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One of the questions I often get is how one can add humor into writing. I have a post on this issue here. But there I do a lot more work giving general tips. What I wanted to do in this post is do a review of a book that I found to be funny and informative. It also allows me to borrow from another interest of mine which is woodworking. The book we’ll discuss is “The Intelligent Hand” by David Binnington Savage, published by Lost Art Press. As to the woodworking and design side of the book, I am not qualified to review. But I can say that I found the book to be engaging, easy to read, and quite informative. Anyone who does woodworking or design would benefit from Mr. Savage’s thoughts. A couple of things before we dive into this review. Mr. Savage recently passed as a result of cancer. For many of the readers of the book this was well known as the publisher’s blog explained a good bit of the conditions leading to the book’s publication. Mr. Savage also had a reputation as being demanding or curt, and sometimes difficult to deal with. While I found nothing in the text to suggest that he was as cranky as reputation would suggest, I did find a designer and maker intensely devoted to doing things as well as he could, one with an overall goal, who wrote with clear and informative prose, and who peppered his work with humorous language. It wasn’t there in any large amount, but it was there and made the reading enjoyable. I tore through the nearly 300 pages in short order.--Really, I accidentally tore a page in my haste. Oh, and the pictures are gorgeous and the book feels like a book. For a bibliophile like me, it’s nice to get books like this. This as much a compliment to the publishing team as it is to the author. The first lines of the book that are Savage’s own words are these. “So, I begin this book with the hope and intention to reach the conclusion before you do.” (Savage, p.3). Many of the readers of this book will already know that Mr. Savage has passed. Even readers not familiar with the publisher and the blog, will soon know this as well. Mr. Savage begins the book with a quote from his doctor. A quote that informs him that his tests indicate he could have only a few months or a couple years to live. So what does Mr. Savage do with this as the author? He plays with it, and gives us his reaction. He inoculates the reader from the worry of his demise and does so in a witty fashion. He gifts the reader with a wonderful play on the word ‘conclusion’. He acknowledges the likely short term outcome of his life, and that we’re reading a book that will, like him, conclude near in the future. A smile came across my face when I read this. I paused. For a man that I never knew, and will never know, it was indeed saddening to know that he was gone. But it was so nice to read his clever way of addressing the issue: not heavy handed, or overly sentimental. A clever statement of fact and then onto the work. If you need a model for how to address the elephant in the room, one could do no worse than this example. More than being a singularly clever introduction this little bit of wit sets the tone for the rest of the book. It tells us quite a bit about the author. Like his designs, the voice of the author is genuine, direct and down-to-earth. The humor, where it surfaces reinforces that. But to begin the text with that level of play, that casting glance at his condition does a couple of things. It asks us not to be distracted by his demise and pay attention to the lessons he’s soon to impart. Beginning a book this way requires gumption and no shortness of self-assuredness. From the telling, Mr. Savage did not lack in those areas. And even with these attributes it’s a gamble. It’s a gamble that worked. Mr. Savage’s humor isn’t all in the vein of his introduction. In the sections where he is describing his process for design, he can be at times cranky and critical, though the latter seems to be self-directed. He admits that his design and when he draws ranges from the occasional table to “a lady’s bum” to other sketches that are”…deeply pornographic—but we won’t go there." He isn’t being salacious to win points, he’s being honest about the process and the things that move him. He acknowledges the prurience implied, but allows the reader no more than a glimpse. Perhaps his sketches are his prurient way to glance. A little impish I think, but playful and overall harmless. Mr. Savage also tells the tale of his beginnings as a furniture maker. He recounts his first couple of “commissions.” One of his first was a dining table for a friend who was in medical school for