Work Is a Joke: Oakland
Work Is a Joke is a live comedy experience about the absurdity of modern work. It’s part stand-up show, part social experiment, and part excuse to laugh to keep from crying about our jobs.
This new event experience is coming to Oakland.
Your $40 ticket includes hearty bites + an open bar with beer, wine and simple mixed drinks.
So why has work gotten so dang weird?
Somewhere between endless email notifications, pointless meetings, heartless layoffs, AI coming for our jobs, and pretending we’re all fine, we’ve forgotten something pretty important:
We’re more than our jobs.
The most fascinating people rarely fit inside one box.
They’re salespeople who play in bands. Engineers who teach yoga. Teachers building side businesses. People with passions, hobbies, dreams and identities that extend far beyond whatever logo happens to be on their W2 paycheck.
And yet, most of us still need jobs to pay the bills.
Work Is a Joke isn’t about burning the whole system down. It’s for people who still care about doing meaningful work, building interesting things and meeting dope people, but are completely over the performative BS that comes with modern work.
This isn’t about being the funniest person in the room.
It’s about showing up, laughing together, trying something slightly outside your comfort zone, and remembering there’s more to life than work.
WHAT TO EXPECT
🎤 One-minute workplace stand-up
Brave volunteers get exactly 60 seconds to make us laugh about work. Culture. Corporate jargon. Job hunting. Meetings that should’ve been emails. The whole weird world of work is fair game.
Some performers have done comedy before. Some absolutely have not.
That’s part of the fun.
🎭 An improv-style game
Where confidence matters significantly more than preparation. Audience participation is encouraged, but never required.
🤫 Anonymous workplace confessions
The things we’re all thinking but probably shouldn’t put in Slack.
🍸 Open bar + hearty bites
Beer, wine, simple mixed drinks and food are included with your ticket.
🤝 Actual human interaction
Time before and after the show to meet interesting people and have conversations that don’t immediately start with:
“So… what do you do?”
Get on stage. Yell something from your seat. Or happily drink something in the back and watch the chaos unfold.
There is no wrong way to participate.
WANT TO TRY STANDUP? 👀
We’re looking for a handful of brave humans to perform a one-minute stand-up set about work.
No comedy experience required. Seriously.
Choose the Performer Ticket when you register. Performers will also be invited to an optional virtual dress rehearsal before the event to test their material, get feedback from a professional comedian, meet the other performers and get some reps in before the big night.
Please note: the one-minute sets will be professionally recorded and may be shared on Work Is a Joke social channels afterward.
THE FLOW OF THE EVENING
6:30–7:00 PM — CLOCK IN
Doors open. Grab a drink and some food. Meet some humans. No awkward networking required.
7:00–8:00 PM — WORK IS A JOKE
The interactive comedy experience begins. Participation is encouraged.
8:00–9:00 PM — AFTER WORK
Stick around. Keep the drinks and conversations flowing. Meet someone you didn’t come with.
We’ll be wrapping up promptly at 9:00 PM.
A FEW CORPORATE POLICIES
This probably isn’t your thing if you’re looking for polished stand-up from professional comedians, hoping to collect sales leads, or looking for a place to publicly trash your company or coworkers.
We’re here to laugh at the absurdity of work and not tear each other down.
But if you’ve ever thought…
“There has to be more to life than hustling for this job.”
…you’ll fit right in.
Come laugh about the group chat we call corporate America with people who get it before you head home to doomscroll.
You are more than your title.
There is more to life than your job.
And work is a joke.
HOSTED BY JESSIE JAKES 🤩
Like many of you, Jessie refuses to fit neatly into one LinkedIn headline despite her nauseating amount of “thought leadership” content.
As a CMX Best B2B Community Professional finalist, Jessie spent six years helping build and scale one of the world’s largest communities for people shaping the future of work — while secretly wondering why more workplace conversations couldn’t involve a little more laughter.
Turns out, they can.
Work Is a Joke combines her background in community building, meeting facilitation and event experience design with a lifelong love of comedy into a new kind of gathering built around one simple belief:
Laughter builds better connections than networking.
**Register for Responsive Conference (8/23-/24) and use Discount Code: JESSIE