I remember a joke of when I was younger. With younger, I mean really young. I don’t remember how old but like, maybe 10? It was definitely in elementary school, that I remember. We used to think we were so cool, my friends and I, telling dirty, “adult” jokes. The premise was simple, a school with kids, just like us, and the teacher asks a question. What is the fastest thing in the universe? Weird question to ask a bunch of eight to ten year olds, when you think about it, but jokes have little logic I guess.
Frank had always been an asshole. He is the kind of smug and wise cracking co-worker that loves to dish it out but takes it terribly when someone goes after him. He is the kind of opportunistic boot licker that always agrees with the boss even when everyone thinks they’re wrong. Frank has been known to cut people off in meetings, but even worse, to steal ideas from others and take full credit for them. He is also bad at taking blame, even when his actions are directly tied to a poor performing project. Worse, he is the office’s resident prankster. And not a good one. God, Frank is such an asshole.
I knew a lot of jokes growing up, the dirtier the better. My friends and I were a bit of a misfit group, humor was the only thing that glued us together. And it was definitively that kind of low-brow humor that we shared, the Adam Sandler in his forties type of humor. There was this classic three act set-up I loved when I was a little kid. The set-up is: authority figure (usually a teacher) asks a question. Act 1 – the teacher’s pet answers the question with what could be the right answer. Act 2 – another smart kid answers with a more creative, equally likely to be right answer. Act 3 – Pepe answers the question. I don’t know why, but the name of the third kid was always Pepe, or “Pepito” as we used to call him. Sometimes the answer itself was the punchline, other times it required an explanation. Either way, Pepe would give an unrelated, clearly wrong, and so despicably crude answer that people would burst out laughing out of sheer shock. We used to think we were such bad asses, all the way back in grade school.
I always got along well with everyone at work. I am a bit of an introvert and kind of shy, so it’s not like everyone’s best friend, but I get along just fine. I am most comfortable at happy hours, tie undone and a cold beer in my hand. Not too many beers though, I was never much of a party person. I enjoy the casual conversations, telling blue jokes and such. The people I work with are, for the most part, the same. Casual, good-mannered people, most of them a bit older than me, with mortgages and young kids. My future selves I suppose. I even liked Frank at the beginning, but we are just too different of people. He is the outgoing one, the I-can-do-this-my-first-try kind of guy, the go-hard-in-the-paint kind of guy. I am a bit more of the, I-like-me-a-quiet-night kind of guy. I think I fit better in the company in general too, but I am not sure. I always found that to be a bit weird. (more…)