only the cost of the materials. Later he made a desk for the same person and it was a full-blown commission. He ends the vignette saying, “This was like being a real furniture maker.” Almost anyone who’s begun a job feels as if they’re faking it. His rejoinder reminds of this and how many of us have felt the same. When I got my first article in a peer-reviewed journal published, I felt the same way. I still do and I'd wager Savage did too at times. In a later chapter on how he applies finish to a piece he talks about French polishing he wryly notes that, “Writing about French polishing is like writing about sex; it is impossible to get it right.” In another little insight into his design process he’s trying to navigate the difficult task of designing for people when they all come in different shapes and sizes. “There is no easy answer to this…The best approach I suggest is if you are a person of average size is to make and comfortable chair for yourself and let everyone else go hang.” He’s clearly not ignoring the customer, he’s just saying, in a cheeky way, how he solves the problem. Again, there’s no easy answer so he makes a joke and moves on. His cheek is a way of making that point a little less harshly. The last story I’ll relate, one found late in the book and meant to be ironic, is his fretting over a small mistake in a veneer for a table. He obsesses over this. He is so worried that he tells the client of the issue and his client didn’t mind. It was only later when that same client sent him a bottle of claret that Mr. Savage inquired as to why and the irony arrives. The client tells him that finding the "mistake" is now a game to stump dinner guests in asking them to find the “defect.” The client wins all the bets and is sharing in the wealth. As you might have guessed I thoroughly enjoyed the book. But as this is a blog about humor and not for book reviews, I encourage you, if you want to add humor into your writing, to have a go at this book. If you are not into woodworking, or design, or furniture, you can still benefit from the read. If you have inklings towards any, then you will most certainly come away richer for the experience and if not, you'll still be the richer. And all I can say, given what I sense is one of the main themes of the text, is that we all need to create and express. Humor can help us not only create and express, but also accentuate those creations in ways enticing. Authors have remarked that writing is one, if not the only, true magic we create. Mr. Savage proves the point. With candor, wit, and no small amount of intelligence, he deftly created a text that is of benefit for all who take the time to read it.

I want to take a moment and wish everyone a great and fulfilling new year. The year that was 2020 was chock full of challenges. It was like no other and hopefully will remain so. As with every new year, we are handed a new set of at least 365 chances to do better. We can lose that weight, be a better parent, friend, or partner. How about all of the above. It's early in the year and we can be optimistic right? There are a number of irons in the fire right now for me. I am working on getting my first ever book published. I am excited, and now I need to find a publisher or go it on my own. I plan on starting a YouTube Channel, as well as continue blogging and the like. I also have the chance to win a fellowship to write another book of a more academic nature. Hopefully the pandemic restrictions ease up and I can give some more talks in the face to face environment, as well as few digitally. Zoom is fine, but I do like working with people face to face. It's more fun for me. Finally, I will be redesigning the website. I do not like that aspect of the business at all. I am more of a words guy. Have a happy new year, and let's all do our best to bring some more laughs, smiles, and humor into the world.

In this last of a three-part series on humor and interviews, I want to focus on a background thought or assumption that’s important. It’s one that makes our hesitance to use humor clearer. Philosophers love to do this sort of thing. One of the main reasons people are hesitant to use humor at work and never in an interview is that humor, levity, and laughter are seen as the opposite of serious. If you’re laughing or enjoying yourself, you can’t be working. This can’t be further from the truth and you know why. Look at how most kids learn. They engage in play. Play is the space where they can work on new ideas, thoughts, activities, without worry. It happens to be one of the most, if not the most, effective ways we can learn. If only I had found a safe way to play in chemistry