ThePenguinCometh
There is no escape
This probably isn't the biggest light bulb joke ever written but it's certainly up there! It's not fully completed yet, probably full of typos and bad grammar (apostrophes are a bitch) and there a few other gags which I'd like to put in there somewhere but I'd like to know what you think anyway. Too long? Too short? Doesn't make sense? Anything that should be in there that I missed?
All feedback welcome - enjoy!
All feedback welcome - enjoy!
Question: How many corporate employees does it take to change a lightbulb?
Answer: Thousands.
1 customer services department employee to submit a report to local management informing of the problem the users are experiencing with the existing blown bulb.
1 junior management employee to bring the report to the attention of the Head of Engineering.
1 Head of Engineering to submit a request for the formation of a two-man team to change the bulb.
1 regional exec to approve the request.
1 junior exec to be appointed as the team leader.
1 engineering department employee to be appointed as the team engineer.
1 marketing deptartment employee, in an inspired moment of genius or an advanced stage of inebriety depending on who you listen to, to propose the team be called LIBUREP and promptly go insane trying to everybody who asks that the name is an acronym for LIght BUld REplacement Project.
50 non-marketing employees to point out to the marketing employee that the acronym of Light Bulb Replacement Project is LBRP, not LIBUREP, which is a really crap name, prompting said marketing employee to lock himself in his office and sever all communication with non-marketing personnel.
1 other marketing employee to completely miss the arguement and announce the formation of the team on the company website formally christening it LIBUREP.
1 team leader to send out a broad appeal on the company's site for the cooperation of all the relevant departments with LIBUREP in the accomplishment of their task, and to predict a speedy and satisfactory completion of the project.
1 department head to ask what the hell the team leader is talking about and ask if the project has been approved by senior management.
1 junior employee to point out that LIBUREP is a really crap name.
1 team leader to point out to the department head that, as LIBUREP is only a short-term, two-man team, it does not need to be approved by senior management and can and has been approved locally.
1 cynical employee to point out that the term "a speedy and satisfactory completion of the project" is a kiss-of-death and to claim that the team leader will only complete the project when he quits out of sheer desperation.
1 marketing employee to point out that LIBUREP is actually a remarkably clever name and it is not easy to come up with such names as short notice and how would you like to do this stupid job.
1 cleaning lady to propose a job-swap with the marketing employee.
10 assembly-line workers to propose a job-swap with the cleaning lady.
200 database-entry clerks to propose a job-swap with the marketing employee, or the cleaning lady, or the assembly-line workers, or ANYBODY! PLEASE!!!
1 engineering dept employee to claim that the database-entry clerks deserve everything they get.
1 database-entry clerk to say that he would expect nothing less from someone whose sex-life consisted entirely of pretending to be a girl on Everquest, and propose that the entire engineering department be nailed to the nearest tree.
20 employees to second that motion.
1 employee to claim that actually if anybody deserves to be nailed to the nearest tree then it should be the whole of the sales department.
250 employees to second that motion.
1 engineering department employee to make a rather obscure joke about the clerks alleged questionable computer skills which nobody understands.
5 other engineering department employees to claim that that last joke was really funny.
1 database-entry clerk to make a rather blunt joke about the engineers alleged questionable parentage which everybody understands.
20 engineering department employees, 10 database-entry clerks, 5 sales department employees miffed at the earlier joke about them, 15 production-line workers who hate anybody who wears a tie and therefore side with the engineers, and 12 other employees whose involvement is unclear but are probably just joining in for the fun of it to indulge in a particularly nasty flame war that for a short while recieves even more hits than the unofficial "Office Babe of the Month" forum.
1 sysadmin to decide that he's gotten bored with the war and that, besides, the engineers seem to be winning right now, and call a halt to it by threatening to ban everybody.
1 team leader to report on his disappointment on the lack of cooperation he has been receiving from the rest of the staff and claim that if everybody was to spend more time actually doing their jobs and helping their fellow employees to do the same rather than spending their time sending abusive e-mails that the company would be much more profitable and effecient.
1 junior programmer who obviously hasn't gotten tired of the joke yet to suggest that if the company WAS more profitable and effecient then the team leader would be fired and replaced with a very small shell script.
1 employee to suggest that actually a gerbil would be more appropriate.
1 employee to point out that LIBUREP is a really crap name anyway.
1 team leader to request that this message board be kept free of spam please as he finds it distracting and counter-productive.
1 cynical employee to agree with the team leader and claim that it's hard to download porn videos with the amount of spam that is clogging up the companys bandwidth.
