December,
1997 - Humor at Work
December,
1997 - Humor at Work In the spirit of the holiday season, our newsletter for December is devoted to fun at work. While this season is often one of good friends and good cheer, it can be a very stressful time for business. To alleviate the stress, we encourage everyone to find time to laugh a bit more than usual in December. Laughter is good for your health by the way, which means it is also good for your company. If your management doesn't agree, give them the Scrooge Award from us.
Happy Holidays!!
Some of
our favorites Play so that you may be serious
. . . . Anacharsis (c. 600 BC)
Have fun. Life is very fragile and success doesn't change that. Anything can change
without warning. That's why I try not to take any of what's happened too seriously.
. . . Donald J. Trump
Work is love made visible.
. . . Kahlil Gibran
Wanting to work is so rare a want that it should be encouraged.
. . . Abraham Lincoln
The taxpayer: that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have
to take a civil service exam.
. . . Ronald Reagan
No nation was ever ruined by trade.
. . . Benjamin Franklin
Life is work, and everything you do is so much more experience.
. . . Henry Ford
To lead the people, walk behind them.
. . . LaoTzu
Good management consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior
people.
. . . John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
The person who builds a factory builds a temple; the person who works there worships
there; and to each is due not scorn and blame, but reverence and praise.
. . . Calvin Coolidge
The employer generally gets the employees they deserve.
. . . Sir Walter Bilbey
A big corporation is more or less blamed for being big; it is only big because it
gives service. If it doesn't give service, it gets small faster than it grew big.
. . . William S. Knudsen
One cannot walk through a massproduction factory and not feel that one is in hell.
. . . W. H. Auden
Never give an order than can't be obeyed.
. . . General Douglas MacArthur
You do not lead by hitting people over the head that's assault, not leadership.
. . . Dwight D. Eisenhower
Keep things informal. Talking is the most natural way to do business. Writing is for
keeping records, but talk generates ideas.
. . . T. Boone Pickens
Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show
themselves to be great.
. . . Ralph Waldo Emerson
Don't be proud of dumb things. It's dumb to be proud of production records rather
than products. It's dumb to be proud of a plant rather than the working conditions of your
employees. It's dumb to flaunt your wealth and then try to tell employees that times are
tough, vacations must be canceled, etc. It's dumb to ask employees to make any sacrifice
you are not willing to make in kind.
. . . Lois Wyse
If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings
and put compensation as a carrier behind it you almost don't have to manage them.
. . . Jack Welch
Love what you're doing. Believe in your product. Select good people.
. . . Debbi Fields
Advice to executive women: Don't try to be one of the boys. Be yourself. Capitalize
on your female strengths and use the psychological tools you have acquired to deal with
male chauvinism as well as to climb the ladder of success.
. . . Dr. Joyce Brothers
Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.
. . . Chinese proverb
The office grapevine is 75% to 95% accurate and provides managers and staff better
information than formal communications . . . tune into it.
. . . Carol Hymowitz
Everything that can be invented has been invented.
. . . Charles H. Duell (Commissioner of the U.S. Office of Patents) urging President
William McKinley to abolish his office, 1899
Wellinformed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and
that were it possible to do so, the thing would have no practical value.
. . . Editorial in the Boston Post, commenting on the arrest for fraud of
Joshua Coopersmith (who had been attempting to raise funds for work on a telephone), 1865
I think there is a world market for about five computers.
. . . Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board, International Business Machines), 1943
What the hell is it good for?
. . . Robert Lloyd (engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM),
reacting to colleagues who insisted that the microprocessor was the wave of the future,
1968
There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.
. . . Ken Olson (President of Digital Equipment Corporation), Convention of the World
Future Society, Boston, 1977 (within 5 years, there were over 1 million personal computers
installed in American homes)
Due to increased competition and a keen desire to remain in business, we find it necessary to institute a new policy.
We are asking that somewhere between starting and quitting time and without infringing too much on the time usually devoted to lunch period, story telling, ticket selling, vacation planning, and the rehash of yesterday's TV programs, that each employee find some time that can be set aside and known as the "work break."
To some this may seem a radical innovation, but we honestly believe the idea has great possibilities. It can conceivably be an aid to steady employment and it might also be a means of securing regular pay checks.
While the adoption of the "work break" plan is not compulsory, it is hoped that each employee will find enough time to give it a fair trial.
Live, Love and Laugh
LARGE! Has your get up and go, got up and went? Are you tired before you get out of bed?
Are you like my college friend who tried to sell me lazy lessons? Just roll me over and put the tuition fee in my back pocket was the essence of his marketing campaign.
Here's the deal about experiencing greater joy and vitality. If you don't zip out of bed full of vim and vigor, and expectant about a delightful day, then you can afford to laugh a bit more.
Laughter is free, low-calorie, non-toxic, organic, always available, fun and absolutely required to enjoy a full, successful life. Laughter is also one of the most overlooked workouts for building a joyful life, and instead, dubbed a result of joyous living. Not true! It's a myth! Don't believe it! You can chuckle your way into success and into a life joyous beyond your wildest dreams!
Here are a few suggestions:
Studies show that adults laugh on average fifteen times a day. Not bad. But children laugh over four hundred times a day. Now doesn't that fifteen look a bit cheap and cheating? Well, it is. It is cheating ourselves out of the fun and freedom from stress that children so easily breathe into each day.
Here are a few more suggestions specific to the workplace:
Article by Jesse Weeks (e-mail jesse [at] soul-utions.com) of Soul-utions, Inc. More Soul-utions for Business can be found at http://www.soulbiz.com. Be sure to sign up for their monthly autographed signed business publications and to check out the new Personal Postcard series by WebWaves. Thanks, Jesse!
Internet Resources 
Holiday Web Sites 
Books to keep you
laughing all year long Suggestion: develop your own library of favorite books and flip through the pages when you have "one of those days"
The
Scrooge Award:For managers who fail to get into the spirit of the
holidays
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