class. We also know that when work is fun, when there is room to smile, that our work is much better. In another post I suggested that people take specific humor breaks when they’re dealing with tasks that are particularly annoying or difficult for them. For me it’s grading. Hence, when I grade, if I have a stack of 30 papers to grade, I take regular stops and make a moment where I watch a funny video. Some people may worry that I am causing the process to lengthen and it would be better to get it all done. But I’m not sure. I know that since I have used this method, I am less annoyed by the task, I don’t put it off near as much, and ultimately I think this actually saves time in the long run. Humor and levity are necessary parts of a good organization. But wait, this post is supposed to be about humor in interviews. Not some self-indulgent look at what’s in my head. We don’t have time in an interview to argue the finer points of a workplace environment. That’s true. But what you do have time to do, what you need to make time to do, is find ways where you can, if the opportunity presents itself, to use humor to make your points. To tell the stories that show that you’re the sort of person people want to work with, will enjoy working with, and who has the skills to do the job well. Think of the interview as a sort of performance space and in that performance you have to use all the tools that any good stage performer will need. Humor is one of them, as is maintaining eye-contact, speaking clearly and confidently, being open and forthright. But make sure that your humor is done in service of something you want to have done. Don’t drop a joke or make a witty remark just to do it. Make sure that witty statement relates to something that you’re talking about, or something that had been discussed. If you feel you missed an opportunity on a question, figure a way to come back to it. A call-back may help. You may even use a little self-deprecatory humor like, “You know how you come up with that line only after the time you needed it? Well that just happened to me. Let me try and go back and use it.” Thinking of ways to find humor a space in your interview will also have the added benefit of making you think more about the interview—about what you want to say, why, and how you want to say it. You will be approaching the material and issues in a slightly different and new way, which may open up topics you might not have thought of before. The more “touches” you have with the material, the better prepared you will be. That you’re touching the material with humor in mind will open up your creativity to flow better. Humor, laughter, levity, and mirth are not the opposites of work, they’re necessary for it. Humor isn’t going to kill an interview. It can and should help it. We hold having a sense of humor in high regard in our culture. Use that, rely on that, and your interviewing will improve as a result. And if you ever find yourself in an interview where you know it's bad, try ending it with the following riff. "If you have any additional questions, please hesitate to ask." Might as well leave with a smile on your face.

It's a truism that now many of us have a lot of time on our hands. I think the winner for the most creative use of time that I've seen has to be the guy in this video. Take the few minutes to watch the video. It's great. Hat Tip to Kentucky Sports Radio for putting me onto this. (I am a huge UK Basketball fan). There are so many reasons to love this video. It's a Rube-Goldberg device and those are always great. But in contrast to many you see on the interwebs it's wonderfully DIY. It's not overly engineered; it's not the result of meticulous machining. It's a Rube-Goldberg idea taken to Rube-Goldberg levels of fun. The young man uses sticks, lawn chairs, swing-sets, gym equipment, his front, back, and side yard, his roof, the hill in the back yard, whatever is at hand. I daresay he borrowed some stuff from the neighbors. He also clearly worked this up for some time. Hell, that trench he dug took some effort. He had to have run that course a couple times just to make sure he got the shot all the way through. His utter joy at the end is palpable and just as awesome to watch as the device is to unfold. This labor of love is nicely summed up in the following quote from Andrew Carnegie. "There is little success where there is little laughter." Encourage those around you to play and be creative. Find ways to empower those you work with to be an fun loving at times as this. Digging that trench wasn't easy work, but the fun it helped to create made all the shovel fulls of earth moved more than worth it.

