The Office Laugh

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That special laugh some people use when their colleagues tell a joke. My friend M_____ has a very good office laugh, you could almost believe he was actually amused, especially if you didn't know his real laugh. But a co-worker has the worst office laugh I have ever heard, magnificent in its insincerity, it doesn't stop anyone making jokes though. Do you have one? How do you feel when you hear one?

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 15:34 (twenty-two years ago)

one of my bosses has the most insincere sounding laughs in the whole world. I always want to punch him when I hear it.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 15:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh my god, just reading that made my eyeballs explode. My coworker C. has the most obnoxiously fake office laugh, which she uses when the boss tells a joke, and I can't believe he can't tell it's a fake laugh. I hope he can. It's a big guffaw, complete with hand movements and a sigh afterwords. I can't do fake laughs, which is why people sometimes don't like me. I'm really bad at faking emotions.

― NA (Nick A.), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 15:39 (twenty-two years ago)

One of mine has a completely insincere laugh, too - it makes my skin crawl.

― luna (luna.c), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 15:40 (twenty-two years ago)

One of the most annoying people I work with has this laugh that is like piercing knives into my brain. It's loud and shrieking and "HAHAHA!" and he sounds like the fucking Joker and the thing is that it IS his laugh, no insincerity at all. His insincere laugh is a pleasant, low chuckle but he never uses it because he's a jolly green moron.

― Ally (mlescaut), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 15:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Hm...I think I mentally block out examples of this with my mind.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 15:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't have an office laugh either, not because I'm some paragon of sincerity, I try sometimes but it just comes out as a vaguely consumptive "heh" or outright turns into a cough.

I am always amazed when ppl with really insincere ones do it. It's so humiliating when you get one, admittedly if you're in an office every day with the person you know it's just a reflex rather than the insult it sounds like.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 15:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I wasn't claiming to be totally sincere either, I'm just self-conscious of the fakeness of my fake laugh. You have to believe in your fake laugh to convince people.

― NA (Nick A.), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 15:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't have one...there's only one person in my office who tries routinely to be funny funny with me, and I usually just respond by smiling and saying "riiight yeah."

There is a woman in my office somewhere with this really hard high clipped laugh, it sounds like a socket wrench or something, very alarming.

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 15:58 (twenty-two years ago)

My office laugh is a low chuckle, mostly to myself, because I hate everybody and am constantly plotting against them. Hence the low chuckle.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 16:02 (twenty-two years ago)

No one laughs at my office :(

― phil-two (phil-two), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 16:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I hope that people can't tell the difference between my office laugh and my real laugh, but they probably can. I would guess my office laugh sounds relatively anemic.

― o. nate (onate), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 16:15 (twenty-two years ago)

My office laugh is a cold stare.

― Chris P (Chris P), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I guess my office laugh is just a little nasal exhale coupled with a shrug & shake. This is kinda my Cinema Laugh too.

My normal laugh is a girlish chuckle.

― David. (Cozen), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 16:51 (twenty-two years ago)

how many people work with somebody who's laugh is a literal "ha! ha! ha!" like a jack chick comic or sumpthin'?

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 17:23 (twenty-two years ago)

You know, I only posted that line above because I thought it would get into the "laugh out loud" thread. Since it did, I can now reveal that, in fact, one of the nice things about my office is that I work with actually funny people and don't often have to use my "office laugh".

Now, back when I worked at the real estate agency...

― Chris P (Chris P), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 19:47 (twenty-two years ago)

You SHAMELESS THREAD WHORE.

Oh wait.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 19:51 (twenty-two years ago)

One of my friends starts giggling uncontrollably if you put your index finger on her forehead right above her nose. She will do this until you get bored and take it off. I am convinced it's a fake laugh but she swears it's not.

― Maria (Maria), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 19:56 (twenty-two years ago)

haha well MY Office Laugh is a sharp left hook to the jaw and then I quote Twelve Monkeys at you until you learn your fucking lesson.

