I spent three minutes crafting a joke about my coworker's coffee habit. Silence. Crickets. Then Brad says the exact same thing five seconds later and suddenly it's the funniest thing ever said in the history of human speech. Turns out the joke wasn't bad—I was just ahead of schedule, like some kind of comedy time traveler nobody asked for. Now I tell jokes in Brad's voice. At least someone's getting the laugh.

You finally nail the joke you've been workshopping since Tuesday. Silence. Then Brad—*Brad*—repeats it word-for-word like he just thought of it, and suddenly everyone's wheezing, slapping the table, asking him to say it again. Turns out the joke wasn't broken. You were just missing the critical ingredient: a different face.

You spend three minutes crafting a joke with perfect timing and delivery. Silence. Then Brad repeats it word-for-word two minutes later and the table loses it. Turns out the real comedy was having someone else's name.