Dear HR and Management folks. I want to prove to you that humor in the workplace is not something that you should fear. Far from being something that should be cause for worry, humor properly used and enjoyed, taps into basic human needs to share and bond with those they’re close to—and yes, these means co-workers to. Take advantage of this, use it to create a better work environment, and I’ll bet advantages follow. If you want to learn how to do this from a professional, please reach out to me ;-) When I tell people that I study humor, have a consultancy focusing on humor in business, sales, corporations, etc. the first response I get is, “that’s cool and we need more humor at work.” I say "Great!" And then I ask them to bring me in. Then my conversational partner gets immediately conservative and says, "Well, it's not that cool." What they're worried about is that humor isn't serious, goofing off isn't a deliverable driven activity. And we pay people to deliver! But that's the problem with the modern workplace. There's very little room for anything but delivery and that that leads to terribly high levels of disengagement. What I suggest is that they try something different. Try some new development activities with your workforce. Who doesn’t love humor? Who wouldn’t love to know more about humor? But shortly the manager or human resources person gets cautious. S/he thinks, “Wait a second. Isn’t inviting more humor, more goofing off, just going to land me a whole lot more work? Sure, the jokes start out harmless enough, but soon I’ll see a stack of complaints that will keep me busy for months.” To answer the question fairly, I’ll say this. To focus on solely the negative of humor is to misunderstand what humor largely does. Most humor isn't offensive. It's playful, enjoyable. We need that at work. We’ve all been around jokes that offend, perhaps we’ve even told them, but those are not typical. We’ve also been around jokes that are endearing and draw us closer to one another and that is more of what humor does. So don't throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to humor. How many of you have noticed that workspaces where there is some humor, frivolity, and even the occasional gripe, is a more attractive place than the cubicle farm where no one interacts beyond the level of work? Show me a good working team and I'll show you one where humor is present. Show me a bad work environment and I'll show you a pleace bereft of humor and laughter. Don’t turn away from this basic need to share mirth. Embrace it! How does humor, laughter, and mirth tap into our desire to bond? Two examples will suffice. Think of the sound of an infant’s laugh. Is there any laugh purer, more inviting than when a baby gets to giggling? It draws you in and keeps you engaged. When you walk into a room and people are laughing, it’s hard not to laugh along with them and you may not even know what’s funny. Laughter and smiles are important. As the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song says, “If you smile at me I will understand, 'cause that is something everybody everywhere does in the same language.” (Wooden Ships). Imagine we had just met. If you thought I was funny, this probably would make you more likely to want to hang out with me more in the future. People admire and appreciate a sense of humor. Not having a sense of humor is deemed more “unattractive” than other personality flaws such as being irritable. Why then would we not want to encourage more humor in the workplace? If humor, as has been suggested, has health benefits, then we’d be doing our employees a solid in bringing more humor into the workplace. Humor isn’t always the cure for all problems. Humor can cover over, marginalize, or simply mock. In addition to knowing why and when humor works, we can become more aware of the sort of humor that divides. Sometimes the question we should be asking ourselves isn’t whether or not I am offended, it’s more that we should try to understand whether or not we should be offended. Even if I find a joke distasteful, does that mean I should be angry at the teller? If it was sincerely a joke and nothing more, I say no. We can be angry at a person for finding the subject worthy of being joked about, but not the joke. We too often focus on the immediate reaction than trying to suss out what is really at issue. And in those cases where the offense is real, we need to be strong enough to apologize, accept those apologies, and forgive. Humor won’t solve all our problems, but it’s increase will make those problems easier to solve. When you and I laugh together, the rest is easy.

When tragedy strikes us, whether it come on suddenly like a tornado, or is more insidious and wide spread like the current pandemic, one of the ways that we cope with it is through humor. We instinctively know how much a laug shared with friends or even strangers helps us persist. Sometimes we see the best in humanity covered in a laugh. Regardless of how hard we may be working, how worried we may be, or how worn out we become, there are wonderful moments of humor that help us get through the difficult times; the humor that allows us to see and be reminded of what we share-how our shared love of laughing together, in the face of tragedy, is a powerful thing. Sharing e humor that shakes us from the grim reality when we see our belongings covered in muck, dripping and oozing heaven knows what, and no longer what we need or want them to be. Humor in those moments remind us that no matter what the tragedy, the important things, the people with whom we share our nights and days, our ability to laugh at even the most difficult of situations cannot be washed away by hurricane, or eroded through a pandemic. Below are some wonderful pictures of folks dealing with hurricane damage a few years ago. One of the things that interests me so much about these photos is the fact that it’s humor we turn to in these horrible times. The simple explanation is that there isn’t much we can do about this calamity. We can be brought down by it, run away, or ignore the problem, or we can face the problem head on. Humor helps with the latter. After we’ve seen the situation and taken it in as best we can, and we realize there’s nothing left to do but begin the long process of recovery, that’s when humor kicks in. I've already seen humor popping up and so have you. From the fun people have in Zoom meetings with new backgrounds, and the memes all about helping us with masks and PPE, there's lots of humor. I've seen some folks "prank" a person in a regular Zoom meeting by having all but that one person where a funny mask. That's great. I encourage you to look for ways to bring levity to you day to day. It will be helpful and make us more resilient and more willing to tackle the obstacles ahead.

