Passive Aggressive Office Notes That Make Work Life Much More Interesting

By Satarupa D

This article was originally published on whythese

Working in an office might get hectic from time to time, that doesn’t mean it can’t be funny and entertaining once in a while. We mean, hey, sometimes, we need a little laughter in a place that is all the time so serious. This is why some workers partake in writing funny, passive-aggressive office notes for people’s entertainment. It is pretty tough to put all your thoughts into a note, and hope your colleague understands what you’re trying to convey. Well, some people have comically messed up when it comes to writing these workplace notes, and we don’t know if their co-workers understood what they meant, but we are sure it made them laugh and possibly make fun of the person who wrote it. Here are over 45 office notes that make the workplace a hilarious and entertaining place.

Don’t Ask Me to Date

It is hard to find romance in this world, and we usually want all the help we can get. We ask our friends, siblings, and whoever we can find to hitch us with a suitable date. There are quite a few people out there looking for their happily-ever-after.

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Well, this person has left a note from their co-worker to date their cans for the sake of hygiene. But, our friend decided to be a little cute with the note and wrote this funny reply which we are sure would have made the writer laugh. We do hope our friend changed his ways, though!

Sing Me A River!

Whenever a new movie is released with a great soundtrack, it is usually normal to have your co-workers humming those songs right next to your ears, irrespective of whether you like the song or not. It can go both ways.

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Well, this funny note was probably written when the movie Frozen had just come out. The people in the office probably sang the songs so many times that others started to keep count on how many days this continued. Let it go, people, let it go!

Printer for Philosphy

We probably all have that one friend who tries to find the deeper meaning in everything. Even if you show them a pencil, they could probably tell you about its unique place in the universe and how the pencil connects with our lives and helps us on our journey.

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Well, this person was informed by a note that someone moved the printer temporarily. So, to bum his co-workers out, he wrote this scary note that is sure to give anyone an existential crisis if they really thought about it. However, we’re sure some people laughed out loud as we did.

Disturb Us!

It is a known fact that teachers always encourage their students to ask them questions and usually even go so far as to tell them to approach them after class if they want to discuss something specific. But, students don’t follow through because they are worried they might disturb their teachers.

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Well, these teachers wanted to make sure that their students knew that they could be disturbed at any time. So, they posted this note outside their staff rooms. And it does make sense. Three teachers in one room will never have a quiet moment now, would they?

Don’t Forget To Call

When kids grow up, they tend to move out and live separate lives. That often means that they don’t have any more time to spend with their parents. But sometimes, the parents decide enough is enough to demand their kids to pay some attention to them.

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That is exactly what this mother did. She came to her child’s apartment and cleaned all their dishes when she didn’t find them home. But wait! Before she left, she remembered to leave them this passive-aggressive note that will definitely make them stop and take notice.

One is Enough

Now, there are funny notes, and then there are notes that actually kind of make sense. For example, the one we have mentioned here. The workers in this office put up a note saying that if both microwaves are in use simultaneously, they will trip the fuse, and neither will work.

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Now, one of the staff members asked a legit question saying that if the microwaves can’t be used at once, why are there two at all. Only one can be kept and used over and over again. True, mate. You have a point.

All Hail the Coffee Spat!

And then some notes start an entire debate that escalated through more notes. The person who posted the first note probably could never have imagined that their note could start such a barrage of heated responses from other people.

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This person, for instance, posted a note saying that their coffee is weak as it should be and people shouldn’t hack it just like the ‘mud’ that Starbucks serves. And there it went!! People started posting defending notes while others supported it. Surprising but hilarious as well.

Icy Response, Indeed!

This turned out a bit differently, didn’t it? There are some people who are very open with their requests, and then there are the introverts of the office who choose a passive-aggressive way of putting forward their requests as this worker did.

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The staff member wanted an ice machine in the office and wrote this sneaky note to request it. The response they got was a tad bit harsh if we are honest. They could have been kinder about it. It is just an ice machine, folks, not an arcade machine!

Sniff You Out!