1 team engineer, who has obviously not been following the message board, to post and lengthy and detailed project schedule outlining the critical path of the project - consisting of a list of the necessary sub-products required from the relevant departments, an extensive itenary of the required tools, an exhaustive glossary of the technical terms used in the schedule, and a fully alphabetised index with easy reference sections listing all relevant departments and what is required of these - which nobody reads.
1 finance department employee, who has obviously not read the engineers report but is pretending he has, to rather grumpily inquire where the hell the LIBUREP team thinks they are going to get the money from and if they think they can just waltz in treasury and expect me to just had over a random sum of money out of the company kitty bag then .... at which point everyone reading the post realises they've read the same one a hundred times before and switches off.
1 team leader to point out to the treasury department employee that had he actually READ the engineers report then he would have seen that all the needed materials and tools are already available from the supplies department and that the treasury department was not even listed in the index.
1 treasury department employee to point out to the team leader that had the engineer actually written the report in english then he would have been able to read the report without falling asleep, claim that if he had done so then everyone would see just how clueless these bloody engineers are anyway, and call into question the team leaders ability to organise a drinking contest on the premises of a beer manufacturer.
1 engineer to call the treasury department employee an illiterate pen-pusher who can't tell the difference between a keyboard and a keyring and make a rather colourful description of his parentage.
1 treasury department employee to rather redundantly call the engineer a "geek", roll out the usual round of insults thus prompting another flame war until the sysadmin gets bored with it and makes the usual threats.
1 team leader to reiterate his plea for more cooperation from his colleagues rather than engaging in the kind of petty bickering that this message board has been clogged with.
1 supplies department employee, in what everyone assumes to be a witty piece of sarcasm, to tell the team leader that if he thinks he can just waltz in supplies and expect me to just had over a random bunch of materials out of the cupboard then ...
7 employees to send LOL's to that post.
1 supplies department employee to point out that he NOT being funny and express just how sick and tired he is of the way the supplies department is treated in this company and claim that everyone treats him like a lackey and thinks that the company is some sort of bottomless pit that everyone can just help themselves to ... etc., etc., etc.
20 employees to reply to the last post with "Yawn."
1 employee, obviously new to the forums, to ask what LOL means.
1 very senior, and very married, exec to write an intensly personal and intimate e-mail declaring his undying love for his 18-year-old, and very unmarried, secretary and outline, in rather gratitious detail, all of the anatomically improbable actions he would like to take to express his love which, rather embarrassingly, gets accidentally distributed to his entire mailing list.
150 employees from across the company to follow up on that e-mail by making unjustified comments about the execs personal life, quite libellous claims for the secretary's anatomial capabilities, and write highly sarcastic declarations of love for their household pets, keyboards, domestic appliances, etc.
1 employee to point out that LIBUREP is a really crap name.
1 team leader, who obviously had nothing better to do, to publish a detailed analysis of the amount of production time being spent by company employees sending pointless and inane e-mails to each other and comparing that with the amount of time that cooperation with the LIBUREP project would have taken if it had been granted when first requested in an attempt to appeal to everyone better senses in getting the necessary cooperation.
1 employee to point out that the term "LIBUREP project" is a redundancy and therefore gramatically incorrect.
1 employee to claim that if anyone in the company had any better senses then they'd be working for Microsoft.
1 network administrator to claim that if he ever had to go to work for Microsoft that he'd strap several hundred pounds of TNT to his body first.
1 employee to claim the bomb joke wasn't funny and was in very bad taste and that you shouldn't make jokes about terrorism in these times as it's a serious issue and a lot of people could be very offended by that kind of thing.
1 employee to say that he completely agrees with the last post, besides, if you ARE going to walk into Microsoft's office TNT isn't good enough, you're going to need a miniature nuke.
1 employee to ask who let the Linux freaks work here.
1 employee to tell the last poster that he didn't see him complaining when his e-mails server uptime went from 6% to 99.6%
1 employee to claim that if the Linux freaks had their way then we'd all be using DOS and that no-one would be able to use a computer unless they'd spent ten years studying programming.
1 employee to claim that that last post shows just how clueless some people are about Linux and that when we do finally take over the world and mount Gates' head on a flagpole outside the FSF's offices then we can always make you feel right at home by pulling the power cord out of your computer every half-an-hour.
60 employees to indulge in the usual flame war which lasts a lot longer than usual because the sysadmin really enjoys this one.
1 employee to claim that LIBUREP is a really crap name.
