BoooooookFunny Business foil blocked redacted cover 

Funny Business — Part joke book, part Turing Test, Funny Business is a collection of interactions I had with the customer service departments of global brands. In a world where more jobs are being automated, I wanted to find out whether I was talking to a human or bot by telling each recipient a (terrible) joke I’d made up via the live chat feature.

What started off as a playful idea intended to brighten up an employee or bot’s day, soon evolved into a series of loose observations about out-sourced labour and corporate culture.

To present my findings I scooped screengrabs of each chat session up and self-published them as a book called Funny Business. I had an introduction written by someone smarter than me and on legal advice redacted all the brand and employee names.

Here’s one of my favourite jokes from the book:

Q. What Manchester United legend is best at pottery?
(Answer at bottom of the page)

I spoke to It’s Nice That and Totally Dublin about the book.



Some poor jokes.


Some more poor jokes.

Possibly the poorest joke.



uosɐƃɹǝℲ sɔᴉɯɐɹǝƆ :∀