Remember the episode in Friends when Ross’ boss stole his Thanksgiving sandwich and ate it. Although Ross comically lost his temper, this is something that happens quite often in an office where someone’s lunch is stolen by someone else.

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This worker left a chicken leg for the office rat and left them a note welcoming them to eat it. If the rat even has a smudge of ego, he wouldn’t eat it, and even if he did, it would be pretty easy to sniff him out. This was well played.

Ice Me In

During the summer season, it is normal to reach into the ice cooler once in a while and get yourself some ice and a soda. Nothing can be more refreshing than that. This worker has requested his co-workers not to steal his ice since he brings it from home.

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The worker probably wanted to inform his coworkers that the ice belonged to him and wasn’t from the office. But the note that was left to him isn’t wrong as well. It is definitely a strange move to write a note like that when you know that you probably won’t use it all anyways.

Post Me A Note

If you need to post something to someone, you better do it through post-it notes since the colorful papers would surely make even the harshest of requests seem cheerful and happy. But, some people decide to use these notes as a means of complaining as well.

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These workers decided to complain about a certain colleague who has been stealing their food. And apparently, he eats everything from yogurt to juice to hot dogs. But the funny part is that even the thief decides to leave a note asking them to bring something new for them to steal. We can’t help but laugh out loud.

Ransom For Your Pen

We all have that friend who follows us everywhere if we dare borrow their pen or pencil. They will hover over our shoulders and wait for us to finish our work so that they can take their writing utensils back from us and thereby not lose them.

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Well, this person must not have followed the protocol and therefore lost his pen. After, he probably circled around the office asking for his pen. The thief sent this hilarious ransom note who asked him to follow the instructions if he wanted his pen back.

Sorry, Not Sorry

We all know a passive-aggressive person or two, but it is always helpful when someone acknowledges themselves as passive-aggressive. But sadly, when they do admit it, the results are not always something that they might expect. Maybe they should just keep to themselves.

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Take this person, for example. He asked one of his co-workers not to throw their food in the hallway since it smells like ketchup. He also acknowledges that he is a passive-aggressive worker. But, you reap what you sow, and the man received a passive-aggressive note back.

Delicious, Was It?

As you might have guessed already, people aren’t fans of their co-workers stealing their food in the office. This worker also left a very stick and straightforward note asking the culprit not to steal the food that is clearly meant for them.

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But the culprit, in true villain spirit, posted an untraceable reply to the posted note admiring the worker’s toaster strudel and telling them how delicious it was. We have to admit. We are impressed by their ingenuity and boldness.

Picture Me This

Some people try to put forward their instructions in a jovial and cheerful manner, while there are some people who will give us the instructions rather grimly. This worker chose the latter as he asked everyone not to use the microwave very forbiddingly.

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Well, someone decided to elaborate on his instructions and beautifully drew a couple of pictures to show exactly how the normal human feels when asked not to do something and what would happen if he gave in to his desire.

Spoiler Alert

It is sad that we live in a world where it is tough to avoid spoilers when it comes to movies or tv shows. Especially if the show is a popular one like Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones. Avoiding spoilers for these shows is near impossible.

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This worker also realized that there was no way to avoid his colleagues from ruining the recent episode of Game of Thrones, so he left this very polite note so that no one talked about the popular show around his cubicle.

Passive Aggressive Much?

It is always annoying when you have a co-worker or a roommate who monopolizes an entire wardrobe section or an entire drawer in a refrigerator. That is exactly what one of the workers did in this case. And they posted a note with it too!

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The worker left a note announcing to the office that one section of the fridge was hers and hers alone. Well, one of her colleagues wrote a passive-aggressive note back that surely was an apt reply to an inconsiderate person like her. Well done!!

Don’t Take A Bite Out Of It

Stealing food from your co-worker is bad enough, but what is worse is when you take a bite out of their food and then leave the rest of it in the exact same spot for them to find. Trust us. There is no act more heathen than this.

