Introduction

You know that small, awkward sinking feeling when someone wanders into your meeting and you don’t recognise them, but they have a half-used toilet roll tucked under their arm like it’s a security blanket?

Why Every Office Has a Meeting Wanker (and How to Survive Them)

Meet Office Meeting Wanker: the pretentious colleague who turns every quick chat into a marathon meeting, armed with minutes, buzzwords, and endless agenda points.

Office BantomimeJames Mason

That’s the Office Idiot.

He’s the man who smiles at the printer as if it’s his best friend, tells a joke that collapses faster than your Wi-Fi, and still somehow expects a round of applause. He’s baffling, affable, and deeply, deeply confusing — and yes, everyone who’s worked with him calls him an idiot (quietly, and then loudly in the kitchen).

Who Is Office Idiot?

He’s not malicious. He’s just spectacularly, blessedly clueless. He turns up to meetings that don’t exist, offers to "fix" spreadsheets by deleting half the columns, and thinks teamwork is handing out biscuits and pretending he understands the brief.

He wears his tie loose, his shirt untucked, and the look on his face is a permanent festival of befuddlement. He carries a roll of toilet paper because… reasons. (Comfort? Craft? A papier-mâché tribute to office life?) Nobody knows, and nobody asks.

Common Traits (a survival guide disguised as comedy)

• Aimless Wanderer: Roams the office with an unreeled toilet roll, leaving a trailing breadcrumb-style mystery for cleaners to solve.
• Absolutely Clueless: Explains things that don’t need explaining and misunderstands the things that do.
• Jokes That Make No Sense: Insists his one-liners are “gold” — they’re not. They’re abstract performance art.
• Support Dependent: Constantly needs help logging into systems, attaching files, or finding the “any” key.
• Coffee Samaritan (With a Caveat): Keeps the team caffeinated but mixes up milk and sugar, turns soy into “surprise milk,” and once handed decaf to a client and pretended nothing happened.
• Frequent Apologiser: Sorry, sorry, sorry — even when nothing went wrong, he apologises like he’s pre-emptively guilty.
• Email Enthusiast: Sends forwards with no context, replies-all to complaints, and uses 27 exclamation marks in a warning about stapler etiquette.
• Title Misread: Thinks “Action Required” means “Action Film Night.”
• Meeting Magnet: Turns up to meetings with a pen, a banana, and the conviction he belongs there.
• Pride in Small Things: Can assemble an IKEA mug with pride. Cannot open PDF attachments.
• Fashion Statement: Socks/loafers combo that screams “I thought it matched” at 50 paces.
• Perpetual Thanker: Thanks you for things you didn’t do and thanks you again for things you did do, just in case.

Meet Office Nosey Bastard: The Corporate Spy Who Didn’t Even Need to Be Hired for the Role

Meet Office Nosey Bastard: The eavesdropping, uninvited meeting expert who knows your business better than HR. A workplace spy in a V-neck who’s always one whisper away from chaos.

Office BantomimeJames Mason

Extra Hilarious Add-Ons (for maximum comedic mileage)

• He once used the office plant as a paperweight and apologised to it.
• He staples things together and then asks why the printer is jammed.
• He thinks “reply” and “reply all” are interchangeable synonyms.
• He mispronounces everyone’s job titles in a charmingly wrong way. (“You’re the Chief Snack Officer, right?”)
• Keeps an ancient phone that plays polyphonic ringtones and denies ownership when it vibrates in meetings.
• He calls IT for “urgent help” because his mouse won’t click, but it’s actually a frozen doughnut on the desk.
• Writes motivational post-its in Comic Sans and sticks them to the monitor with the conviction of a TED Talk speaker.

Accessories (the packaging essentials)

• Idiot’s Guide to Idiots — a paperback with 12 chapters and zero solutions.
• Crumpled Spreadsheets — an accessory set of notes that can’t be read but look important.
• Mug That Says “IDIOT” — given ironically by someone who stopped being subtle in 2019.
• The Toilet Roll — part comfort object, part paper trail.
• A Highlighter That Only Works Sometimes — he blames the pen.

Office Jack the Lad: Who He Is and Why HR’s Watching

Meet Office Jack the Lad: tracksuit-wearing, vape-puffing, energy-drink-fuelled legend of workplace banter and chaos. Every office has one. Or soon will

Office BantomimeJames Mason

Why He Survives (and sometimes thrives)

He’s like a workplace immune system quirk — frustrating, but oddly useful. People forgive him because:

• He makes the office feel less serious.
• He genuinely tries (and that counts for a lot).
• He brings coffee. Often. Even if it’s the wrong coffee.
• He supplies endless comic relief for the Slack channel.

How to Survive an Office Idiot (practical tips)

✅ Assign him an obvious, low-risk task (water plants, restock staplers). He’ll do something small and feel heroic.
✅ Keep your important files locked behind clear file-naming conventions — “FINAL_FINAL_v7_actually_final” helps.
✅ Use visual cues in meetings — name tents, agendas on screen — so he knows who is who.
✅ If he gives you coffee, discreetly taste it first. Smile. Sip. Pretend it’s exactly what you wanted.
✅ When he tells a joke, laugh kindly and change the subject. He believes in encouragement.
✅ If he emails reply-all, resist the urge to roast him. Instead: a single helpful reply with the right attachment.

Final Note (and a little mercy)

Office Idiot is a living reminder that the office is a human place — chaotic, imperfect, and occasionally wrapped in toilet paper. He’s the colleague who’ll brighten a bleak Monday with a nonsensical anecdote, make you check your grammar twice, and leave you slightly more tolerant than you were five minutes ago.

Know an Office Idiot? Tag them (lovingly) or share your best “how did he even get a passcode” story in the comments. If you’re the Office Idiot… keep bringing the (mostly correct) coffee. We need you.