You might be a teacher if…

  • you have an overwhelming urge to nod and say, “Now I understand why your kid is the way they are,” after meeting the parents.
  • you’ve ever said “Put that gum on your nose!”
  • …outside of the classroom.
  • you can’t have children because there is no name you can think of that doesn’t give you high blood pressure.
  • you believe “shallow gene pool” should have its own box on report cards.
  • you think people should get government permits before they can reproduce.
  • you hand pieces of paper to your friends and make them spit out their gum in front of you.
  • your voice is permanently set on high volume from attempting to be heard over students’ voices day after day.
  • you’re more strict with the kids at school than at home.
  • you correct a total stranger’s grammar errors.
  • when you go shopping and your kids spot a friend, the kid’s parents come over and say hi, and you don’t remember ever meeting them.
  • you’re more strict with the kids at school than at home.
  • your correct a total stranger’s grammar errors.
  • when you go shopping and your kids spot a friend, the kid’s parents come over and say hi, and you don’t remember ever meeting them.
  • any sustained loud noise causes you to impulsively flick the light switch on and off.
  • you think it’s normal to go through four years of college to earn a salary that’s below the poverty line.
  • you send another adult to detention for using four-letter words in public…
  • … and they go.
  • you cringe whenever someone says, “At least you give three months vacation.”
  • …or “I would love to get off work at 3.”
  • (most) people allow you to tell their child what to do.

You might be from Wisconsin if…

This is an old submission from around 10 years ago or more…
  • you have gotten frostbitten and sunburned all in the same week.
  • you have more miles on your snowblower than your car.
  • you owe more money on your snowmobile than on your car.
  • you refer to the Packers as “we.”
  • your 4th of July Family Picnic was moved indoors due to frost.
  • snow tires come standard on all your cars.
  • you know what cowtipping is.
  • traveling coast to coast means going from La Crosse to Milwaukee.
  • you know what a bubbler is.
  • a brat is something you eat.
  • you only know three spices: salt, pepper, and ketchup.
  • you design your Halloween costumes to fit over a snowsuit.
  • your sexy lingerie is tube socks and a flannel nightshirt.
  • you know that Eau Claire is not something you eat.
  • you have no problem spelling Milwaukee.
  • you consider Madison exotic.
  • you don’t have a coughing fit from one sip of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
  • you were unaware there is a legal drinking age.
  • you go out for fish fry every Friday.
  • you know what to do with a Blatz.
  • you can recognize someone from Illinois from their driving.
  • you know how to polka.
  • you think the start of deer season is a national holiday.
  • at least twice a year, your kitchen doubles as a meat processing plant.
  • you know where Waukesha is AND can pronounce it.
  • you can visit Luxemburg, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Berlin, New London & Poland all in one afternoon.
  • you’ve seen mosquitoes with landing lights.
  • the local paper covers major headlines on 1 page, but requires 4 pages for sports. you drink soda and refer to your dad as “pop.”
  • formal wear is blue jeans & a baseball cap.
  • your snowblower gets stuck on the roof.
  • you find 0 degrees a little chilly.
  • you actually understand these jokes.
  • you forward them to all your Wisconsin friends.
  • “Down South” to you means Chicago…
  • your definition of a small town is one that only has one bar…
  • at least 50% of your relatives work on a dairy farm…
  • you can identify a Michigan accent…
  • you learned to drive a tractor before the training wheels were off your bike…
  • traveling coast to coast means going from Superior to Milwaukee…
  • the “Big Three” means Miller, Old Milwaukee & PBR
  • you used to think Deer Season was included as an official school holiday…
  • the snow on your roof in August weighs more than you do…
  • your idea of creative landscaping is a statue of a cow next to your blue spruce…
  • you think there should be a “FIB go home” bumper sticker on every car north of Madison…
  • a Friday night out is taking your girlfriend shining for deer…
  • you go to work in a snowsuit in the morning and return home wearing shorts…
  • when you tell someone where you are from and they say: ‘I thought that was part of Canada…
  • your idea of the seasons is Winter, Spring and the 4th of July…
  • you think that Lutheran and Catholics ARE the major religions…..
  • every sweatshirt you own is either red and white or green and gold.
  • FFA was the most popular club in high school. (That’s Future Farmers of America to the rest of you.)
  • you have eaten a cow pie at the State Fair.
  • the town you grew up in had a bar called Ma’s Place.
  • cheese is an important staple in your diet.
  • there was at least one kid in your class who had to help milk cows in the morning…phew!
  • you have to drive thirty minutes to the nearest movie theater.
  • you know how to pronounce “brat”.
  • you loved it when the Brewers hit a home run so the lady would slide from the huge keg into the mug of beer.
  • Sunday morning at church involves lots of coffee, JellO molds and danish.
  • Country Kitchen was the place to meet after the party. (or Perkins )
  • you know someone who can use “ja, der hey” in a sentence.
  • your school lost half their student body during deer season.
  • at every wedding you have been to you have had to dance the hokey pokey and the chicken dance.
  • you ever went to a wedding reception in a bowling alley.
  • you know it’s traditional for the bride and groom to go bar hopping between the ceremony and the reception.
  • you own at least one cheese head.
  • Sunday afternoons are sacred for the Packer game!
  • you have ever been to State Street in Madison during a protest of something.
  • you have been to at least one house party on Johnson Street in Madison.
  • you get irritated at sports announcers that pronounce it “Wesconsin”.
  • your high school class went to the Pabst Theater to see “A Christmas Carol”.
  • you thought everyone drank from “bubblers”.
  • you went to the local tavern on Friday night for Fish Fry.
  • you have drank “white soda” (ie 7Up, Sprite, etc).
  • you have experienced snow storms in April.
  • you have had school closed due to wind chills and frostbite warnings.
  • you know what a “flatlander” is and you know all the “why Wisconsin is better than Illinois” jokes.
  • you get choked up when you hear the University Marching Band play “On Wisconsin”.
  • you believe that Badgers will always beat Gophers.
  • The Packers will always be better than the Vikings, no matter what the standings are.
  • you have been to a “BoDeans” concert.
  • you have ever partied at Summerfest, Festa Italiana,German Fest, Irish Fest or all of the above.
  • you or someone you know was a “Dairy Princess” at a county fair.
  • you have gone out of your way to eat ice cream at Gilles’ or Kopp’s.
  • Goodyear Tire on any Saturday is busier than toy stores at Christmas
  • driving is better in the winter because the potholes fill in with snow
  • sexy lingerie is tube socks and a flannel nightie.
  • the most effective mosquito repellent is a shotgun.
  • you head south to go to your cottage.
  • the trunk of you car doubles as a deep freezer.
  • you play hockey outdoors 10 months a year.
  • you can make sense out the words upnort and Trivers.
  • you were offended by the movie Fargo.
  • your idea of foreign culture is listening to Da Yoopers .
  • you’ve seen a hodag.
  • you know that Gotham is a real city.
  • your neighbor throws a party to celebrate his new machine shed.
  • Bernie Brewer is your idol because he gets to dive in a giant beer mug.
  • you tried to tap the Worlds Largest Six Pack.
  • you have to go to Florida to get a tan in August.
  • you have caught a fish in Lake Michigan and it glowed in the dark.
  • you define swimming season as Labor Day weekend..
  • you know where the city of Waunakee is AND can pronounce it
  • you have more fishing poles than teeth.
  • you’ve taken your kids trickortreating in a blizzard
  • you know which leaves make good toilet paper
  • your hometown buys a Zamboni when they need a bus
  • you define Summer as three months of bad sledding…
  • you got a passport to go to Minnesota…
  • you decided to have a picnic this summer because it fell on a weekend…
  • your whole family wears green and gold to church on Sunday.
  • you can identify an Illinois accent.
  • you know where Oconomowoc is AND can pronounce and spell it.

