We're Supposed to be Silent I Guess...

There have been occasions for all of us when we are reading something on our computer during work (this site? maybe? come on...) and a one-liner catches us off guard. We inexplicably let out a quick but hearty laugh that was sure to be heard by the entire office. This is an unacceptable act by office standards because let's be honest, nothing about work is ever humorous to the point that a boisterous laugh should be heard. Thus, anytime laughing occurs in the office, you know someone is putting their work aside and instead focusing on other activities (the same can be said if you hear someone moaning at their desk, but that person might have some other issues going on).

Right after it happens your first act will be to hide the laugh with a stern cough or rustling of work papers, but these never work. They always know. My standard response when I'm caught by someone is "I just had an hysterical email forwarded to me, sorry for disturbing you guys." When they ask you to send it to them, you sadly state that you immediately deleted it off the hard drive, but you'll send them the next one.

Even worse, at my last job my boss purchased a new chair for his office and gave me his old one, a black leather recliner. She was comfortable, pretty, and made everyone in my office crazy jealous of me. There was a problem however. Anytime you would move a quarter-inch the chair would make a sound that was reminiscent of someone emitting gas. Now I know what you're thinking, 'a lot of couches and chairs do that, and it's pretty obvious to the other people around that it was the furniture making the noise'. Ah, but not this chair my friends. There were times when even I wasn't sure if I had farted or not, that's how damn convincing this thing was.

Finally, when a new girl started and occupied the cube next to me I had to give up the chair out of fear of being embarrassed. Obviously I offered my chair to the new girl as a Welcome to the Office gift, which she found incredibly thoughtful, although she had no idea about the noises that would soon discharge. She would actually say 'that was the chair' whenever she moved around, to which I would respond with 'yea, sure it was.' This ended up being the perfect way to bring down her self-esteem enough to the point that she accepted a dinner offer, which eventually turned in to a full on relationship. This also happens to be the reason that I advise never to get involved with coworkers, considering she ended up being insane.