Office Pantomiming On The Rise – CoverUps.com

Burt Middleton, 37, a senior payment processor at Ajax AP System, acts like he's pulling the boss’s chain, all this while his boss is on the phone with a client.

ACROSS THE U.S.A. – A most peculiar trend appears to take place during the unnatural act called a group conference call, CoverUps has learned. Group conference calls have become hatcheries of amateur pantomimes!

The National Assoc. of Pantomimes (NAP) claims that conference calls are their number one source of new recruitment. People love to act out stuff unbeknownst to the people on the phone. They don’t see the trend changing anytime soon.

“When people do pantomime during a conference call,” said Mark Silverberg, NAP president and mime, “they usually are insulting someone on the other end of the phone, someone that presumably can’t see the gesture. Often time they will imitate that person – perhaps by jerking them off.”

As an example, Silverberg said each time the boss beckons workers into the office to listen to a new client conference call suddenly somebody feels the need to "flex his muscles” when a good point is made. From there, office pantomiming only escalates.

“Next thing you know, everybody has to got to outdo the other guy; all the while the seemingly serious conference call is in full gasbag mode,” Silverberg said, bucking his hips for no apparent reason.

Silverberg described many variations of the office call pantomime:

The office swordsman who upon successfully consummating a new deal must thrust an imaginary foe with his blade and stand proudly over his felled opponent. This one is particularly common in middle management.

Mr. Muscles

When their guy is telling us how great our service is, is he also making a masturbation sign with his fist; or, flexing his muscles, wiggling his hips, doing the hula hoop, kicking paper footballs, moping the floor, doing one hand push ups, etc.

The F You Guy

When complaints are aired by the client, someone will be making clown faces when their front man is apologizing profusely; typically somebody might be holding their middle finger up to the receiver when the clients accusing them of dropping the ball on some project?

A variant is when “Bill from accounting” is explaining charges to the client. Meanwhile, he is gyrating and bucking his hips in quiet imitation of somebody getting screwed?

The Mockery

Then there is the mocking pantomime. "I see your point," conference call speaker says, "basically, what we can offer in terms of real time, front-end compatibility..." Meanwhile, someone is pretending to go “Blah, blah, blah, blah...”

Victoria Lennek, 37, a real estate manger with ReMax, learns she is getting a promotion via conference call. Her boss can’t see her muscles, just hear her typically “yes, Sir” patter.

Silverberg went on to describe “Group Pantomiming” an even more advanced form of the office Pantomime.

The Limbo Stick

The conference call participants are taking turns doing a mass "limbo stick" contest as their boss arches over backwards to the quiet applause and finger snapping of two Dilbert schmucks lowering the bar. The challenge is to remain quiet as someone talks to the client on the phone.

The Electric Slide

The members of one group break into a silent rendition of the "electric slide" complete with inaudible "boogie-woogie-woogies." Someone might be voicing the boss whispering "You can feel it….Its electric." The challenge is make sure the client is not alerted to such pantomiming tomfoolery.

Eventually, we had to cut our conversation short with Silverberg.

He got a call from his boss during our interview. He threw his back out while dropping his pants. On that note, we silently left.

(E-Mail Silly Suggestions / Silly Questions to SILLY@CoverUps.com)