Big Tuna Joke of the Day

Partially because it was requested and partially because it just happened yesterday, I thought I would take a small break from my baseball-related posts and tell another Big Tuna story. This will be a fairly short post, but don't worry, I have something planned for next week. The Big Tuna is leaving on vacation next Tuesday for three whole weeks, so I thought I would have a send-off post to celebrate. So, be sure to tune in next week for that.

In my introduction to the Big Tuna, I mentioned that he likes to re-tell the same, not funny jokes all the time. He thinks that he's a real comedian, but really, all he ever gets is pity laughs. In any case, one of the most annoying things about a lot of his jokes is that they rely on "audience participation". The "rock" joke I mentioned last time is a great example. The joke is initiated by him asking you a question or making a comment in your direction (e.g. "So how big was the rock?"). At this point, the "audience" is required to respond in an appropriate way in order for the joke to be completed (e.g. "What rock?"). Finally, after the response from the "audience", he hits you with the punchline (e.g. "The rock you used to iron that shirt"). A pretty high percentage of the Big Tuna's jokes follow this pattern.

True to form, the Big Tuna dropped another one of his favorite jokes of this type on us yesterday. This particular joke needs to be put into context for you. In order to tell the joke in the office, it must be told on a weekday, other than Friday. Thursday being the ideal day. The person telling the joke or the person listening to the joke must be leaving for the day. Alright, with that in mind, the joke goes like this:

Big Tuna: OK, see you guys on Monday.
Audience: Oh, you're not here tomorrow?
Big Tuna: No, I'm here tomorrow, but I'll see you on Monday too.
Audience: (laughing so hard that milk comes out of everybody's nose at once)

Like all of them, this is a joke that I and everybody else in the office has heard many times. So, yesterday, three of us were standing around talking when the Big Tuna comes by on his way out the door. After chatting with us for a few minutes, he attempts to initiate this joke with the "OK, see you guys on Monday" line. The thing is, all of us have heard it so many times (and don't want to hear it again) that none of us provide the "audience participation" part. So, what ends up happening is there is about 15 seconds of awkward silence as the Big Tuna waits for someone to take the bait. But nobody does. So, he's forced to just walk away, without completing his joke.

The funny part is that you can just tell that he is furious that nobody took the bait. He needs to be the funny guy, so if nobody bites or nobody laughs at his stupid jokes, he gets super offended. Its awesome. He acts like a 4 year old. We're so cruel. Although, sometimes, to "save face", even if nobody takes the bait and does the "audience participation" part, he still tells the punchline, which is equally funny, because the joke is incomplete and doesn't really make any sense without the "audience participation" part. And then there are the times where he explains to you that you're supposed to say "Oh, you're not going to be here tomorrow", like we don't realize it after hearing the same joke a thousand times. Good times.

Ok, this post ended up a bit longer than I expected. But I will leave you with another classic Big Tuna joke that I just thought of. This one comes up on a day where you didn't shave and have some stubble.

Big Tuna: Did you hear that the strike is over?
Audience: What strike is that?
Big Tuna: The Gillette strike. You'll be able to shave now.

Absolute hilarity.

The Big Tuna: An Introduction

Hypocrisy, arbitrary enforcement/making up of rules, having to be right all of the time, re-telling the same stories and (not funny) jokes all the time. Take all these annoying habits, put them together in a single package and you've got The Big Tuna. No, sports fans, I'm not talking about Bill Parcells. I'm talking about my boss's boss (and formerly my direct supervisor), who, quite honestly, is one of the bigger pains in my ass, as far as work goes.

Here are examples of each of the traits I listed above.

Hypocrisy - There is a Wednesday meeting led by The Big Tuna where work is assigned to developers. The Big Tuna always preaches that if work isn't brought up in that meeting, it shouldn't be assigned to a developer and definitely should not be worked on by a developer. However, when someone sends him an email on a day other than Wednesday requesting that a developer be assigned to some work, he immediately assigns it. But then, after he assigns it, the developer will be chastised for working on it, because it wasn't brought up in the Wednesday meeting. I'm still unclear on whether he realizes that he's the one that assigned the work in the first place.

Arbitrary enforcement/making up of rules - I love this story. Once a developer finishes writing their code, we have to review the code with the rest of the technical team. The code must be approved by three members of the team: a senior developer, any other developer, and a DBA. The Weasel was one of our DBAs and there was a code review on his last day with the company. The rest of the DBAs were busy with a production issue during the meeting so we needed a DBA approver and thus asked The Weasel, who was available. The Big Tuna, however, decided that The Weasel could not be the approver because it was his last day. The Weasel approved the code anyway.

Having to be right all the time - We were having a discussion about the best way to implement a solution and The Big Tuna was present. As per usual, The Big Tuna had his design idea that he proposed, which was a terrible idea. The rest of the group shot holes through his idea, but he kept arguing for it. Someone else in the group proposed an alternative solution, which made a lot of sense. The Big Tuna attempted to poke holes in this idea while continuing to push his original idea. After much discussion, we obviously started to realize that his idea was horrible and that the other idea was much better. By the end of the meeting he was talking about the good idea as if it were his own, like he came up with it. Priceless.

Re-telling the same stories and jokes - The Big Tuna walks over to you and asks "So, how big was the rock?", to which you are supposed to reply "What rock?". Then he hits you with "The rock you used to iron that shirt". This joke is really hilarious after hearing it two dozen times (I'm not exaggerating).

I have a very specific (continuing) incident involving The Big Tuna that I will post about some day. I expect that to be a pretty lengthy post given the level of frustration it has caused for me and others.

For now though, consider this an introduction to The Big Tuna. I can pretty much guarantee it won't be the last time he's mentioned in this space.