manual.)
Coworker: “[My Name], there’s a typo here. It says ‘automatic testes.’”
Me: “I guess that means our product has balls.”
(A work friend and I are having a conversation. I am a sci-fi geek whereas she is decidedly not.)
Friend: “What are you up to this weekend?”
Me: “Oh, just a quiet weekend. I’m making a comic book at the moment, so will just focus on drawing that.”
Friend: “Oh cool! Like superheroes? I want to be a superhero; put me in it!”
Me: “It’s a sci-fi comic actually. You can be an alien.”
Friend: “I don’t want to be an alien.”
Me: “How many tentacles do you want? Three or seventeen?”
Friend: “I said superhero!”
Me: “And eyes, one or three?”
Friend: “I’m starting to feel disrespected now.”
Me: “Two eyes are so last year.”
Friend: “Be careful. I know where you live.”
Me: “Would you like your species to procreate like normal, or do you want to lay eggs? Eggs are always good.”
Friend: “I’m done with you now. You’re not obeying me.”
(A man knocks on the door of our second floor office – note the floors are leased to different companies.)
Man: “We’re just doing some plumbing downstairs and we need to make sure nobody uses the toilet over the next hour or so.”
Me: “Sure. I can put a sign up, but just so you know our urinals flush automatically.”
Man: “That’s fine as long as nobody is using them.”
Me: “Are you sure? They will flush themselves. I’m pretty sure it does it throughout the day.”
Man: “It’s fine, just make sure nobody uses them.”
(I shrug at him, thinking he must know otherwise or the urinals didn’t matter, and let everyone know, then head to town for lunch. On my return…)
Colleague: “Some guy came up shouting that we’d flushed the toilet.”
(Sometimes you really wish you could have been there…)
(My boss is trying to get people to volunteer for a project. No one is very keen.)
Boss: “So? Would anyone like to do this? Any volunteers?”
Employees: *awkward silence*
Boss: “All right, [Name #1] and [Name #2]. Nobody volun-teered, so now I have to volun-tell people to do things.”
(I’m sitting at work when I suddenly get an IM from a normally serious professional friend. It’s a frowny face emoji. Confused, I IM him back.)
Me: “Uh, hi?”
Friend: *slow string of random animated emoji over several minutes*
Me: “Uh… [Friend], are you pocket… IMing me?”
Friend: *IMs me a map location of [Friend #2]’s office and 12 more assorted emoji*
Me: *I call [Friend #2]* “Uh, is [Friend] there? He just sent me 20 minutes of happy animated emoji and a map to your office.”
Friend #2: “…What he means to say is send us pizza or the phone gets it!”
(Half an hour later.)
Friend: “Oh, I forgot to lock my phone while I was at lunch with [Friend #2], and I think I accidentally sent you some messages…”
