Sources say the two men with boring jobs are “getting along like gangbusters.”

PHOENIX—According to sources currently seated in rows 14 through 18 aboard flight 763, two middle-aged men with incredibly boring jobs are really hitting it off during the three-hour trip to Kansas City.


Using terms like “white-labeling” and “core clients,” the slightly overweight, average-looking men are reportedly engaged in a detailed discussion about overwhelmingly unexciting work-related topics and, sources said, seem to be getting along great.

“They got to talking as soon as we boarded, and you could tell they just clicked right away,” said 31-year-old Nikki Bertrand of 16B, adding that one of the men, upon looking up from his sales trade magazine, immediately recognized the company logo on the polo shirt of the man sitting down in the next seat. “Since then, they’ve been going on and on about cold calls, prospecting, annual contract values, and renewal quotas.”


“I mean, just listen to them,” Bertrand continued. “You’d think they were old pals. But they just met and just happen to both have the most unbearably mind-numbing careers you could possibly imagine.”

Nearby passengers confirmed that the men, both wearing khaki pants with cell phones clipped to their belts, began the conversation by exchanging information about their respective companies and the various boring jobs they had held in the past. Reports indicated they then began to discuss various methods for “building product portfolios” and “processing group orders,” which appear to occupy a sizable portion of the day-to-day work in their completely dull professions.


“I tuned them out for 30 minutes or so while listening to music, but when I took my headphones off, they were still going strong, chatting about some trade show they’ve both attended in Houston,” said Douglas Martin, who occupies the row’s window seat, adding that the two joked about the poor quality of food at the hotel near the convention center. “Then they got into how policy standards have changed a lot over the years and how numbers really dipped last quarter across the board, and at that point I dozed off.”

Although sources reported a brief lull in conversation when both men took out their laptops and began typing on spreadsheets, the discussion is said to have picked up again after one of the men complained about his company’s new system for entering client information, prompting both individuals to express their frustration that “it’s all gone digital now” and “no one sends purchase forms over regular mail anymore.”


“When I came around to their row with refreshments, they were so engrossed in the most uninteresting conversation I had ever heard, talking about expense claims and something called ‘CRM data,’ that I almost couldn’t bring myself to interrupt them,” flight attendant Bryan Mantei said. “But as soon as they ordered their tomato juice, they got right back into it again, having the time of their lives as they discussed the different customer territories they had been assigned to in the Midwest over the past few years.”

Several passengers also confirmed they had looked back and witnessed the two men wearing their headphones and chuckling at the same point during the in-flight movie.


According to reports aboard the aircraft, the discussion eventually shifted to other aspects of the duo’s utterly humdrum lives, including recent renovations to their suburban homes, their mutual interest in watching golf on Sundays, and the fact that both have children attending state universities.

At press time, after landing at Kansas City International Airport, the two men with mind-numbingly boring jobs reportedly shook hands and exchanged contact information.