This post was brought to us by The Black Sheep Online in an effort to help recent college graduates to understand if and when it’s cool to blow it out their asses in the workplace. Check out their site for more stuff like this.
Hey there college graduate,
Those four years flew by pretty quick. Now you’ve got a piece of paper in your hand, a funny hat on your head and you’re doomed to the real world.
In the real world people pretend to act like adults. They wear drab clothes, eat salad, and schedule their sex lives. They will want you to follow suit. They will tell you what they think you need to know to survive out there—but they’ll only tell you the real PC stuff: work hard, get hitched, sip, don’t chug. But no one asks the hard questions and no one gives you the honest answers.
Like, for example, in your new old-person job, is it ok to fart?
The Black Sheep aims to answer that. We surveyed 95 working professionals—TV producers, pilots, a nuclear physicist — from all over America to see what their personal policy is on lettin’ out a toot in the ole’ office.
First, a little information on the people we polled:
Average Age: 27 | Oldest: 56 • Youngest: 20
Gender Polled: 54% male, 46% female
Additionally, there was a huge variation in the amount of coworkers the poll takers had. Many of those we polled worked with a handful of people, but many also had coworkers numbering in the hundreds, and one worked with 2,500 people. So whether you’re sort of an individual working at a small company or a faceless cog in a corporate machine, know that letting out a little gas blast is one common denominator for all.
Question 1: How Often Do You Fart in Your Place of Work?
We’d wager that if you were to turn to most anyone in a workplace and ask them to their face, “When was the last time you farted here?” they’d give you some sheepish grin, then deny ever farting in the office or offer some heavily qualified quip that isn’t really an answer.
And those people would be lying to your face.
The stinky reality is almost everyone farts in the workplace—and this is because literally every person in the history of ever has farted. Hell, just last week Pope Benedict farted in St. Peter’s Basilica, reminding one Cardinal with a wrinkled face, “He who smelt it dealt it.”
And the four people who took our survey and said they didn’t, we’d wager they’re lying anonymously on the internet.
So, if you’ve gotta fart at work, fart at work, dude.
Question 2: When You Fart At Work, Where Do You Fart?
This, we think, tells a most interesting story about farts.
While a cool 45% of the people admit to farting just kinda wherever they have to fart, we think it’d be safe to say that most of the time that would be in a semi-personal work area, so there’d be some overlap with the 12% who chose to go back to their work area and sink those gaseous farticles into their poor, battered office chair.
Yeah, that chair in your cubicle you think is brand new? It’s got three years worth of farts from the last guy who sat there, drinking coffee, eating Thai food and farting for 8 hours a day.
But what really ruffles our factory feathers are the 25% of people who walk around crop dusting their co-workers like there’s no tomorrow. These fartophobes aren’t farting on the move to terrorize their coworkers or to be funny, they’re scattering those poop particles around to better hide the smelly sinning they’re doing in the workplace. After all, if an entire hallway reeks like a cattle farm, who knows if it’s the guy who just zipped by or if it’s lactose-intolerant Kathy a few cubes down—did you see her eating yogurt this morning?
Question 3: Do You Think it’s Socially Acceptable to Fart at Work?
If less than a fifth of the workers we polled found it starkly wrong to fart in the workplace, then why is it taboo around the office?
Well, look at the other data we’ve provided you. When people have to fart, they do it in a way that minimizes the chance of them getting caught. Mind you, nearly 100% of the people we anonymously polled admitted to farting in the workplace, but the means by which they actually went about farting shows just how hung-up we are as a society about farts.
Verdict: Fart in the workplace.
The boss is doing it, the secretary is doing it, even that cute guy you’re absolutely terrified to make eye contact with is farting. It’s one big, smelly, farting money-making family. They’re practically begging you to join in on the fun.
Our Five Favorite Fart Comments:
When we sent out this survey, our last question was an open-ended one: “Do you have any additional comments?” People did. These were our favorite five.
“This survey is gross.”
“Farting is awesome.”
“Sharting in work is not as acceptable. But I’ve also done that…”
“During clinic, it is acceptable to blame various types of stank on patients and no one would dare question you.”
“End fart discrimination in our lifetime.”
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