Day Shift Puns

A McDouble

I work in the investigations section of a military police department, and aside from our normal office hours, we have 24hr shifts that cycle through the office, so that there's an investigator present and on-duty 24/7/365.

My co-worker was wrapping up some paperwork this morning, and coming off of his 24 hr shift, and almost dead to the world. At the time, a pair of other investigators in my office were discussing some case that had happened a day or two prior that involved an emancipated juvenile.

I was just logging into my workstation to check my e-mail and I turned to my co-worker and asked, "Hey, so when a juvenile gets emancipated, and he announces it - proclaims it, if you will - what would they call that?"

He stares at me with a blank, uncomprehending expression and I continue, "An emancipation...proclamation? Maybe?"

The annoyed groans of someone who's been up for 24 hours are so satisfying.

First day of the new semester. I'm at my first class, Experimental Statistics. The professor is going over the syllabus and everything then stops for us to do an "exercise."

He tells us to turn to the person next to us and ask them to marry us.

(If you must know, the guy on side me said no. Apparently it was something I said.)

We start to quiet down and wait for the explanation of why 1000 students just asked each other to marriage.

The professor said that it was important for his students to be engaged during class.

"Don't worry, boss said it was ok"

He owns his own business.

Back a few decades, I was working in a program with a local college in the Middle East.

The name of the program for ExPats has the clever acronym of "IDEA" (hey, I said it was clever); which stands for "Inter-Departmental Educational Adjunct". It's interdepartmental because my particular specialty not only covers field geology but also paleontology and a bit of archeology thrown in for good measure. Everyone hopes to have a good IDEA...

ahem...

Well, we saddle up and head for the Dune Sea out in the west of the country, where the Precambrian, Cambrian, Silurian, Cretaceous, Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene crop out and access is relatively easy and non-injurious.

Well, we caravan out, some 30 Land Cruisers, Nissan patrol, and the odd Mitsubishi Galloper strong. We all get our maps, compasses and split up into 5 or 6 special interest groups ("SIG's"); where each IDEA has his own GPS and LIDAR laser ranging apparatus. Reason being, that there are very few benchmarks out in the desert, and even those are constantly at the mercy of the shifting and ever-blowing sands.

Since we're split into groups and at any one time, ranging up to and including some 50 km2, when a real find is located, a device called the "DIME" (Digital-Interface Monitor Encoder) is attached and programmed into the GPS for location later; it is a digital sort of low-frequency transponder, developed from technology used by offshore drillers and jacket setters where benchmarks are even more transitory.

The way it works is rather simple. When something is to be marked for later retrieval, a series of wooden posts are pounded in a triangular manner around the find and the DIME is set, programmed with the GPS and attached to one or more of the posts.

That's the theory, at least.

Everything works well, especially all the hardened electronics and computer gizmos, but attaching the DIME to the stakes is the real problem. It can't be nailed, screwed or fastened with any sort of metal contrivance as that farkles the magnetic field and causes all sorts of goofy spurious signals. Zip ties don't last long in the heat and duct tape is right out. Many sites have been lost to the shifting sands this way.

Velcro doesn't work too well, as the sand fills the hooks of the receiving piece of velcro and soon renders it useless. String or fishing line work, but that's temporary (they melt). Glue or mastic are out as these are supposed to be temporary. Even plastic sleeves don't work due to the heat out

(x-post from /r/TalesFromRetail)
[was told I should post it here as well]

This happened shortly after I started back to work in retail.

My grocery shift had just started and I was about to begin facing one end of an aisle when I spotted a man in his mid to late 30s at the other end of the aisle. We made eye contact and he made a beeline straight for me.

Me: "Hi. How are you today?"
Him: "Do you know what to do if you get a sudden urge to strip off all your clothes and run around naked in public?"

Now, at this moment, I'm not sure what's happening. I can't pick up any clues from his body language that would indicate where this conversation is going to go. I'm a wee bit concerned that this man is about to start taking off his clothes in front of me. Not exactly what I had planned for the day. He's staring at me intently, waiting for a reply. I don't want to spook him, so I do the only thing I can think of and that's just to stand there and stare at him silently.

After a few seconds, he says to me "Just spray yourself down with Windex. It prevents streaking. Have a nice day!"

He grins and walks away. I started laughing (a little too hysterically ... mostly because of relief).

I tell him how some castle guards would take night shifts.

He said “so some knights will sleep all day and wake up and night time?”

Me: “yes... they are called... nights...”

So I just realized that my "epic" theatre joke is also a dadjoke.

Now this requires some explaining before I get to the joke. I just completed my 55th theatre production - mostly community theatre; most designing and running sound, but I get on stage sometimes. A decade or so ago, I came up with a terrible pun. Told it, got groans, and promptly forgot about it.

A production or two later, someone said - "Hey, aren't you going to tell your joke?" It took a little prompting to remind me of it. Once I was reminded, I told the joke - to more groans.