I figured with a new webdesign and new web domain, that April 1st, the day of Fools, would be a good day to write the first blog post. Plus I get to mark something off my to-do list. Hey, two birds, one virtual stone. But as it happens, there is a new week out there with its own hashtag #laughatworkweek or #laughatwork. And if our friend E.E. Cummings is to be believed, if we don't laugh for a whole day, it truly is a wasted day. One of the reasons it's so important to laugh is that it's restorative. It just feels good most of the time. Have you ever simply laughed so hard in part because how hard the rest of the day or week has been? I have. Sometimes it's all we have left. But I hope your job hasn't pushed you to that, or at least does not do so on a regular basis. Another reason laughter at work is so important is that we're often laughing with our friends and co-workers and these shared moments of mirth and levity are important to making the day go well. Maybe we share a joke before plunging into the long to-do list or we're having a much needed respite from that to-do list that, much like the Hydra, when you cross off one thing, two more appear. If you can laugh at that, then, you're probably adjusted as well as can be expected. So do your best to find some ways to laugh at work this week. Maybe even laugh at your work too. I'd love to hear about some of your best stories bout workplace humor and laughter.

While many students across the country were suffering through graduationesque ceremonies, ceremonies that were not what anyone would really have hoped for, Senator Ben Sasse was doing the commencement address for his former high school. First off, good on him for working that in. As a senator his speaking docket is overfull. But in all honesty, his address was an unmitigated train wreck. I tend to take anything that "blows up" on social media with a grain of salt. I have jumped to conclusions based on an initial reaction as many of us have and that is usually not helpful. But after watching only two minutes of the speech, anyone can see this is a mess. And for a humor apologist like myself, his office's response that he was "just joking" is one of the worst responses to give. It helps further make people hesitant to use humor. Humor can be used well and we all know how nice it is to have it present in a speech even in formal ceremonies. But this is a roadmap of what not to do. I will be offering a deeper dive on this after I develop a way to code the humor used in the speech, but let's begin with some obvious issues. The staging is a bit odd. He's presented in a white shirt, red tie loose at the collar, and a few days' growth of facial hair. Overall he looks unkempt. It's almost like he had a late couple days at the office and just kind of rolled out and started a speech. Now with that COVID-life all around, perhaps he should be forgiven, but I think with the content of the speech, the way it's filled with ridicule and making fun, you just get the sense that he's ranting a bit more than a little. And that's one of the key things to note, he spends much of his time ridiculing. He doesn't talk about the grander themes he has open to him. Anyone can see that within the first two minutes of his speech he has making fun of the graduates in that they're probably wearing sweats, psychologists for not really doing any "real" job than protecting the hurt feelings of people, his own father for being a gym teacher, parents of kids who started out teaching at home and then have given up and become gym teachers, and the Chinese, blaming them for the pandemic. One of the rules you hear so often mentioned on the proper ways to use humor when your not a comic and not an insult comic, which Sasse is neither, is that you want to avoid ridiculing people. Let's not forget that this is a graduation speech. Casual jokes about the difficulties we all go through in high school are fine. He could have even related a story about his trials and tribulations as a high schooler, but he doesn't. Sasse seems to think that his very subtle "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" sort of approach will help the audience get "he's only joking." The problem is there's just so much time spent poking fun at some group or person. With that much ridicule, that early and often in a speech where the typical bits are about achievement, resilience, and grit, are expected, Sasse is picking on anyone and everyone that could possibly be in his audience. Make fun of teachers? Check. Make fun of graduates? Check. Make fun of parents? Check. Make fun of a foreign country? Check. The only person he hasn't made fun of, and one person who if had been targeted might have gotten him some points with the audience, is himself. If you're handing