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This Instagram Account Shares Pics Of Offensive, Dorky Or Bizarre Mugs That People Brought To Their Offices
Interview With Author
When it comes to the nine-to-five grind, there are certain universal experiences we can all complain about. Think horrible bosses, backstabbing politics, completely senseless policies, mental and emotional burnout — should I go on? It’s no secret that many of us can barely get through our working hours. But thankfully, there’s a well-known antidote that fuels us for the grueling day ahead and helps us keep our sanity intact — a steaming hot cup of joe.
However, not all mugs were created equal. While taking a sip from a sentimental custom-made cup instantly cheers you up, some workplaces opt for ridiculously absurd designs that almost beg to be judged. So let us introduce you to 'S**te Mugs', an Instagram account dedicated purely to this cause. It collects some of the most awful and bizarre cups people found at work and mercilessly shames them online.
We at Bored Panda have gone through their feed and collected some of the most ridiculously funny pictures to share with you all. So turn on the pot, pull up your chair, and get ready to enjoy a laugh at these design crimes. Be sure to upvote the pictures that baffled you most and let us know what you think about them in the comments!
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"The University of North Texas really didn’t think this through"
Bored Panda managed to get in touch with the creator of the 'S**te Mugs' Instagram account. They preferred to stay anonymous but were kind enough to have a friendly chat about their page and the inspiration behind it. They started this social media project in March 2019 as a means to poke fun at silly cup designs. Ever since then, they have been sharing countless photos of ridiculous mugs found at work and amassing like-minded people eager to become a part of their community.
"We all find ourselves squirreling around in the kitchenette cupboard at work, mindlessly looking for a suitable mug, hoping that you don’t have to make conversation with anyone. At all. Just get your coffee and get outta there," the founder told us how they got the idea to launch this page. "But wait. I can’t use this monstrosity, I just can’t. It’s a Peter Andre mug. Ripped muscles, impossibly shiny torso. The mug says 'Judy.'"
They felt grossed out, repulsed, and disgusted by simply looking at the cup, so they put it back. Only to pick up another monstrosity that immediately added more fuel to their nightmares. "OK, what’s this… This one is sickly pink and says: 'THIS *KEEPS* STACEY GOING UNTIL IT’S ACCEPTABLE *TO DRINK* Prosecco.'" And this is how it all started — their obsession with weird, ridiculous, and downright awful mugs.
And Jesus would have told selfish people to do everything they could to protect their neighbors from covid. You know the whole "love thy neighbor" thing that many conservative Christians ignored because "freedumb?"
OMG 'freedumb' that's a new one - brilliant, and definitely being used this week
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If Jesus had His second coming today, many "Christians" would crucify Him a second time.
Feed the hungry? Comfort the bereaved? Help those in need? Don't pray in the streets? Eschew money and live simply? Pick the log out of your own eye and don't throw stones? All told to them by a brown Middle Eastern Jew in a dress? Yeah, Conservative Christians would crucify him, then lynch him, then set him on fire. Nothing today's Conservative Christians promote has ANYTHING to do with Jesus or his teachings. Conservative Christians are morally bankrupt assholes who use their "faith" as a weapon to harm as many others as they can.
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Umm..could you guys please stop being rude to Christians in the comments?
I will try to be civilized on this site but some very public figures who claim to be Christian right now are not behaving as Jesus would have recommended. So those of you who do call yourselves Christians, perhaps you need to hold those figures to account.
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My BIL and his wife just caught COVID (July 2022) and are extremely sick. They are not vaccinated. The reasons they gave at the time was because 1. His immune system is weak 2. She has a heart problem. The reality is that they should have taken the vaccines for both those reasons. But my MIL bought it and didn't think anything of it. The real reason is that they are both over-the-top religious and their Church members are anti-vaxxers; they think they did the right thing. They did not. I hope they don't die for the sake of my husband.
Well, me and my partner got vaccinated, he is chronically ill so he thought he should, and he had vaccine reaction and ended up in the hospital, it's taken him months to recover, and I never had any problems with my health and now have heart problems after the vaccine, and then to be told you only have 4% protection after the first two? Great..we're still not antivaxxers, we're just trying to get a different type now.
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Mary would've also not let Jesus be shot and killed by a maniac (not trying to sound like I'm shaming Mary I am adding on to this mug)
Well, she couldn't do anything against Pilate. If they had guns, there's nothing she could have done either. And if hadn't died, people wouldn't be able to be saved.
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But didn't god (and people allowed by god) murder babies left, right and centre throughout the bible? Hey up, angel of death, mind how you go Herod...