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 24 September 2003 19:59 (twenty-two years ago)

TOMBOT HAVE YOU SEEN LA JETEE?

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 22:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Far worse than the insincerity of the office laugh is the desperate smugness of the art laugh. You know the one - At art openings with friends, talking about some hapless video artist - stifled, childish mirth erupts, communicating a particular intellectual superiority. Or in a theater during an obscure scene in a French New Wave film, some bastard laughs...short, like a bourgeois seizure, and always through their nose. This is to signify that they "got it". You, obviously, did not.

― tiiiiiiiiiim (tiiiiiiiiiim), Wednesday, 24 September 2003 23:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Ooooooh... how that art laugh makes my blood boil.

God, reading a thread about people's humorless office environments makes me feel like such an ass for complaining about my job. Not only do we make fun of the art laffin staff writers here together, we laugh ourselves shitless for real practically every day. An Island of Misfit Toys. It's -- the hours -- that are -- driving me mad. When I think about my bed right now it's like when Porky Pig looks at Daffy Duck and all he sees is a steaming duck roast. My bed is a huge Warner Brothers steak. Oh yes, the starving-half-to-death-half-the-time wage kind of fucks with your head too but AT LEAST -- I GET -- TO LAUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Thursday, 25 September 2003 00:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I have a good art laugh. it's my first reaction when I like something.

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Thursday, 25 September 2003 03:07 (twenty-two years ago)

I hate the metamorphic laugh. when someone is alone in their cubicle, and suddenly you hear " Gomp Gomp PlOO?? Gomp Gomp pLeioi!!" and then you look and they turned into a black throated silverdemon.

― Mike Hanle y (mike), Thursday, 25 September 2003 08:40 (twenty-two years ago)

You are all wasting you time. I may decide to report you; and I will if you don't all stop shashing up the internet with your unsafeness.

― Plunging Hen, Thursday, 25 September 2003 12:25 (twenty-two years ago)

You are all wasting your time. I may decide to report you; and I will if you don't all stop shashing up the internet with your unsafeness.

― Plunging Hen, Thursday, 25 September 2003 12:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Shashing?

― Ally (mlescaut), Thursday, 25 September 2003 12:37 (twenty-two years ago)

There's one guy I work with whose actual laugh I've never heard, but his office laugh is a carbon-copy "ha ha" two syllable thing every time. I think he might be a robot.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 25 September 2003 12:43 (twenty-two years ago)

This fractious robot comment is a perfect example of what I mean: filthy, unwholesome shashing. And by the way, Ally, it's not clever to ask questions. I can win arguments.

― Plunging Hen, Thursday, 25 September 2003 12:50 (twenty-two years ago)

AVAUNT YOU BLACK-THROATED SILVERDEMON

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 25 September 2003 12:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Don't worry, i am going! Good gried, i canharldy type you have made me that angry!!!

― Plunging hen, Thursday, 25 September 2003 12:54 (twenty-two years ago)

No no, don't leave, I'm enjoying you!!

― Ally (mlescaut), Thursday, 25 September 2003 12:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Pack it in! I have had about as much as I can take. Believe it or not, I do have a sense of humour (I have many comedy influences), but people who talk about Tobey Maguire's crotch like you have done in another thread will not go far in life. You want me to stay --- NO!!! And I would rather be me than Dan Perry from where I am standing.

― Plunging Hen, Thursday, 25 September 2003 13:20 (twenty-two years ago)

wtf is "shashing" though?

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 25 September 2003 13:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Shash is to do with having no fixed methods, getting up late, wearing Saw Doctors t-shirts etc.
It probably won't mean much to you, but I have an important job, which actually may be compromised if I continue to field questions which are only designed to trip me up.

― Plunging Hen, Thursday, 25 September 2003 13:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Are you George Bush, then?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 25 September 2003 13:36 (twenty-two years ago)

one of the women i work with has the most incredible, throw-her-head-back, slap-her-thigh, ballistic cackle i have ever heard. it's not insincere, it's funny and endearing, but it's REALLY hard to work when she does it - still, i like her so it's ok...

