The photocopier has often been credited with "revolutionizing" office

work, but it s never been acknowledged as the cause of a revolution in office

humour. Until now. For with the dawn of the copier came a proliferation of

cartoons, jokes, spoofs, fables, and satires about life at the office. Hardly a

day has passed since the first machine was plugged in, that some company

comic hasn t sneaked up to it to run off ten copies of the latest piece of

underground humour.

Workers have always poked fun at the boss, the workplace, their jobs, the

system, and themselves. Anonymously, Swivel-Chair Philosophers and

Coffee-Break Cartoonists have verbally and pictorially folded, spindled, and

mutilated every aspect of the 9 to 5 haul. Who are these mysterious wise guys

and girls? No one knows. They re folk humorists in three-piece suits. Sit-

down comics in silk blouses and designer jeans. Corporate hecklers in

overalls.

No business or industry is safe. Anonymous office humour has shown up

in High-Tech puzzle palaces, farm machinery factories, teachers staffrooms,

church vestries, TV newsrooms and salesmen s sample cases. No

underground network of radical pamphleteers could hold a candle to the

distribution network of these silly subversives. Some of our examples have

been found ~ts close as the corner petrol station and as far away as a

prestigious bank in Brisbane, Australia.

Here, for the first time, is a collection of the best in anonymous office

humour. If you ve ever worked in an office, if you ve ever had a boss, if your

career, financial future, and mental health have ever been in the hands of

"upper management", you re going to feel at home in these pages.