A couple other places I found:

Hot potato status update meeting game

Object of the game:  Don’t be caught giving your status update when the potato goes off.

Rules of the game:

  1. A different person starts the status meeting every week.
  2. The random “Hot Potato” timer starts when the first person begins his or her update.
  3. When an update is complete, the person picks a random person to hand/toss the “hot potato” to.
  4. Repeat giving updates and handing off the potato until updates are complete or the hot potato goes off.
  5. If the potato goes off during your update, you must buy coffee and donuts/bagels/etc. for the entire team the next morning.
  6. If the entire meeting goes off without the potato going off, the manager buys the food.
  7. Interrupting an update means that you get to hold the potato next, or if you’ve gone already, until the person giving the update is finished talking.

Types of Meetings

Meeting before the meeting – A select group of people, usually from the same team, decide what the “correct outcome” of the main meeting is supposed to be. When the main meeting comes, the co-conspirators stick to their guns about what must be done.

Meeting after the meeting – Often, the people who were run over by the pre-meeting decision will have a meeting afterward to discuss what just hit them. Especially true when the main meeting involved a large vendor.

Meeting just to make sure we keep having this meeting – An agenda-less meeting that occurs during the only available weekly time slot on the calendars of all participants, so everyone shows up and fakes it through the meeting aimlessly until the time is up.

The mutually ignored meeting – Sometimes coincides with the “meeting just to make sure we keep having this meeting.”  Usually, however, this meeting has a more organized structure.  Everyone participates in the meeting by speaking in turn, yet no one actually hears anything that the other participants are saying.  Often coincides with the “project status meeting”.

Pep Rally Meeting – These meetings are supposed to replicate the glory days of the tech boom, complete with an enthusiastic leader leading the cheering.  These can be fun if the overall culture of the company fits.  They can also be the source of YouTube videos.

Sub-Meeting – A complete side discussion that starts by distracting major participants in the main meeting, and eventually overtakes the main meeting purpose, either by acoustics or by importance.

“Party” Meeting – This may be a special occasion to recognize a milestone birthday, anniversary, retirement, etc., and is often characterized by a lot of standing around in odd clusters of people.  People from each of these clusters take turns migrating to the focus of the party to say a good word, and then drift back to their clusters or to their desks.  Social aptitude generally determines how long a person has to wait to for a turn.

Project “status” meeting – A regular project “update” meeting where everyone gives an “everything’s okay” status, regardless of what part of the project is crashing and burning.

Virtual Meeting – A remote meeting that everyone dials into and immediately mutes, proceeding to spent their time more productively, such as by watching Sportscenter or playing ping-pong.

Meeting to teach someone how to run a meeting – This is generally a status-type meeting where a less-experienced team member learns how to start a meeting, stick to an agenda, and write down and assign “action items”.

You might be a beer snob if…

  • you refer to popular American beers as “swill”.
  • you frequent any brewpub that has a disclaimer that they will ask you to leave if you order a light beer.
  • you frequent any brewpub that does not serve beer other than its own in-house brew.
  • you prefer home brew to mass-produced beer.
  • …even bad home brew.
  • you treat light beer drinkers the same as fruity martini drinkers.
  • you know the IBUs of your beers.
  • you’ve written reviews of beers on beer rating sites.
  • you know the definition of “ale”, “lager”, “stout”, “doppelbock”, etc…
  • you’ve ever uttered the word “hoppy”.
  • “Beer is Food” doesn’t make you an alcoholic.
  • you know beers by their country of origin.
  • you are disturbed when you notice foreign beers that are served in ethnic restaurants that don’t match the country of origin.  [Sapporo in Thai restaurants, Singha in Indian…]