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That is exactly what this worker did, and then his colleague left him this icy but appropriate note asking them to just take the whole piece next time. It does make sense – no one will eat it anyway, and it would go to waste!

Scoop Me Up

Nothing is ickier than someone who touches a common spoon with their dirty hands. That would make even the simplest of people feel completely gross and deterred. That is why it is usually the norm to have various compartments inside the drawer to separate everything.

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But this office worker went one step further. Instead of warning his colleagues to wash their hands before picking up a spoon, he made a note that asked the workers to pick up the spoons using a spoon scoop instead of with their hands. This is a tad too much if you ask us.

Oh Singer, Oh Singer

A printer not working is always annoying, especially when you have an important letter or an application to print. Usually, a very straightforward note is posted to warn everyone that the printer is currently out of order. But this person wanted to be creative.

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But this worker decided to be educational when he printed the picture. He compared the printer to the very famous and very popular singer, Bob Marley, and he also gave the reason why through one of his songs. Great, now we have the song stuck in our heads all day!

Don’t Leave Us!

When somebody leaves the office, especially if they had been there for a long time, it is always sad to see them go. A farewell party is often arranged with cakes and balloons to show the person how much they are cared for and how well others would remember them.

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Well, this hilarious worker decided to bake a cake themselves which clearly portrays their sense of humor, and it is admirable how well they know their own self-worth. If this person had been our co-worker, we would have been extremely sad too.

Too Much Freshness!

Nobody likes someone who uses too much deodorant. You go in for a hug with someone and then end up coughing like your life depends on it. Well, the same can be said for room fresheners as well. Too much of it can make you feel suffocated.

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Therefore, this genius decided to stick a note on a room freshener personifying the product and asked the users to spray it lightly since it could be quite strong. And it is true! Summer is good, but too much summer can be quite unnerving.

Priorities, Priorities

Now, this is a note that we can get behind. Here, someone has posted a note asking everyone to close the door so that Rusty couldn’t get out. For the novice, Rusty is the office dog probably. A pretty simple note, right? Wrong!

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After this note was posted, others started adding to it, and someone requested everyone to make sure to turn off the AC, and the other asked to close the door so that Jay, who is obviously a person, couldn’t get out. But, what is hilarious is the order. Dog>AC>Jay.

Let Them Have Cake!

Everyone waits for that occasion in the office when they can have cake. It can either be for someone’s birthday, a farewell, or even the once-a-year Christmas party. Everyone’s eyes are glued to the person cutting the cake, waiting for their piece.

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But this person surely takes the ‘cake’ when it comes to cutting one. We can be sure that we have never seen someone cut a cake quite like this. But, what is astounding about this is that the culprit actually had the audacity to leave behind a note at the scene of the crime.

Voice To Speak

There is a phrase called, “Nobody likes cleaning someone’s messes.” This is actually true when taken literally. Nobody has the time or the patience to clean your mess, especially when it comes to food, namely milk. Everyone knows how stale milk smells.

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This fellow decided to be a little creative and started posting notes on top of the milk bottles to inform his co-workers which ones they are supposed to clean and which ones not to. We gotta admit, that is pretty creative. Cheers!

Clean It or Else?

Passive aggression is all good and well, and it usually gets the job done. But, what is more admirable is when a person decides to do away with that and decides to address their offender in a very straightforward manner without any pretense.

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For example, this person decided to be absolutely blunt with their co-worker and asked them to clean their dishes thoroughly instead of just washing them non-nonchalantly. We understand where they’re coming from. But, the “or else” implied in the sentence has us scared as well.

Stick With Me Forever

Office workers also have to keep their attention on how much the office has been cleaned. And sometimes it turns out that the cleaners haven’t cleaned the office as well they should have. What do you do when that happens? Order them? Or request them?

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Well, this worker decided to post a note asking if anyone had noticed the long hair stuck to the wall for the last six months because the cleaners sure haven’t. As far as passive aggression goes, that is quite good. But six months? Yikes!

