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April 18, 2022
Work/Businesses

“The path to inner peace begins with four words: not my fucking problem”

"The path of/to inner peace begins with four words: not my fucking problem" (or "The path to inner peace begins with three words" not my problem") is a saying that has been…

April 18, 2022
Work/Businesses

“The path to inner peace begins with three words: not my problem”

"The path of/to inner peace begins with four words: not my fucking problem" (or "The path to inner peace begins with three words" not my problem") is a saying that has been…

August 2, 2017
Work/Businesses

“The pathway to glory is strewn with pitfalls and dangers” (Per Ardua ad Astra)

New York author Ingersoll Lockwood (1841-1918), who wrote the books Travels and Adventures of Little Baron Trump and his Wonderful Dog Bulger and 1900, or, The Last President (1896), had renewed…

July 21, 2015
Work/Businesses

“The pay stinks, but the benefits are out of this world” (religious work joke)

A popular joke is said about religious work (particularly in Christianity): "The pay stinks, but the benefits are out of this world." The joke has been cited in print since at least 1968…

April 8, 2026
Work/Businesses

“The people who write instructions for places like IKEA must be in good shape. All that manual labor”

"Manual labor" (physical work) doesn't involve writing instruction manuals, but there are jokes. "Does writing an instruction book count as manual labor?" was posted on…

November 20, 2025
Restaurants/Bars/Coffeehouses/Food StoresWork/Businesses

“The person I see in the self checkout camera is not who I am in my heart”

No one seems to look good in a store's self checkout camera. This has the reputation for making people look even worse than passport photos or driver's license photos. "I never look…

September 27, 2012
Work/Businesses

“The person who aims at nothing is sure to hit it” (success/failure proverb)

"The person who aims at nothing is sure to hit it" is similar to other sayings, such as "if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there." The…

March 8, 2020
Work/Businesses

“The person who invented hand sanitizer must be rubbing their hands together right now”

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) increased the sale of hand sanitizer. "The guy/person who invented hand sanitizer must be rubbing his/their hands together now" -- that is, rubbing…

July 19, 2021
Work/Businesses

“The pessimist sees an obstacle in every opportunity; the optimist sees an opportunity…”

"The spirit of the optimist to whom every difficulty is an opportunity, and not as the pessimist, to whom every opportunity presents some difficulty" was printed in The Fifty-First Annual…

January 22, 2021
Work/Businesses

“The Pharmaceutical industry does not create cures. They create customers”

"The Pharmaceutical industry does not create cures. They create customers" is an anti-Big Pharma saying that has been printed on many images. "The pharmaceutical industry DOES NOT…

March 18, 2012
Work/Businesses

“The phrase ‘working mother’ is redundant”

"The phrase 'working mother' is redundant" means that if a mother doesn't have a job in the workplace, she still works doing cooking, cleaning, shopping, and many other…

June 23, 2019
Work/Businesses

“The pirates were fighting with each other because they didn’t have good anchor management”

"Anger management" is sometimes punned as "anchor management." "There was a pirate who'd go into a rage when he couldn't get his ship to stop. He had to go to…

October 2, 2022
Work/Businesses

“The plans for a paperless office looked really good…on paper”

To "look good on paper" means to look good in theory, but not necessarily in practice. The phrase doesn't always involve actual paper, but there are jokes. "The 'Paperless…

March 6, 2024
Work/Businesses

“The popularity of origami is in creasing”

"Increasing" shouldn't be confused with "in creasing," but there are origami puns. "RT @SpacemanQuisp I think the popularity of origami is in creasing" was posted…

March 26, 2018
Work/Businesses

“The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible”

"The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible" is a motivational saying that has been printed on many images. "Hope sees the invisible,…

August 8, 2018
Work/Businesses

“The problem with having a job is that it gets in the way of being rich”

"The problem with having a job is that it gets in the way of being rich" is a saying that has been printed on an image. Robert Kiyosaki, author of the "Rich Dad" series of books…

April 16, 2016
Work/Businesses

“The problem with the French is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur”

U.S. President George W. Bush supposedly said to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair at a G8 Summit in July 2002: "The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for…

September 15, 2016
Work/Businesses

“The problem with Workaholics Anonymous meetings is they never end”

Workaholics Anonymous does exist, but it's mostly used in jokes. "I need to find Workaholics Anonymous. Problem is I don't have the time to attend the meetings" was posted on…

July 9, 2020
Work/Businesses

“The pulley is the most egotistical of all machines. It’s always the center of a tension”

"What does a pulley like the best about its position? It's the center of a tension" -- a pun on "center of attention" -- was posted on Reddit -- Jokes on August 18, 2017.…

February 24, 2012
Work/Businesses

“The raised nail gets hammered down” (management proverb)

"The raised nail gets hammered down" (or "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down" or "the protruding nail gets hammered down") is a Japanese proverb that dates at…

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BARRY POPIK is a contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary, Dictionary of American Regional English, Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Yale Book of Quotations and Dictionary of Modern Proverbs. Since 1990 he has also been a regular contributor to Gerald Cohen's Comments on Etymology.

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