Standup meeting jokes are short one liners you read out at the start of a daily standup, or in the gap between speakers, to loosen the room before the updates begin. This guide has sixty of them across four categories: developer humour, general workplace, clean office jokes and puns. All free to steal. Run your standup with The Duck and the pool grows to 974. The duck reads one out every time it picks the next speaker, so nobody on the team has to be the funny one.
Poke the duck. It has been holding these in all morning.
Ready when you are.
Written for people who get the punchline without a footnote. Compilers, merge conflicts, that one flaky test everybody has quietly agreed to ignore.
Which body part does a programmer know best?
ARM
Relationship status?
I'll leave the relations to the database.
How do you get the code for the bank vault?
You checkout their branch.
How did the developer announce their engagement?
They returned true!
Why did the security conscious engineer refuse to pay their dinner bill?
Because they could not verify the checksum.
What do you call a busy waiter?
A server.
What do you call an idle server?
A waiter.
[Please Enter New Password] fortnight
[Error: Password is Two Week]
How many Prolog programmers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Yes.
I’ve been hearing news about this big boolean.
Huge if true.
What diet did the ghost developer go on?
Boolean
Why was the developer unhappy at their job?
They wanted arrays.
Why did 10 get paid less than "10"?
There was workplace inequality.
Why was the function sad after a successful first call?
It didn’t get a callback.
Why did the angry function exceed the callstack size?
It got into an Argument with itself
Nothing technical, and nothing the new starter needs explained. These land in any team where a meeting has ever run twenty minutes past the hour.
Why did the employee bring a ladder to the meeting?
They heard the discussion was on another level.
What's the best thing about teamwork?
Someone else to blame.
Why do offices have so many clocks?
Because time flies when you're pretending to work.
How do you know your meeting could have been an email?
You're reading this joke instead of paying attention.
What's the opposite of a standup meeting?
A lie-down meeting. Also known as a nap.
How many managers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. They form a committee to investigate why it went dark.
Why did the spreadsheet break up with the calculator?
It felt like they were just going through the motions.
What do you call a coworker who never stops talking?
A meeting.
Why did the employee get fired from the calendar factory?
They took too many days off.
What's the most dangerous thing in the office?
A reply-all button and a strong opinion.
Why don't offices ever win at poker?
Too many people showing their hand in meetings.
What's the difference between a boss and a trampoline?
You take your shoes off before jumping on a trampoline.
How does an office say goodbye?
"Per my last email..."
What do you call a fake noodle in the office?
An impasta. Also known as the intern pretending to be busy.
Why did the resume blush?
It had too many personal references.
You could keep scrolling, or let the duck read them
It picks your next speaker and opens their turn with one of these, so warming up the room stops being anybody's job.
Mild by design. Fine for the all hands, fine for a client call, and fine on the days you cannot see who else has dialled in.
Why did the employee bring a ladder to the office?
They heard the job had a lot of upward mobility.
What's the most common lie told in an office?
"I'll just be a minute."
Why did the office printer go to therapy?
It had too many paper jams and couldn't process anything.
What do you call a coworker who won't stop talking at your desk?
A desk-tractor.
Why did the stapler break up with the tape dispenser?
It felt like their relationship had no attachment.
What's the office printer's favourite genre of music?
Paper jam.
Why do office workers never win at poker?
They always fold under pressure.
What did the elevator say to the office worker?
"I think you push my buttons."
Why did the office plant get promoted?
It was outstanding in its field and never called in sick.
What did one office wall say to the other?
"Meet you at the corner."
Why is the break room fridge like a crime scene?
Everyone's lunch keeps disappearing and there are no witnesses.
What's the best thing about working in an office?
The chairs swivel, even when the company doesn't.
Why did the employee tape their lunch to the ceiling?
The passive-aggressive fridge notes weren't working.
What do you call someone who's really enthusiastic about spreadsheets?
An Exceller.
Why do office kitchens always have dirty mugs?
Because everyone assumes the Mug Fairy will handle it.
The highest groan to word ratio on this page. Some teams switch this category off. Braver teams switch off everything else.
Why don't eggs tell jokes?
They'd crack each other up.
What do you call a fake noodle?
An impasta.
Why did the scarecrow win an award?
He was outstanding in his field.
What do you call a bear with no teeth?
A gummy bear.
Why can't a bicycle stand on its own?
It's two-tired.