Kiss My Pen

As we have already seen, people go to quite a few extremes to protect their pens from being stolen. Every day, people come up with new ways to keep their pens safe and out of harm’s way. But this method is quite hilarious, to be honest.

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This worker decided to gross their colleagues out by leaving them an eye-catching note. They stuck a note announcing to the world that they actually lick their pens, warning any thief from taking their pens since then their hands would be covered with cooties.

Show Me The Meaning.

This one goes to show that passive-aggressive behavior is never a good idea. You might think you are being intelligent, but you are not. After having his banana stolen by his co-workers every day, this man wrote this on the fruit.

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Well, his idea backfired on him, as someone wrote a note back informing him that actually refrigerating his fruit was making it lose all its valuable vitamins. Well, we are sure the person is now regretting his decision to write on his fruit.

Flush You Out

This one is scary. So obviously, there are many people who decide to throw different things down the toilet, but someone must have dropped a towel down the toilet that clogged it up, so a worker posted this note to request them not to do it again.

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Our first question is, why would a person drop a towel down a toilet? And our second question is, why would you draw such a horrifying image of a toilet to make your point? Have you ever seen a toilet like this? We definitely haven’t.

Tuna Do This To Me!

It is awful when workers leave their leftover food in the sink, which ends up stinking the place up. But, what is worse is when that thing turns out to be a fish, like tuna. The smell of leftover tuna is probably the worst thing in the world.

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Well, someone decided to put up a cute, informative note, asking the culprit not to leave parts of the tuna in the office since it obviously stinks up the place. We are sure that no one can be angry at that adorable bluefish.

Marry Me!

Offices are serious places where people come to work. And, the important notes that are usually circulated there are sometimes equally serious. Therefore, it is fun when one person decides to break the norm and post a fun note.

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Someone from the office posted a note asking everyone not to use the deadbolt. Well, one comical worker decided to lighten things up and posted this reply note that is sure to make everyone laugh at his pun. We definitely did!

What A Beauty!

There are many uber hygienic people or just people who are plain possessive. They don’t like to share their coffee cups with anyone and try to tell people that as much as possible. Our next worker tried to do exactly that with, what do you know, a sign!

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The worker tried to post a note in the break room asking their other co-workers not to touch their personal coffee mug. Although that is all well and good, one of the workers posted a hilarious note as a comeback, and we are very interested to know what our worker thinks about that.

Scare Me Not!

Nobody likes to be violently disturbed. Nobody. But we measly people usually can’t help it, and we end up disturbing people when they are busy working or just want some time alone away from their workplace. We just can’t help ourselves.

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Well, this worker put a very appropriate but comical notice on the office door of a set of programmers. Although we know that the note is extremely exaggerated, we are pretty sure it would scare people into doing exactly what the note is asking them to do.

Do Your Dishes!

One of the most annoying things in the workplace is when someone refuses to wash their dishes and leaves them in the sink. What do they expect? That someone will wash it for them or that they would see a plant grow out of it in a few months?

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This person decided enough was enough, but keeping his cool and his funny bone intact, he dropped this funny meme in the sink so that the culprit knows that their dishes are to be washed by them and not create a stinky smell in the office.

Dave, Is That You?

We come back to the food-stealing again. Different people have different methods on how to stop their co-workers from stealing their food. Some of them are straightforward, while others are quite passive-aggressive about the whole thing. When it comes to food, we see it all.

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One of the workers, we are guessing Dave, had an ingenious passive-aggressive way of making sure no one stole his drink. But what he didn’t expect was that someone with a common name as Dave might jump on his white horse and steal his drink away.

Spell-Check Me

There are no issues if you decide to give your blunt nature a rest and decide to be passive-aggressive for once. When you are working in an office, sometimes it is healthy if you decide to be the latter. But first, there are a few things that should be kept in mind.

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For one thing, you should make sure that your passive-aggressive note is written in the correct grammatical form and is completely spell-checked. Otherwise, you might get a rude awakening like this worker whose note was checked by the culprits.