Yeah, that's the problem: today's Christians in America insist on forcing their wacky beliefs on the rest of us. I hope they're prepared to be treated the same.
Load More Replies... First of all know she would not have. Being the son of god you would have just said no. Scare the c**p out of the doctor but say no.
And all the idiots who said "god will protect me" don't realize that perhaps god protected them by sending a vaccine and scientists to make it.
ATTENTION: what ever debate you are trying to win here. You won't win it on either side.
Guess being the song of god doesn’t mean too much. Wonder if she would’ve gotten him a tetanus shot.
No, no, they are allowed. They just need to refrain from having a knee jerk reaction at someone saying vaccinations work (which they do)
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Problem with a lot of pseudo-christians is that they're really white nationalists. They hide their terrorism behind fake religious beliefs.
...considering if everyone vaccinated the first time, the f'in virus would've been far less likely to have gone on to rapidly mutate into all those unvaccinated idiots the way it did so it could come back to screw all of us who did things right the first time...
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It’s no secret that the product design industry is forever changing, and we humans have gotten pretty used to well-thought-out things. After all, companies and designers put in their time, money, and effort to bring these items to the shelves and, consequently, into our lives. So we expect them to meet us with quality and value, right? Well, even though they were created to satisfy a specific need in the market, the examples in this list prove that sometimes they miss the mark by a long shot.
When the creator of this account stood and stared at these baffling atrocities, they wondered how these "creations" ended up in the kitchen cupboards at their workplace. "Who buys them? Who buys them for others? This is not OK," they told us. "I mull it over. And I start to spot them… everywhere."
"Plop some ploppy old, milky tea in my flabby, plappy mug please"
This is just as uncomfortable as hearing a recording of my own voice
To get to the bottom of these very fine questions, they had to first categorize their awfulness. According to them, one common group is cups that are desperately alluding to how "fun" people want to be seen outside of the office. For example, "Gym? I thought you said GIN" or "This job reminds me I NEED a glass of wine."
Another frequent category that really grinds their gears is where mugs indicate that come Friday, there is excitement everywhere, and your life is enriched with unquenchable excitement right away. Cups that represent this category usually state: "I might look like I'm listening to you, but in my head, I'm playing golf." And let’s not forget the mugs that reflect the painful passivity that comes with work, reminding us that we’re all unwitting drones to the social construct we call "the week", they added. "Is it Friday yet?" or "Why is Monday so far from Friday but Friday so close to Monday?" are just a few cringe-inducing examples of that.
According to the creator, these terrible mugs represent the absolute futility of many jobs we do and the position we find ourselves in. "Innocuous. Disposable. Expendable. But, when I find myself alone in the beige work kitchen with the Wickes dapple-slate laminate, piles of mixed, almost translucent side plates, piles of knives, no forks and I come across absolute bollocks like this — I chuckle heartily to myself," they told us. "Slagging off the awful-mug scene cheers me up immensely."
"And it seems to strike a chord with others too," the creator added. They revealed that they love receiving submissions from their followers. "It gives me a buzz to know that fellow like-minded mug-spotting enthusiasts have come across some absolute hackneyed trite and have been riled enough to ping me."
The account also serves as a creative outlet since the curator of the page revels in making up "bonkers" stories to go with the ridiculous pictures. One such post that has caught the attention of many showcases an extremely tragic mug and a made-up story about "Barry, Maurice, and Robin Gibb from The Bee Gees". Ever since the post went up, they have been receiving messages from earnest fans that question the creator’s "facts". "Or finding Anne Boleyn’s mug and hatching a preposterous tale around it, then getting likes from @tudorhistory accounts," they added.
"In most cases, the terrible mug offers a glimpse into the soul. They are, at times, strangely intimate. We cling to them, creatures of habit, they offer a comforting constancy against the chaotic monotony of work. We develop an emotional attachment to them. Our fondness for them goes far beyond any objective value. They make us feel safe on an unconscious level. If somebody takes your mug, it’s unnerving, devastating even," they told us.
"I stay anonymous, so the following will lack context considering the job I do, but I once received a hilariously passive-aggressive email sent to all staff. It read: 'A number of mugs and spoons have gone walkabouts from the kitchen. A number of the mugs are personal to colleagues. If you have made drinks and have forgotten to return the mugs, can you please do so as soon as possible?' I laughed so hard over this. Too hard," the creator said, adding that awful-mug politics and the rituals they evoke are simply sublime.
