Humor in Our Workplace
I stand accused and convicted without the necessity of a trial, judge, or a jury of my peers. What is a peer anyway?
ACCORDING TO WEBSTER’S DICTIONARY:
A person of the same age, status, or ability as another specified person.
Well, allowing for the fact it is almost impossible for a person of reasonable stature to conduct themselves in today’s world without having been or being judged, it goes in the direction of explaining why da harv is critical of being judged as often as he is being judged by those who sit in mutual judgment.
Note: Only those able to understand the above paragraph are likely to be extolled as a possible peer (of mine.) I say possible because unless you’re privy and present at the time of this scribe’s efforts, there is no legitimate proof I’m the one actually doing the writing. But in the event I am the person writing this white paper, here are some of the things I might be saying…
To quote a famous Valley Girl: “It is so proven, shut up. Laughing is good for you. I mean things are really funny if you look at them the right way, don’t they?”
No Laughing Matter
Not tattoos. Tattoos are serious. I personally don’t judge people who have things drawn on their bodies. I don’t judge what I don’t understand. Usually.
I was in an art gallery recently and took notice of some of my fellow men and women who were frequenting the venue at the same time. All of us were admiring – not judging – what was on the walls and floors of the gallery. I believe they called the place a museum. (Have you ever noticed how few, if any, of the Masters depicted their subject models with other than what God had bestowed them at birth?)
Of course, there are some abstract Masters who enjoy duplicating man’s appearance by placing arms, legs, noses and whatever else they can find in weird places on the human and not so human anatomy. While I know these Masters are certainly being serious in their artistic pursuits, they can easily be misunderstood by many of us. This is not a laughing matter.
What stimulated me thinking about all this was a recent voice casting we were doing for a big time health care provider.
I had to laugh…
As usual, the casting begins in our office. Our staff takes in the order (request) from an advertising agency producer, which includes all the particulars they happen to be looking for: age range, gender, attitude, and etcetera. The calls go out to talent that we feel meets the stated requirements of the sponsor. Appointments are set for the actors or actresses to come in and audition for me at our Burbank studio.
For this particular commercial, we were looking for an adult women in her 30s or 40s to show a degree of sincerity while conversationally selling the virtues of health insurance to a small town audience. This, is what I refer to as – pure white bread.
So often on these auditions, it amuses me the way that the people who show up for the auditions visually appear the way they’re supposed to sound. In other words, imagine calling in a gangster type and low and behold, the guys who show up all look like they could have appeared on “The Sopranos.”
I think you get the idea.
I was about halfway through the audition and was in the process of bringing in the next actress to read. I called out her name as I entered the reception area and got a little more than I had bargained for. Up until that moment, each and every actress had been cut from a similar cloth – as I had mentioned – pure white bread.
Comes now the tattooed and body-pierced lady. Maybe the reason for me being taken aback by the lady’s appearance was because our world of creative fervor bends towards the more conservative demeanor of life on our generally “Hollyweird” Reservation.
In any event, without ceremony I ushered her into my Studio A and as I adjusted the microphone (as is the normal case during this particular procedure of talent coordination) I found myself face to face – no more than two feet from her – and uncontrollably staring, transfixed by the sight of the diamond studs she had in her upper and lower lips. I was almost speechless – almost, but not quite.
“Don’t those things in your lips get in the way of voice over?” I asked.
She seemed a little surprised by my question and responded by informing me they had been in her lips for a prolonged period of time and that they didn’t impair her speech.
As a supposed true professional, I am almost embarrassed to admit the sight of this mouth that to me resembled a stop sign without lights. I honestly lost my concentration. We began the audition and I heard right away she was correct. The lady’s diction was not the least bit affected by her self-induced maiming.
Truth be told, the problem was all mine to deal with.