Font That

In a workplace, there are many serious notes that have to be put up at different times. But after a while, it might get a tad boring. So, some people decide to lighten things up by doing different things. This worker decided to use a whimsical font for a change.

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But, the worker must not have realized how serious people are with their fonts. When he posted a note asking people to unplug the computer, another worker very seriously asked him not to use cute fonts. The other person typed back with a boring font.

Print Me A River

Taking a printout of a printer is hard work. Especially if you are working in an office, first of all, there might be a line of people in front of it who are there to print their things. Next, when you finally reach the printer, it might refuse to work at all, or its ink might come to an end.

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Well, one person decided to be really cute about it and posted this note saying they would get their prints one day. Well, if the stars align and pigs fly in the sky, they will definitely get their prints in the next hundred years or so. Fingers crossed.

Fill It With Milk!

Office refrigerators are extremely problematic places since most of the staff keep their lunch in there, and all of them are possessive with their places. If someone decides to take up more space than necessary, they are given a strict word of complaint.

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Their co-workers also chid this worker to bring an entire gallon of milk and take up precious space. But, the worker decided to be hilarious about it and took their word quite literally. The next thing you know, there is a cow in the fridge!

Fool Me Twice!

We come back to the food-stealing thief because notes pertaining to these people are quite hilarious. As we already mentioned, people try different methods to keep people from stealing their food. This worker tried a threatening stance to try and deter the culprit.

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It is possible that this worker’s soup was stolen multiple times by someone in their office. So, they put something called Oxy-Powder in the soup and called out the thief. We are sure the culprit wouldn’t eat it, but now the worker can’t either. So who won, exactly?

Crackety Crack Crack!

Health comes before everything else. Truer words have never been said before. Especially when it comes to buildings which house several offices, it is always important to inform your workers if there are any problems with the building.

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This building manager did the exact same thing by posting a notice in the wall saying that the walls were weak as if the huge crack in the wall wasn’t a hint enough. But one worker decided to be funny about it and wrote a hilarious reply to it as well!

Can’t Satisfy Everyone

There are some offices that try to accommodate the needs of every employee it has. But, the sad truth is that it is near impossible to satisfy every employee that you have. Chances are, one or the other will be annoyed by your decisions.

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This office treated its employees by stocking juice or pop in its kitchens and instructed its workers to get them whenever possible. But, we don’t think they could have expected the harsh reply one worker wrote in the notice. Sheesh.

Be Careful What You Write

Sometimes, people don’t understand that they are contradicting themselves when they are saying something. Sometimes, they might realize it themselves, but at other times, other people reveal their errors in a hilarious way and witty way, just like this person below.

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This worker instructed its employees not to use thumbtacks in the walls. But, they didn’t notice that they had posted the note with the help of thumbtacks as well. What followed was a barrage of unserious notes trolling this person to no end.

The Debbie Rage

It is funny enough when people ask their co-workers not to steal their food in a general way. Even when their food is being stolen, they manage to write intelligent notes to stave off the office rat. But what happens when they know who the culprit is?

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This office rat, Debbie, has been stealing so much food from her colleagues that every one of them has started labeling their food ‘Not Debbie’ to keep it away from her. But, if that is the case, we are worried that it might be too late for her.

Sarcastic Much?

Have you seen your mom start to tap buttons furiously on her phone if it decides to hang up? Well, that is usually what people do if they want something to go a tad bit faster. And that is exactly what people of this office did as well.

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The people in this office wanted their printer to work faster, and so they kept pressing the PRINT button so much that it finally fell under the pressure. Their IT guy decided to be a bit sneaky with them and left them this uber sarcastic note to inform them of what they did wrong.

Apology Accepted

We’ve already seen how possessive people can get about their food. Colleagues with sticky fingers really ruin the fun for everyone. To preserve fairness and peace, those caught pinching food that isn’t theirs should be banned from using the communal fridge.

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Unless they are like this guy. While it must have been annoying for the owner of the drink to find his beverage missing, having it be replaced by a whole case of drinks is enough to soften the blow. We would certainly accept this apology.