I think some of the best comedy writing can be inspired by the work place especially the work places that one has grown out of. Ideally the writer should be disconnected from the employment milieu so that the humor he records is as authentic as it is fresh. It is impossible for the writer to be familiar with every job place. Here is where he can tap into experiences of his friends, get information from people in the know, or even let his imagination go wild on issues that can occur at just about any work place and that includes on the behavior of the people involved and the consequences of certain actions.
I can think of several comical situations that have occurred in the telemarketing milieu and some that would be comical had there not been serious implications for the employee. One can also think of serious circumstances that makes the agent at the look absolutely ridiculous and the scenarios are unending. But there are comical situations also occurring at legitimate job places where there is no cold calling and people are not being sold useless products.
Take the private school system where the teacher is given a contract that falls through unexpectedly after he has just been told that the students need to be contacted for a replacement lesson. On the surface it does not seem comical, if on the other hand one adds elements that the students are confused about a make up lesson or the teacher is never able to find a time slot to accommodate them that could contribute to a sit-com scenario. There are equally humorous scenarios that can be taken regarding contacts between employers and employees, like when the employer is on the make and the employee wants to keep his distance because management will only blow the whistle or the boss will sober up and accuse the employee of messing around. There are teachers out there that have actually slept with their bosses and the results were not so funny but it is the tension between the two that can be capitalized on.
When somebody wants to combine work with pleasure as on a boat cruise that too can be comical especially when personalities clash on the boat or the employee is too straight laced in a situation where other ones are all on the bottle. Equally funny could be when a musician has to keep his distance from rowdy passengers or when he never gets a moment of privacy because of an inquisitive tourist who finds him attractive and will do anything to get his attention.
Lastly the interviewing or firing process can be used as fodder. Interviewing processes are now more complicated than before so the writer can approach the field of preliminary interviews and well as final ones. He can tackle the subject of being over-qualified with a job searcher trying to cover up what he knows to save face. He can exaggerate on the procedures.
One has a myriad of writing material available from work situations across the board. All one has to do is verify the material on the Internet if one likes to or again, contact people in the business that might be helpful putting a comical slant to their line of work. There is no guarantee that the ideas put forth here are original but the way that old ideas are revisited is in itself a challenge to the comic director and stand up comic.
