Being fun is a serious part of business. The best bosses we’ve studied over the years have great senses of humor and use them to great advantage in sales situations, employee meetings, negotiations, and so on. But I often hear people say, “I can’t be funny because I’m … too dry/too busy/a woman/the boss/from Connecticut/a radish.
For most of us grown ups, the least funny demographic is probably 11 year-old boys—most of whom believe the height of hysterics is a loud bodily emission or Americas Funniest Videos.
And yet I submit the following. When my son, Tony, was 11 we were at an amusement park restaurant. He had ordered the nachos, attracted by the mouth-watering picture displayed by the register. The photograph showed a mound of crunchy nachos pilled high with three cheeses, peppers, olives, salsa and other fixings. When the nachos arrived, however, they were not as advertised. Instead he received ten chips stacked sideways in a plastic container with a tub of melted yellow goop. He stoically ate the dry, tasteless lunch, regretting his decision quietly. As the family picked up to leave, Tony smiled up at the grumpy teenage cashier and said, “My compliments to the photographer.”
We all burst out laughing. Even the cashier managed a knowing chuckle.
Now, that was obviously a funny line he’d heard been exposed to from a comedian at some time in his past, but he’d inventoried it and had applied it at the right time and place.
The moral: If an 11-year-old can do it, we all can.
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