Learning not to make people mad

Corporate JOB Portal- India & Abroad | Promote Your Page Too

Best Advice: Make 'em Laugh – or They'll Kill You

I'm a nerd, seriously hard-core, and sometimes that translates into being a know-it-all.

People got tired of that while I worked at an IBM branch office in Detroit in the eighties. My boss told that that it had become a real problem with about half my co-workers.

(In today's terms, well, check out Dilbert.)

However, he said that my saving grace was my sense of humor. When trying to be funny, well, didn't matter if I was funny or not, at least I wasn't being an a**hole.

The advice was to focus on my sense of humor and worry less about being exactly right. For sure, don't correct people when it matters little.

It took a while to get noticed, but it did get noticed, and some tension got less tense. That felt pretty good.

Also, I realized that I'm not as funny as I think I am, so I backed off a little. Even back then, it seemed like understated humor worked better for me, with less comedy risk (the missus currently reminds us that I'm not as funny as I think I am; it's still true).

(On the other hand, sometimes I'm so understated you kinda want to check me for a pulse.)

This has had persistent effects, in that I get a lot more done when I take myself less seriously. It's particularly useful in public speaking.

Not long ago, I got the last word regarding this from Oscar Wilde:

"If you want to tell people the truth, make 'em laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you."