Title: Toilet Break

General Information about Item:

• Joke
• Not language specific.

Informant Data:

• Anthony Addo is a senior at Dartmouth College studying Computer Science. He was born in Connecticut but has lived in Ohio and Ghana, and currently lives in Ghana.

Contextual Data:

• Social Context
  • The joke was collected on November 6th, 2017. Anthony first encountered the joke as it was told by his friend Sam when they were both in CS 31, Dartmouth’s class on algorithms. Anthony noted that CS 31 is a “very tough course,” and that jokes were shared between students in this course as a way to relieve stress.

• Cultural Context
  • The CS 31 Algorithms course is known to be one of the more difficult courses in the Computer Science department, and taking the course can be considered a rite of passage for students of Computer Science. The joke’s somewhat taboo toilet humor adds some levity and fun to a stressful term for students of the course. The joke also references some popular stereotypes of tech companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Apple, reducing and parodying their programming practices and policies into a punchline centered around bathroom etiquette. This sort of toilet humor can be enjoyed not only by computer scientists and students of computer science, but anyone in the world with knowledge of the stereotypes associated with Microsoft, IBM, and Apple in terms of how they approach writing code and how these companies view each other.

Item:

Three programmers meet accidentally at the urinal while attending a technical conference. The first programmer finishes up his business, washes his hands with loads of water, walks over to the towels and uses almost the entire roll to dry his hands. He turns to the other two and says “At Microsoft, we are trained to be extremely thorough.”

The second programmer finishes up, walks over to the sink and washes his hands with much less water, then uses a single towel to dry his hands. He remarks to the other two “At IBM, we are trained not only to be very thorough, but also very efficient.”

The third programmer finishes his business, walks right past the sink and towel rack and lauds over his shoulder as he walks over the door: “At Apple we don’t piss in our hands!”

Transcript:

• Stephanie: Can you tell me your name and background please?
• Anthony: My name is Anthony Addo. I was born in Connecticut but I’ve lived my life in Ohio and Ghana. I currently live in Ghana. I’m a Computer Science major, uh, and I’m a senior at Dartmouth College, an ’18.
• Stephanie: Wonderful. Can you tell me the joke you have?
• Anthony: Yes. Alright, listen closely. Three programmers meet accidentally at the urinal while attending a technical conference. The first programmer finishes up his business, washes his hands with loads of water, walks over to the towels and uses almost the entire roll to dry his hands. He turns to the other two and says “At Microsoft, we are trained to be extremely thorough.” The second programmer finishes up, walks over to the sink and washes his hands with much less water, then uses a single towel to dry his hands. He remarks to the other two “At IBM, we are trained not only to be very thorough, but also very efficient.” The third programmer finishes his business, walks right past the sink and towel rack and lauds over his shoulder as he walks over the door: “At Apple we don’t piss in our hands!”
• Stephanie: Ah, alright. Could you tell me where you first heard the joke please?
• Anthony: I first heard the joke from my friend Sam, at this CS — I think it was CS31 — uh, very tough course, but we were just trying to loss some steam doing a joke, it was really good.
• Stephanie: Alright, and can you explain why the joke is funny?
• Anthony: It’s funny because… it’s interesting, because um… the first programmer mentions that he is extremely thorough with how he does his work. He’s a programmer, and he makes sure he gets all the loopholes, and makes sure he goes through every single one. As for the second programmer from IBM, who only uses one towel to wash his hands, or to dry his hands, uh… He’s simply very efficient with his code, he makes sure his code is, it’s simple and clean… As for the Apple programmer, he just does the job. He simply streamlines it,  and does it perfectly every single time.
• Stephanie: Thank you very much!

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Collector’s Name: Stephanie Guo

Tags/Keywords:

• Joke. Tech company. Microsoft. IBM. Apple. Toilet.