favourite joke

Do you have a favourite joke? You know the one – you are with new people, someone tells a joke and you just jump in with your joke and you just know you will get a laugh? I too had a favourite joke but last time I told it was back in 1984. Let me share what happened.

I was a 30 year old, our first son was 3 years of age and my wife was pregnant with our daughter. I had just changed my job from an assistant accountant in a small engineering firm to become the Regional Accounting Manager for a large company with a large increase in my salary, plus a car plus expenses. And from a job with no staff to a job overseeing over 30 employees. Those 30 people were represented by 6 heads of dept of which 4 were women and 2 blokes. So I am into my 3rd or 4th week into my new job and at our weekly meeting I decided to tell MY JOKE:

“Now I am not saying my wife is ugly, but last time she went to a beauty parlour she was there for 3 hours – and that's only to get a quote!” Funny yes? Of course it was funny because every time I told it I always got a laugh even when I told it in front of my wife.

The next Friday at about 4.15pm my boss’s secretary came into the office and tells me that Mr. Lee would like to see me in his office.  Something was wrong! I knew it. As I said I had only been with the company for 3 to 4 weeks and every time Mr. Lee wanted to talk to me he would come to my office. So with my guts feeling uneasy I strolled into his office and he tells me to close the door behind me. Now I really feel there is something wrong.

As I sat down he tells me: “We have a problem with you young man! None of the staff out there want to work with you. Apparently you have been telling sexist jokes demeaning women. All the women don’t want to work with you and the blokes say you are arrogant”. Wow! What the hell happened here? All of sudden I didn’t feel well at all. I sat there looking at him not knowing what to say. I felt so lonely and all I could think of was my pregnant wife, our mortgage and what will I do next. It felt like I was there for hours. Didn’t know what to say or what to do. He looked at me and before I could say anything he asked me “What are you going to do?” Well, what can I do? – I stuffed up and the only thing I could do was to offer my resignation. I was just about to do it when he followed up with: “I will tell you what you are going to do! I got you here because you are one of the best “numbers man” I have worked with and I need you on board. You have 3 months to get rid of all of them and get your own people on board. We have a job to do here and we are going to do it with the right people”.

The story goes on and becomes more interesting as to what happened in the next 12 months but that’s for another blog (may be).

Has YOUR favourite joke ever caused you any problems in the past?