Your Weekly Monday Morning Meeting of 24 Work Memes to Help Employees Kick Off the Workweek With a Laugh (August 24, 2026)

Celeste Mello • Writer and Editor

Aug 24, 2026 6:00 AM EDT

Happy Monday, my dear employee, and welcome back to our online meme meeting! Late August creates a different kind of Monday. Half the office is returning from vacation, and the other half has been covering for them, so now they are the ones who need a vacation.

Everyone is technically back to the office, but mentally, some of us are still sitting beside a pool, refusing to acknowledge every calendar invitation that appeared in our inbox. "Hey, how was your summer vacation?" "Oh, great, how about yours?" You catch up with your coworkers about their vacations, which may sound more fun than ordinary Monday conversations, like the routine ones. The ones about how your weekend was, the ones about whether you got that thing in your house fixed, the boring ones. At least someone can tell you about their adventures in a foreign country. Or any new place they visited. Or whatever. I mean, a different story. And if you're the one who went on summer vacation, then lucky you! We hope you had a great time and are waiting for you to share funny anecdotes at the computer desk.

Enough of talking about vacations. If your brain needs a little longer to arrive at work, start with the memes. By the time you reach number 24, you'll be starting to remember your work credentials and may have gathered up the courage to enter the company's website and open your inbox.

I usually start the week with unrealistic expectations. I tell myself I'm going to organize my files and finish the important assignment first, but then I open my laptop, find something left undone on Friday, and I regret every Friday decision. Now it ruins the planning of my day. I promised I'd never do that again, yet here I am. Why am I like this? By midmorning, I'm looking for the document I saved two minutes ago, and I can't find the folder. But hey, finding it feels like a small victory on a Monday. On Mondays, we accept victories in every size.