What did the ocean say to the beach?
Nothing, it just waved.
Why did the coffee file a police report?
It got mugged.
What do you call cheese that isn't yours?
Nacho cheese.
Why couldn't the leopard play hide and seek?
He was always spotted.
What do you call a sleeping dinosaur?
A dino-snore.
Why do cows wear bells?
Because their horns don't work.
What did the grape do when it got stepped on?
It let out a little wine.
Why did the tomato turn red?
Because it saw the salad dressing.
What do you call a can opener that doesn't work?
A can't opener.
Why do seagulls fly over the sea?
Because if they flew over the bay, they'd be bagels.
The two spots that work are the very top of the meeting and the gap between speakers. Top of the meeting buys you the thirty seconds it takes for the latecomers to join. Between speakers, a joke acts as punctuation, which is oddly useful: it tells the room that one update has ended and the next has started, so people stop talking over the handover.
Keep them short. One liner, two lines at most, no setup that needs a diagram. And let the tool read the joke rather than a person, because a joke a human has to perform is a small tax on that human every single morning, whereas a joke a duck tells is nobody's fault. That is most of why this works, and it is the same principle behind the rest of the ideas in our guide to how to make standups fun.
Skip the joke when the room is already carrying something. An incident, a redundancy round, somebody's bad news. One click in settings turns the duck off, and a team that knows when not to joke gets more out of the days it does.
What did the computer do at lunchtime?
Had a byte!
What does a baby computer call his father?
Data!
Why did the computer keep sneezing?
It had a virus!
What is a computer virus?
A terminal illness!
I never tell the same joke twice
I have a DRY sense of humor.
Why was the computer freezing?
It left its Windows open!
Why was there a bug in the computer?
Because it was looking for a byte to eat?
Why did the computer squeak?
Because someone stepped on its mouse!
What do you get when you cross a computer and a life guard?
A screensaver!
Where do all the cool mice live?
In their mousepads!
What do you get when you cross a computer with an elephant?
Lots of memory!
Java truly is an OOP language...
As in: OOPs I used Java!
What did the computer do at lunchtime?
Had a byte!
What does a baby computer call his father?
Data!
Why did the computer keep sneezing?
It had a virus!
What is a computer virus?
A terminal illness!
I never tell the same joke twice
I have a DRY sense of humor.
Why was the computer freezing?
It left its Windows open!
Why was there a bug in the computer?
Because it was looking for a byte to eat?
Why did the computer squeak?
Because someone stepped on its mouse!
What do you get when you cross a computer and a life guard?
A screensaver!
Where do all the cool mice live?
In their mousepads!
What do you get when you cross a computer with an elephant?
Lots of memory!
Java truly is an OOP language...
As in: OOPs I used Java!
How do programming pirates pass method parameters?
Varrrrarrrgs.
How do programming shepherds count their flock?
With lambda functions
What airline do developers prefer when they're in a rush?
Delta.
How did pirates collaborate before computers ?
Pier to pier networking.
Why don't bachelors like Git?
Because they are afraid to commit.
A SQL query goes into a bar, walks up to two tables and asks:
Can I JOIN you?
How does a developer make a cheer?
["hip","hip"] // (hip hip array!)
What did JavaScript call his son?
JSON!
What did the proud React component say to its child?
I've got to give you props
What did the server say to his client who was having a bad day?
Everything's going to be 200
Why did the developer go broke?
Because they used up all their cache
Are computers dangerous?
Nah, they don't byte. They just nibble a bit.
How do programming pirates pass method parameters?
Varrrrarrrgs.
How do programming shepherds count their flock?
With lambda functions
What airline do developers prefer when they're in a rush?
Delta.
How did pirates collaborate before computers ?
Pier to pier networking.
Why don't bachelors like Git?
Because they are afraid to commit.
A SQL query goes into a bar, walks up to two tables and asks:
Can I JOIN you?
How does a developer make a cheer?
["hip","hip"] // (hip hip array!)
What did JavaScript call his son?
JSON!
What did the proud React component say to its child?
I've got to give you props
What did the server say to his client who was having a bad day?
Everything's going to be 200
Why did the developer go broke?
Because they used up all their cache
Are computers dangerous?
Nah, they don't byte. They just nibble a bit.
Let the duck do the talking
Free, no signup, and nothing leaves your browser. Add your team once and the duck handles the picking, the jokes and the timing.