I enjoyed the groans so much - and was touched that someone remembered the joke that I'd forgotten. So I did decide it was going to forevermore be: THE JOKE.

So the NEXT production, I started warning people that "The Joke" was coming. One or two remembered the previous time I'd told it, and reacted - "Oh god. Please no."

So now it has truly become a thing. Every production I'm in, I start reminding people that The Joke is coming, and the reactions from those who know the joke really help set up the anticipation.

So finally it happens. Most theatre productions I've been in run Fri-Sat-Sun performances. And thus, as I explain, I can only tell The Joke after the last Friday night's performance ends, and before the last Saturday's performance begins. It shifts if the days are different because The Joke depends on the number of remaining shows.

So, finally that time period comes, and I explain that I can only tell the joke during that time period, only the once per production - from auditions to strike - and that we're in that period of time.... which is known as.... the "cancer period". AND would you like to know WHY this period of time is known as the "cancer period"?

(at which point the tension for the punchline is usually quite palpable)

"Because we have...... TUMOR!" (as I hold up two fingers).

This is usually followed by shouts to "GET OUT!" and threats of violence against my person. hehehe

And the NEXT time, when I start warning that "The Joke" is coming, most of these groan "Oh god... no...." and helps set it up for the next poor bunch of folks who haven't yet heard it. :)

Whenever our waitress/waiter comes by to ask how our dinner is, he'll respond with "Best (meal) I've had all day."

And then explain that he works third shift, and just woke up twenty minutes before we got to the restaurant. Every time. And then laugh to himself. Every time.

Situation: I'm working night shift for a few weeks and one of the supervisors on day shift walks up to me to say...

Sup - "Hi! How's it going?

Me - "It's fine. I'm actually enjoying it."

Sup - "What's the biggest difference do you think?"

Me - "It's dark."

Sup - "Ha. That's funny."

my girlfriend and her coworker were discussing the differences between the night shift and day shift.

me: Would you say the difference is night and day?

them: (Audible groans)

I worked at a grocery store and handed out samples. One day I was tasked with sampling melons. One of which was a honey-do. Halfway into my shift an old man walks up with his wife and says

Oldman:"Mmm honey-do i'm used to my wife always sayin honey don't."

This was followed by a chuckle, and a less than pleased wife.

I'm a part time clerk/grunt worker at my local supermarket. My shift consists of stacking up milk, butter, eggs, cream, anything that comes from an udder. So, to make my existence seem less monotonous, I'll often badger my coworkers with horrid puns. One day,one of them offered me these kind words of encouragement: "If you don't shut up, I'll shove my foot down your throat." My rebuttal: "Is that what people call sole food?"

About a week ago I purchased one of those cheap checkout isle toys for my son. In particular it was one of the fan type toys that looks like a helicopter, with a small compartment of candy under the handle. Naturally he downs the candy and is toting the toy around for the next six or seven days, putting random items in the compartment. One day it is Lego's, another its rocks, another its dirt, so on and so forth.

Every time he puts something new in it he comes up and shows me what he was able to fit into the compartment.

This afternoon I was getting ready for work and drinking my coffee (night shift's this weekend), when he comes up to me with the helicopter. "Dad, look" as he is shaking the toy around with something rattling inside. "look, look". OK buddy, whats in there?

"CD's".... Huh? the compartment is smaller than a roll of quarters, how does he have cd's in there?

He proudly opens it up and goes "see theese... hahahaha", and just stands there waiting for my reaction.

My coworker offered me their sandwich because I forgot my food and they had already eaten.

A friend dropped off a snack, but it wasn't enough to hold me over through my shift. The sandwich coworker was going home and handed me his sandwich before he left saying, "you better eat this whole thing."

So, I ate it during that shift. I walked in and saw him the next day. He asked, "did you eat that sandwich from yesterday?" I said "Yeah thanks" he said "Good, because you didn't have a choice, i would've been pissed if you wasted it" to which i responded, "Yeah it turned into a duty"

My dad and I do asbestos removal on natural gas pipelines. The people we were working for were debating if they needed us to stick around for them to expose another pipe or not. They decided that we could just come back another day. My dad then says to the guys in his fake southern twang he puts on every time we work outside of Chicago, "It's a dang good thing you guys decided against us staying. My truck seems to work fine during the Day, but every time I shift to N for night time mode it doesn't seem to want to go anywhere. I'd hate to get stuck out here." All of the older guys loved it and I just stared and shook my head.

After winding down to the end of a long shift looking like I was near about to fall asleep as I was grabbing a muffler for one of my customers. I made a bold move and went for a dadjoke.

Right as I was putting the muffler on the counter I said, "Man, I'm exhausted."

To which the cringe on my coworkers face and the customers laughter was enough to make my day.

We were on a tour in China and at dinner, a guide announced that for the trip into the desert the next day they were going to dig us some make-shift restrooms.

My dad leans over to me and says "Ohhhhh, make-shift!" and we both lost it.