Your Joke’s Not Funny Anymore

“I serve banquets. I’ve had many middle-aged men say the same exact joke to me when serving their Cream of Chicken with Wild Rice: ‘How do you tame wild rice?’” So says Reddit user Krisperrr, answering the question: “What’s the ‘It didn’t scan, so it must be free hur hur hur’ of your profession?” 

If you’ve ever worked a service job, you cringe in sympathy for Krisperrr, and how they must have to smile at this long-dead joke, a joke that may have been funny in some 1950s rom-com. You can imagine Krisperrr, a consummate professional, pretending to each boring old man that he has had an original thought. It’s time for the old men to stop.

Here are the jokes that Redditors have heard too many times. If you’ve never heard them before, a lot of them will be funny! That’s the thing about jokes. “Why did the chicken cross the road” is an excellent joke, but if you expect anyone over the age of five to laugh at it, they will rightly assume that you have brain worms.

TokenFroKid:

I’m obligated to ask those visiting my work place if they have any weapons to declare.

“Just these guns!” flex

leazypeazy2:

Selling lottery tickets. Im like what numbers would you like? Everyone be like “the winning ones.”

Bruh

purplebeeswax:

I’m in ultrasound. We do a hell of a lot more than just scanning pregnant people, but we get a lot of people who ask, “Is it a boy or a girl? HAHAHA” during abdominal and vascular studies.

The-Shaffy:

I work in the Deaf community and people always see the name of the charity I work for and say “Pardon?” then laugh like they’re the funniest person in the world.

Good lord.

See, this one from Redditor brogaant feels funny, but that’s because I don’t have to hear it all day:

Vet tech here. Whenever I take a patient’s temperature: “Aren’t you going to at least buy her dinner first?”

liteultom shows that even your topical jokes are old:

Bike messenger. Every year during the Tour De France: “You’re lost buddy ?” All f*cking day long.

BigDawgWol:

Travel Money Bureau. Every time I’m checking if some notes are legit or not, it’s “They should be fine, I printed them this morning.” Har de har har.

Groovy_Chainsaw:

Mail carrier here. “You can keep the bills!” hur hur hur

Here’s a less-expected one from IT worker BrotherCool:

When you’re sitting at a user’s desk and working on their PC, 99% of the time some arsehole co-worker will stop by and say, “Oh, (user who usually sits there)! You’ve changed!”

“Every day of my damn life,” replies ShakCentral.

it5th3m1ckster:

Stripper here. Our version is definitely: “How about I give YOU a lap dance!”

dingleberry85:

Psychologist. “Are you analysing me now?” The true answer is almost always, I am too apathetic about you to care that much.

Back2Bach:

As a church musician, I’ve heard things like, “How does it feel to have the largest organ in town?”

Pizza deliverers have it hard. sxmanderson says:

If you happen to pass by anyone else at all on your way to the customer, they will say “You can just leave that right here ha ha ha.”

And that’s the best case. Imagine being such a jerk that you’d do this to ginger_whiskers:

Never sure if this was supposed to be funny or just a really stupid scam, but…

Used to deliver pizza. Almost every time I got an order for a public place, someone would jokingly try to claim it. But not just “My pizza! Lolnope who ya looking for?” They’d go through almost the entire transaction. Correct pizza, yep, I pull it out, they ask for cheese and peppers, that’s $US21.64 ($32), they actually pull out a wallet, and then let me in on their “joke” while my fingerprints were melting.

Then they pile on asking if I have free samples in the car. I no longer work with the public.

No wait, imagine being the kind of dick who made this “joke” to 69schrutebucks:

Cake decorator here- people would come pick up their orders and jokingly tell me I spelled the name on the cake incorrectly. They would watch me get upset with myself and offer to fix it, then tell me they were just kidding.

Really has anyone ever thought for one second before opening their mouth? From WSWOP:

I used to be in the beer industry (selling to supermarkets) and I’d get “you can just load that pallet into my truck” every day.

Now I’m in the elevator industry and about once a week I get “I bet that has its ups and downs.”

OK, not gonna lie, I feel like this one is actually good every time. From d16y8sohc:

Paramedic here, I ALWAYS get the old ladies saying “Oh! My taxi!” Or “You coming back for me later?”

And wowbaggerjules was on the wrong side of the exchange:

I recently went through US Customs and the officer asked me the standard “do you have cash more than $US10,000 ($14,786) on you?” question.

I responded: “I wish! HURHURHUR”

Her response: “If I had a penny for everyone who cracked that joke in front of me, I’d have the $US10,000 ($14,786) by now.”

…I totally deserved that.

Some dumb jokes cut across all service jobs. Every customer service agent, waitperson, or anyone who has to ask “Can I get you anything else” has heard all your corny answers. “Yeah, a thousand bucks!” Oh you card! Every IT pro, Apple Genius, and repair worker has heard “Guess I get a new one!” Everyone who ever rang up a purchase has heard “Guess it’s free!”

Even CreativeUsernameUser, a teacher, hears “Oh, you can’t find my paper, must mean I get a 100% on it.” At least that one’s coming from actual children.

Next time you’re about to deliver a witticism to someone who’s doing their job—or make a joke about their name, or about their physical appearance or something else they can’t control—ask yourself two things:

1. Is it conceivable that someone has made this joke before?

2. If this person doesn’t like your joke, are they at all socially obligated to pretend they did?

If the answer to either is yes, do not make that joke!

It’s not that you’re not allowed to be funny. It’s wonderful to be funny! It’s not wonderful to tell a worn-out joke to someone who can’t give an honest reaction. That’s tedious and a little bullying, and even if they don’t admit it, it makes them like you less. Don’t whine about it. Get some new material.

If you hear the same joke over and over at your job, you probably have a silent retort. A lot of redditors shared theirs. For example, a doctor complained about patients who answer “What’s wrong?” with “You tell me, you’re the doctor!” User1539 suggested this: “Well first off, you’re insufferable.” The Reddit thread has more retorts you can’t say out loud, and some you can.

Krisperrr has their own answer about taming wild rice: “With a very small saddle!”

Quotes have been edited for clarity.