They're in the funny business: Cubicle comedians make light of what we all hate about work

DeAndre Brown, a 24-year-old Chicago native and former banking analyst, quit the rat race in 2022 to break down “toxic work culture one video at a time.”

In his popular sketches on TikTok, the self-appointed “corporate baddie” sets razor-sharp boundaries (he calls it “life work balance” and slams shut his laptop at 5 p.m. on the nose). He jokes that PTO stands for “prepare the others” and that his personal pronouns are “pay me.”

He pokes fun at cringey co-workers and overbearing bosses. He gives his boss two minutes – not two weeks – notice (after all, that’s what his fictional company would give him).

He also pushes back on perceptions that 20-somethings aren’t ambitious and don’t work hard.

Brown has a point. His TikTok hustle has racked up millions of views and hundreds of thousands of followers. Today, he has a talent manager and brand deals and runs his own consulting firm in Los Angeles.

“I was Gen Z and I was joining the workforce, but sometimes I wasn’t comfortable enough to stand up and fight for the things I wanted,” Brown said. “So I used TikTok as an outlet to express that.”

Think “The Office” meets TikTok. A new generation of cubicle comedians is skewering the soul-crushing 9-to-5 grind.

Funny memes stick it to the man (micromanagers who demand employees turn on their Zoom cameras or schedule meetings at quitting time), lampoon entitled 20-somethings (“Can I bring my emotional support animal to work?”) and roast corporate jargon (“Circling back” is the clear winner).

One creator taking her funny-business role particularly seriously is Lisa Beasley, a Chicago-based comedian and actor with more than 240,000 followers on TikTok.

Beasley is so committed to her online persona, “Corporate Erin,” that she would only grant USA TODAY an interview in character.

For office workers, “Corporate Erin” is an exaggerated version of a manager in their workplace. She has a role no one can figure out – her official work title is Manager for the Manager of Logistics from Management McManagement – and a penchant for scheduling hour-long, buzzword-happy Zoom calls at quitting time to hand out weekend assignments.

“I think that a lot of people may be finding that they are encountering a lot of people like me in the workplace,” Beasley, 37, said without breaking character as “Corporate Erin.” “There's just hundreds of thousands of comments saying, ‘I know her.’”

TikTok office humor takes off after COVID

TikTok office humor taps into a post-pandemic wave of workplace angst in cubicles across America. Since the advent of the 40-hour work week decades ago, Americans have devoted themselves to their jobs. Now they are reassessing their relationship with work.

“A lot of us came out of the pandemic with a real reality check of what we are and aren’t willing to put up with and we are standing our ground on that,” said Tessa West, New York University psychology professor and author of “Jerks at Work: Toxic Coworkers and What to Do About Them.”

From quiet quitting to the great resignation, stressed-out workers are pushing back against long hours and commutes, low pay and too little flexibility.

“We spend a big portion of our lives at work or on work-related things. So that's why I think I really resonate with a whole lot of people,” said creator Mauricio Gonzalez-Roberts, who started out on TikTok touching on a variety of topics but discovered his videos critiquing office culture were the ones that really clicked with his audience.

The Pittsburg-based mortgage loan officer uses Jennifer Coolidge’s voice in a video about finding joy when “the coworker you hate finally quits” or a Kim Kardashian quote to narrate an interaction with a work BFF.

Some of his videos are inspired by his own tough experiences at work, some by others.

“Because we all go through something like that at one point or another,” said Gonzalez-Roberts, who has nearly 40,000 followers.

Office humor has storied tradition in cubicles everywhere

Comic relief is a storied tradition in corporate office culture, according to West.

“We know in social science that the one thing that human beings seek out when they are incredibly stressed is humor,” she said. “It is a coping mechanism for us. It is a way of helping us regulate our emotions.”

The first memes spread from cubicle to cubicle in a phenomenon dubbed “Xeroxlore,” said according to Ryan Milner, a communications professor at the College of Charleston who studies internet culture.

The photocopied cartoons, jokes and spoofed company memos then traveled from office to office via fax machines.