We hope you're enjoying this list filled with pictures of cringeworthy yet definitely entertaining mugs. Maybe you even have one to share of your own? Then, be sure to send it over to the creator of the 'S**te Mugs' account, and who knows, your picture might get featured!
Getting out of bed sometimes already means this is an extraordinary day.
Definitely another work mug. To be prominently displayed within view of boss.
I’d still only give this to someone I really, really dislike. The idea of actually drinking from it is too ugh. Urghurghhgughughugh.
The perfect mug to let everyone know you’re having a flare-up
As long as there’s milk too! I welcome the debate this will initiate.
This is an interesting mug- I wish we could read all the stuff written on it.
Must be trumps apparently he cheats at golf just like everything else
Every kid in the UK got given one of these by school - every middle aged family has one in a cupboard!
Note: this post originally had 102 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
Reminds me of one of my favorite sayings “why are you still talking, I’ve stopped listening”.
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I have a Star Trek coffee mug showing an away crew from TOS. When you put in hot liquid, the crew transports from the transport pad to the planet surface.
Can we have more threads like this please? My kind of thread, and in a way, a window into people’s minds.
You could also start an "ask pandas" challenge and have people post pics. ☺
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I have a mug that looks like a cow's udder with 4 little teet feet.
I had a girl come into my work a few days ago, she had a water bottle with stickers plastered all over it. One of the stickers had a cat on it and said "Be gay, steal things!" I cannot for the life of me, understand what in world that even means?! Like...HUH?!
was with a Chinese friend in New Orleans - the French Quarter. It was fascinating to him because he had been in the US only a short time. We stopped in a shop filled with mugs...all in the shape of genitalia, buttocks, and breasts. On the bottom, they all were printed "Made in China". I imagined a 45 year old woman in China, making these, and I asked my friend;"Would she wonder who buys them?". He just laughed and said: "We know that.....Americans!!"
I worked in a large corporate computer center loaded with IBM mainframes. The software environment for attached terminals (3720s, if you care) was OS-360 timesharing option aka TSO. A favorite slogan on coffee mugs and (big) lapel pins was TSO MADE LINDA LOVELACE GAG. In case you don't know, Linda gained fame in the film DEEP THROAT. You can see where this is going. ;)
My favorite mug shows a shot of the moon with the caption "Deep Thoughts", then says "Better not take a dog on the Space Shuttle, because if he sticks his head out when you're coming home, his face might burn up". space-shut...f41bca.jpg 
There's more; maybe in the ones that are hidden at the end?
Load More Replies... Man! I have probably the weirdest coffee mug in existence and I can't add it to the post
You can add a picture to your comment - there's a camera at the end. Go Edit and add.
Load More Replies... Reminds me of one of my favorite sayings “why are you still talking, I’ve stopped listening”.
Load More Replies... I have a Star Trek coffee mug showing an away crew from TOS. When you put in hot liquid, the crew transports from the transport pad to the planet surface.
Can we have more threads like this please? My kind of thread, and in a way, a window into people’s minds.
You could also start an "ask pandas" challenge and have people post pics. ☺
Load More Replies... I have a mug that looks like a cow's udder with 4 little teet feet.
I had a girl come into my work a few days ago, she had a water bottle with stickers plastered all over it. One of the stickers had a cat on it and said "Be gay, steal things!" I cannot for the life of me, understand what in world that even means?! Like...HUH?!
was with a Chinese friend in New Orleans - the French Quarter. It was fascinating to him because he had been in the US only a short time. We stopped in a shop filled with mugs...all in the shape of genitalia, buttocks, and breasts. On the bottom, they all were printed "Made in China". I imagined a 45 year old woman in China, making these, and I asked my friend;"Would she wonder who buys them?". He just laughed and said: "We know that.....Americans!!"
I worked in a large corporate computer center loaded with IBM mainframes. The software environment for attached terminals (3720s, if you care) was OS-360 timesharing option aka TSO. A favorite slogan on coffee mugs and (big) lapel pins was TSO MADE LINDA LOVELACE GAG. In case you don't know, Linda gained fame in the film DEEP THROAT. You can see where this is going. ;)
My favorite mug shows a shot of the moon with the caption "Deep Thoughts", then says "Better not take a dog on the Space Shuttle, because if he sticks his head out when you're coming home, his face might burn up". space-shut...f41bca.jpg
There's more; maybe in the ones that are hidden at the end?
Load More Replies... Man! I have probably the weirdest coffee mug in existence and I can't add it to the post
You can add a picture to your comment - there's a camera at the end. Go Edit and add.
Load More Replies... 