Baldfaced names

A review on GoodReads had a delightful slip:

Ok, when I first started reading this, I thought that it was the same as Joshua Ferris's book "Then We Came to The End" except that Joshua Ferris's story was better. Both are set in the modern work-place: lay-off fever has gripped the office and both are about the trivial details with which we become obsessed in our daily work days. But in the end, I think it's a dead heat: both books are very funny. Ed Harris's novel definitely improves with reading. By the last section--written in a kind of stream-of-consciousness way--I couldn't put the book down. But the funniest thing about this book? "The Jilliad." Keep your eye out for it.

Human tape recorder

You confess to a colleague that you're worried about your supervisor, who hasn't been very focused the last three weeks and has been coming in late to work. Later that day, like a game of office telephone, you hear a version of your story from a different co-worker, and it's not hard to figure out the source. The Tape Recorder takes your confidential conversations and plays them back to everyone in the office. The person's motivation is often to feel important or "in the know" rather than any malicious intent. --"What Kind of Office Gossip Are You?," MSN

Things you can do

1. Ask your coworker if s/he has any good jokes.
2. Listen patiently.
3. Click this. Then hit the button.
4. LAUGHTER!

Awesomeness

At Save the Assistants, a doozy of a layoff narrative:

My boss holds a meeting and announces that the company has to make some cuts. Later that afternoon, while everyone is at their desks being worried and emailing their resume out to people, I bravely march into his office and say that I’ll be happy to be let go in exchange for one of my coworkers–perhaps the one with the newborn, so I look like even more of a saint. My boss intially refuses to let me leave the company and gives an extended monologue about how valuable I am and how he regrets not devoting enough time to telling me how awesome I am. But finally, he is moved by my courage and allows me to quit, but only after offering me a hefty severance package, which I use as seed money to open an island resort for beleaguered assistants to detox from their jobs.

Double coverage

(Via.)

Warren piece

The Buffalo News's Jeff Simon makes Personal Days his "Editor's Choice," calling it "funny and wicked and rending."

Forgetting

We do not actually do any work in the office anymore, other than trying to imagine what it would be like to kiss each other. We have been thinking about it so long we have forgotten what it is we should be doing. —Joe Meno, "An Apple Could Make You Laugh," from Demons in the Spring