1 supplies department employee, still annoyed at the response his last post recieved, to complain about the requests that he has been recieving from LIBUREP and announce that he has reported the matter to Head Office as he is sure that this is not an approved project.
1 team leader, obviously straining to keep his temper - and his sanity - under control, to point out that he already stated that the project was originally meant to be a small, short-term project and therefore, per company policy, it did not need to be approved by Head Office and the only reason that it is still on-going is beacuse of the complete lack of cooperation that they have been recieving.
1 employee to claim that half the people here don't even know that the company has a policy.
1 Head Office rep to deny all knowledge of the existence of the LIBUREP project and state that there is no record of it ever being approved by Head Office.
1 employee to point out that the term "LIBUREP project" is BAD GRAMMAR, STOP USING THAT TERM.
1 team leader, quite clearly tethering on the edge of a nervous breakdown, to write an e-mail written entirely in caps to reiterate that fact that IT IS A *SMALL*, *SHORT-TERM* PROJECT AND D-O-E-S N-O-T N-E-E-D HEAD OFFICE APPROVAL!! CAN YOU GUYS PLEASE READ THE DAMNED POLICY AND STOP THIS S-T-U-P-I-D BICKERING!!
1 middle-management clerk, who has no know connection to LIBUREP but clearly has a grudge against the head office rep, to tell everyone to ignore the reps post as he has his head stuck so far up his backide that he's forgotten what the suns looks like.
1 head office rep to ask the clerk if he has noticed how similiar his wife's new baby looks to the head of the sales department.
1 sales department head to say that he resents that allegation by the head office rep, it couldn't possibly be his kid as they always used a condom.
1 clerk, 1 head office rep, 1 sales department head and two other employees whose exact involvement is unclear but which general consensus holds that they just jumped in for the hell of it to launch into a particularly vicious and abusive flame war that makes the earlier ones look mild by comparison until enough people complain to the sysadmin that he reluctantly makes the usual threats.
1 teenage employee, who obviously thinks that running gags are funny, to point out that LIBUREP is a really crap name.
1 veteran employee to make the usual complaints about how it was better in the olden days when we didn't have these fancy computers or message boards or mobile phones and to recall to anybody who has bothered to read this far how, when somebody had something they needed to get done, they didn't bother with all this coordination nonsense but went straight down to treasury, collected some money from the kitty bag and damn well did it themselves and make the claim that it was all so much better that way.
1 other veteran employee to ask the first one if that was before or after he got busted for embezzlement.
1 team engineer to publish the results of a meticulous survey of the ideal light bulb - which includes a fascinating essay on the requirements of such a bulb that states how such factors as room temperature, air humidity, geographical location of the room, and the expected schedule of the light bulb's users are often overlooked by light-bulb manufacturers yet are vital considerations in the search for the perfect bulb - which nobody reads.
1 team leader to write a desperate plea for all readers of this post to search inside their hearts and souls and please, by whatever shred of human decency they have in their possession, to recognise that cooperation with and care for their fellow man is so much more rewarding than the petty bickering that he has been assaulted with on this project and then go into a moving lament on how, if everyone was more aware of the people around them and took just that little bit more effort to help them in their difficulties and support them through their lives that the world would become a much better place in which to bring up our children.
30 female employees to offer to have the team leaders children.
1 team leader to say that rather dryly state that he's flattered but he's already taken thank you very much and besides, half those offers were probably from guys pretending to be girls anyway.
1 senior exec to announce that it has come to his attention that there is an unapproved project in operation, promptly declare the project officially disbanded and call for an immediate investigation into the circumstances surrounding it.
1 team leader to write a rather pitiful essay on his complete exasperation at the outcome of this project and the current state of the company and officially announce his resignation from the company.
1 employee to point out to the team leader how much money he is recieving for doing absolutely nothing.
1 team leader to quitely acknowledgement that fact and delete his last post.
1 team engineer, obviously oblivious to the fact that the project has been disbanded,to publish the findings of a highly detailed site survey of the location of the blown bulb - which gives full schematics of the room, a colour-coded wiring diagram, an exhaustive assessment of the type of ladder that can be used and their relative pros and cons, a mathematical assessment of the expected life-expectancy of the new bulb once it is installed, and requests beta-testers for a new program he has written using the Quake engine that will allow such a survey to be made fully automatic in the future - which nobody reads.
1 junior exec, still trying to recover from the emotional effects of a disasterous light-bulb replacement project, to recieve a note on his desk from Head Office informing him that he has been chosen to be the team leader of an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the formation of an unapproved project that had been discovered to be operating in the company and promptly have a nervous breakdown on the spot.
