Business jokes

1. Never give me work in the morning. Always wait until 4:00 and then bring it to me. The challenge of a deadline is refreshing.

2. If it's really a rush job, run in and interrupt me every 10 minutes to inquire how it's going. That helps. Or even better, hover behind me, advising me at every keystroke.

3. Always leave without telling anyone where you're going. It gives me a chance to be creative when someone asks where you are.

4. If my arms are full of papers, boxes, books, or supplies, don't open the door for me. I need to learn how to function as a paraplegic and opening doors with no arms is good training in case I should ever be injured and lose all use of my limbs.

5. If you give me more than one job to do, don't tell me which is priority. I am psychic.

6. Do your best to keep me late. I adore this office and really have nowhere to go or anything to do. I have no life beyond work.

7. If a job I do pleases you, keep it a secret. If that gets out, it could mean a promotion.

8. If you don't like my work, tell everyone. I like my name to be popular in conversations. I was born to be whipped.

9. If you have special instructions for a job, don't write them down. In fact, save them until the job is almost done. No use confusing me with useful information.

10. Never introduce me to the people you're with. I have no right to know anything. In the corporate food chain, I am plankton. When you refer to them later, my shrewd deductions will identify them.

11. Be nice to me only when the job I'm doing for you could really change your life and send you straight to managers' hell.

12. Tell me all your little problems. No one else has any and it's nice to know someone is less fortunate. I especially like the story about having to pay so much taxes on the bonus check you received for being such a good manager.

13. Wait until my yearly review and THEN tell me what my goals SHOULD have been. Give me a mediocre performance rating with a cost of living increase. I'm not here for the money anyway.

The American Dairy Association was so successful with its "Got Milk?" campaign, that it was decided to extend the ads to Mexico. Unfortunately, the Spanish translation was "Are you lactating?"

Electrolux, a Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer, used this ad in the U.S.: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."

Colgate introduced a toothpaste called "Cue" in France, but it turned out to be the same name as a well-known porno magazine.

When Braniff translated a slogan touting its upholstery, "Fly in leather," it came out in Spanish as "Fly naked."

Coors put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhea."

Chicken magnate Frank Perdue's line, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken," sounds much more interesting in Spanish: "It takes a sexually stimulated man to make a chicken affectionate."

Bacardi concocted a fruity drink with the name "Pavian" to suggest French chic...but "pavian" means "baboon" in German.

A hair products company, Clairol, introduced the "Mist Stick", a curling iron, into Germany only to find out that mist is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the manure stick.

When Kentucky Fried Chicken entered the Chinese market, to their horror they discovered that their slogan "finger lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off"

When Vicks first introduce its cough drops on the German market, they were chagrined to learn that the German pronunciation of "v" is f - which in German is the guttural equivalent of "sexual penetration."

Parker Pens translated the slogan for its ink, "Avoid Embarrassment - Use Quink" into Spanish as "Evite Embarazos - Use Quink"...which also means, "Avoid Pregnancy - Use Quink."

When Pepsi started marketing its products in China a few years back, they translated their slogan, "Pepsi Brings You Back to Life" pretty literally. The slogan in Chinese really meant, "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Grave."

In Italy, a campaign for "Schweppes Tonic Water" translated the name into the much less thirst quenching "Schweppes Toilet Water."

Chinese translation proved difficult for Coke, which took two tries to get it right. They first tried Ke-kou-ke-la because when pronounced it sounded roughly like Coca-Cola. It wasn't until after thousands of signs had been printed that they discovered that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax," depending on the dialect. Second time around things worked out much better. After researching 40,000 Chinese characters, Coke came up with "ko-kou-ko-le" which translates roughly to the much more appropriate "happiness in the mouth."

Not to be outdone, Puffs tissues tried later to introduce its product, only to learn that "Puff" in German is a colloquial term for a whorehouse. The English weren't too fond of the name either, as it's a highly derogatory term for a non-heterosexual.

The Chevy Nova never sold well in Spanish speaking countries. "No va" means "it doesn't go" in Spanish.

Ford introduced the Pinto in Brazil. After watching sales go nowhere, the company learned that "Pinto" is Brazilian slang for "tiny male genitals." Ford pried the nameplates off all of the cars and substituted them with "Corcel" which means horse.