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Thursday, 25 September 2003 13:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Andrew Farrell, I kiss you.

Is Plunging Hen the same regular who is HBC? I must know.

― Ally (mlescaut), Thursday, 25 September 2003 13:38 (twenty-two years ago)

"Are you George Bush, then?" No, are you. You seem to me to be someone who wears dynastic desert boots.

Saying you will kiss someone over the internet is sloppy conduct indeed, and potentially abusive.

― Plunging Hen, Thursday, 25 September 2003 13:44 (twenty-two years ago)

If you're the same person as HBC, I think you're much better as Plunging Hen, just FYI.

― Ally (mlescaut), Thursday, 25 September 2003 13:50 (twenty-two years ago)

The unhinged portmanteau of Plunging Hen does not encompass HBC.

― ham goodge, Thursday, 25 September 2003 13:57 (twenty-two years ago)

she is either hanle y's sister or soulmate.

― teeny (teeny), Thursday, 25 September 2003 14:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Hen, this is Rooster One - return to coop immediately, repeat, return to coop immediately, the warhead is armed, I say again, the warhead is armed, we are ready to initiate stage one of operation corncob, world domination is imminent, confirm position and acknowledge.

― Ascending Rooster, Thursday, 25 September 2003 14:04 (twenty-two years ago)

That did tickle me! With me plunging and you ascending, we make a right pair of Charlies, don't we!? You have a good sense of humour. Do you like Martin Short?

― Plunging hen, Thursday, 25 September 2003 14:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Martin Short does not concern me Hen. I want those corn chips, not excuses. We have a world to conquer.

― Ascending Rooster, Thursday, 25 September 2003 14:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Alright, you've had your fun. Genocide is only funny for so long. You don't know when to stop.

― Plunging Hen, Thursday, 25 September 2003 14:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Silence Hen! Back to your post. I alone decide when the operation is complete. Who do you think is in command here? You are as clumsy as you are stupid.

― Ascending Rooster, Thursday, 25 September 2003 14:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Huh ... there is always one,
and all the worldwide 'ones' apparently congregate on this board.
I am certainly not coming back. You are all filthy and wasting your time.

― Plunging Hen, Thursday, 25 September 2003 14:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Don't make me destroy you Hen. One more cluck out of you and I'll be accepting your apology as you drop, asphyxiated, to the floor.

― Ascending Rooster, Thursday, 25 September 2003 14:52 (twenty-two years ago)

"Don't make me destroy you Hen. One more cluck out of you and I'll be accepting your apology as you drop, asphyxiated, to the floor."

For anyone still in any doubt, this is precisely what I meant by shashing up the internet with unsafenses. I may actually report you. If I do decide to report you, you won't see me do it, and you won't be able to see me do it - you will just feel it has been done. I won't be coming back.

― Plunging Hen, Thursday, 25 September 2003 15:00 (twenty-two years ago)

You may file your report from beyond the grave Hen, I am relieving you of all authority. Gaurds! You are in command now, Admiral Piet.

― Ascending Rooster, Thursday, 25 September 2003 15:04 (twenty-two years ago)

But who does the report go to?

― Ally (mlescaut), Thursday, 25 September 2003 15:34 (twenty-two years ago)

back to the original question, I do my ironic "wheh wheh wheh" laugh when someone cracks an ironically sexist joke.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 25 September 2003 16:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Do you rub your trouser legs at the same time?

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 25 September 2003 16:41 (twenty-two years ago)

no, it's not that kind of laugh. it's more meant to be like Ronnie Drew from the Dubliners or that fellow who reminisces about Aul Mr Brennan in those ads for bread that people outside Ireland have never heard.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 25 September 2003 17:08 (twenty-two years ago)

You're not the boss of the internet!

― Quivering Chick (nickn), Thursday, 25 September 2003 18:35 (twenty-two years ago)

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