In the 1990s, photocopies began vanishing from Xerox trays as office humor went viral over email. Today, workplace productivity tools like Slack and Teams have taken over. But nothing has proven more powerful in turbocharging workplace memes than social media with its all-knowing algorithms.

“This stuff works because it does what humor and satire have always done, it allows you to – without some of the venom, without some of the animosity, without some of the confrontation and antagonism – to talk about real and important issues,” said Milner, author of “The Ambivalent Internet: Mischief, Oddity, and Antagonism Online.”

TikTok sparks spread of ‘disgruntled employee’ humor

Corporate culture humor soared in popularity with the rise of TikTok during COVID.

Stuck on endless Zoom calls while working from couches instead of cubicles, workers in search of dopamine hits practically inhaled “work from home” skits, said Terrell Wade, 33, who started out filming office skits from his banking job in 2020.

Assuming his alter ego “your favorite disgruntled employee,” Wade channeled common frustrations at work.

His most popular series is “things I wish I could say at work.” “How have you not been fired yet?”“You are not my boss.” “That’s because you are an idiot.” “Stop emailing me.” “I don’t get paid enough to care about that.”

He used to block his coworkers and bosses so they wouldn’t catch his videos on TikTok but he was eventually outed, prompting a meeting with human resources.

“They were surprised that I was portraying that persona because I was such a good employee at work,” Wade said.

He shot videos before and after work and on his lunch hour until his side gig became his main gig in the summer of 2021.

“Making fun of jobs is now my full-time job. It works for me,” said Wade, who has 1.5 million followers on TikTok. “I get quite a few DMs that say, ‘Hey I really enjoy your videos. They help me get through my work day.’”

Return to office drives new clicks for TikTok office humor

Natalie Marshall, who posts videos as "Corporate Natalie" and has more than 600,000 followers on TikTok, also got popular from her work TikToks during the pandemic while vlogging about the work-from-home-life, whether desperately trying to wrap up Zoom calls with chatty coworkers, get a word in edgewise with the coworker who won’t let you speak or giving on-the-job advice to Gen Z (pro tip: maybe don’t call the head of M&A “girlie”).

"Why are we saying these things like ‘circle back?’ Why do we speak in corporate speech?" said Marshall, 26, who identifies as a "cusp millennial." "I think the more creators and people that are talking about it, the more it feels like, OK, we can bring a little light into the workplace."

Rod Thill, 33, whose “corporate millennial TikTok” has 1.6 million followers, says he has seen a new burst of engagement as people return to the office. In fact, office humor is getting so popular that on a flight last week Thill found himself sitting next to two co-workers who were chortling over a “Corporate Natalie” video.

“TikTok really blew up during the time we were working from home and now that we are returning to the office, being back in person and chatting with co-workers in person, there are new experiences,” said Thill, who quit his sales job in 2021 and launched a workplace community called WorkDaze last year.

With a deadpan delivery, Thill battles the scaries over the horrors waiting for him in his inbox. He overshares at work. And he openly talks about his struggles with comparison and overthinking everything, saying out loud what most of us keep under wraps.

Asked about the challenges of his new career, Thill says: “My imposter syndrome is a lot different. It’s not just what my boss thinks of me but what millions of people think of me.”

Office humor helps workers cope with workplace pressure

That relatability is central to TikTok office humor’s appeal, helping others feel seen and boosting their coping skills.

Laura Whaley, 29, of British Columbia, is known for her “how do you professionally say” series which translates common gripes into corporate speak.

“Stop emailing me so often” becomes “to ensure that information does not get lost, let’s reduce frequency of communication,” and “that is the dumbest idea I have ever heard” becomes “I am not confident in the effectiveness of that idea. Can you share more details on what you are envisioning?”

Whaley, who has 3.7 million followers on TikTok, says her videos aren’t purely entertainment. They’re meant to inspire better work-life balance and boundary setting in the office, “reminding people that you're allowed to say no, you're allowed to redefine your career at any moment.”

“Sure, there might be repercussions, and I'm not dismissing that piece of it. But also it's your career,” she said. “You find what you want from it and, at the end of the day, you work to provide the life that you want for yourself and family.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'The Office' on TikTok: Cubicle comedians mock our toxic work culture