When Gerber first started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as here in the USA - with the cute baby on the label. Later they found out that in Africa companies routinely put pictures on the label of what's inside since most people can't read.

In the French part of Canada, Hunt-Wesson introduced its "Big John" products as "Gros Jos." It later found out that the phrase is slang for "big breasts."

Gerhard Reinke's
INTERNATIONAL GUIDE TO IMPORTANT QUESTIONS NOT TO ASK*

IRELAND
"Are you magically delicious or just angry and drunk? This beer is black- did a leprechaun crap in it?"

FRANCE
"Can I get a side of Freedom Fries with that? Aren't the French just Germans who can make sauces?"

ITALY
"Is the Pope Polish? Does he have super powers like Jesus? I could sure go for a can of Spaghetti-O's! "

POLAND
"Do you hire foreigners to screw in your lightbulbs?"

GERMANY
"Is this bratwurst kosher?"

TURKEY
"Where's the hash at? It's cool to slaughter Kurds though, right?"

KOREA
"Can you watch my puppy for a minute, or must you people deep fry him?"

CHINA
"This wall isn't so great."

ENGLAND
"Did you ever get a piece of ass from that Diana chick?"

SWEDEN
"Do you have any normal meatballs? Want to hear a dumb blonde joke?"

YEMEN
"Yemen? That's a stupid name for a country. What's it mean ‘Land Of Fanatics And Desert'?"

INDIA
"You don't live in teepees? Where can I get a good juicy steak around here?"

ETHIOPIA
"After a long day of travel, I'm famished. Hey – those flies sure love your newborn!"

CANADA
"You're like Americans without money."

SPAIN
"So, this is the country that's not Portugal? Wow. Your women can shave if they want to, right? Where can I get some Cheez Whiz nachos?"

SOUTH AFRICA
"I liked it better the other way."

MEXICO
"Cancun is nice, but the rest of this third world country sucks!"

SAUDI ARABIA
"Would you like to see my designs for a solar powered car? Is it legal to beat your wives here, or what?"

RUSSIA
"Is it always this cold and economically devastated?"

UZBEKISTAN
"Can you spell Uzbekistan?"

GREECE
"I hear this place is a less expensive version of Italy. Anyone ever tell you that you resemble a Turk?"

AFGHANISTAN
"Seriously, where is the real country… where is everything?"

JAPAN
"What's Hiroshima? Is that a kind of sushi?"

AUSTRALIA
"How can we stop Mel Gibson? Is there a cure?"

AMERICA
"You mean, you're all not loud, stupid, and fat?"

*These questions should not be shouted in English.

Check out Gerhard Reinke's WANDERLUST, Saturdays @ 11:30 PM | 9 C on Comedy Central.

A keen country lad applied for a salesman's job at a city department store. In fact it was the biggest store in the world - you could get anything there. The boss asked him, "Have you ever been a salesman before?"

Yes, I was a salesman in the country" said the lad. The boss liked the cut of him and said, "You can start tomorrow and I'll come and see you when we close up."

The day was long and arduous for the young man, but finally 5 o'clock came around. The boss duly fronted up and asked, "How many sales did you make today?"

"One," said the young salesman.

"Only one?" blurted the boss, "most of my staff make 20 or 30 sales a day. How much was the sale worth?"

"Three hundred thousand dollars," said the young man.

"How did you manage that?" asked the flabbergasted boss.

"Well," said the salesman "this man came in and I sold him a small fish hook, then a medium hook and finally a really large hook. Then I sold him a small fishing line, a medium one and a huge big one. I asked him where he was going fishing and he said down the coast.

I said he would probably need a boat, so I took him down to the boat department and sold him that twenty foot schooner with the twin engines. Then he said his Volkswagen probably wouldn't be able to pull it, so I took him to the car department and sold him the new Deluxe Cruiser."

The boss took two steps back and asked in astonishment, "You sold all that to a guy who came in for a fish hook?"

"No," answered the salesman "He came in to buy a box of Tampons for his wife and I said to him, 'Your weekend's shot, you may as well go fishing.'"