out the dozens, it might help to include yourself in the target pool. I have certainly been critical of Senator Sasse and his performance deserves criticism. His inability to come out and simply apologize is not helping either. But here's the thing that we should all, myself included, take into consideration. This was one gaffe: a large one and with today's internet and outrage culture, people are excoriating him. That's a bridge too far. I don't know much of his politics or his policies. I know only that he's a Republican. Maybe he'd actually had some bad days. This COVID-Life ain't easy. If it's a bad day and an attempt at humor that just went horribly awry, stand up, sincerely apologize, and try to do better. It's all we can and should reasonably ask. But one lesson we should all take away from this, is that unless you are an insult comic, leave the ridicule behind. Make some jokes about the absurdity of the situation that causes us to have to distance, and it is absurd, but then marvel at how our technology, so often maligned for the social distance it can contribute to, is helping us celebrate our achievements. Poke some fun at yourself; know that you, in this situation lack the up close and personal cues we often use to judge an audience. A good speech with humor and levity can be given on Zoom. This one just happens to be full of examples on what not to do.

You often hear that you should stay away from using humor in interviews or when in meetings with new people or in formal spaces. This is good and sound advice. But as a humor researcher it’s sometimes hard to avoid. I am not suggesting that you prep some jokes for interviews, but sometimes having a funny story to tell about a situation or a work experience will help not only help the explanation, but if you can make folks smile as you interview (interviewing isn’t fun for most anyone involved) you’re going to look a better candidate. I was interviewing for what would be my second academic job. I really needed to do well because this was a tenure track job and I was staring down the barrel of unemployment. I was interviewing at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Fork ‘em Demons. The position was for the assistant director of the Louisiana Scholars’ College, an honors college. It was and is a great program. It was doing work that I wanted to do, the faculty were great, and the town was pretty cool. I had a pretty packed day, and one of my last meetings was with the then president of the university, Randy Webb. Randy passed recently and it was a loss for the university. It’s not typical that an assistant director position get such attention, but there I was. As I entered the office, not only was the president there, but so was his dean of students and now current president of NSU, Chris Maggio. I wasn’t overly nervous, but I wasn’t what you'd call relaxed either. The interview went in the pretty standard ways. I discussed my background, my previous history, some of what I would like to accomplish, and all the rest. The conversation was pleasant, engaging and then to my surprise Randy grabbed my CV and said, “It says here you study humor.” I said “yes.” “enjoyable work?” he asked, and I nodded in assent. He had actually read my CV. And then just like that, he said “Then tell me a joke.” If I wasn’t nervous before I was immediately petrified. It took me a second and I looked at him, trying to regain my composure, and said, or rather stammered out “Do you know how bad a joke can go in this sort of situation? Assuming I am doing well and you like me, if I tell the wrong sort of joke, I could go from being considered for the job to never being invited back.” Randy dismissed my worry and said something to the effect that I’d be fine. Trust me, no matter what he thought, I could bomb worse than any comedian and then lose a job I was interested in. I tried resisting, but there was one thing I learned that day, Randy wasn’t going to let go. I was on the spot, trying to think of a joke that was, 1) non-offensive, 2) funny, and 3) one I could remember. The best I came up with was a joke about golfers. I figured making fun of golfers wasn’t going to offend anyone, the joke was pretty clever and best of all, it was one I remembered. I was thinking a joke about university presidents might work, but I am not that much of a risk taker. I told the joke, both Chris and Randy laughed, and I laughed, but more from relief than humor. I have no idea if that joke helped or harmed my candidacy. Regardless I ended up getting the job and it was one of the better postings that I ever had. While Louisiana can keep the heat and humidity, Natchitoches was and is a great little town. I highly recommend you have a visit. But if you’re there on an interview, I’d still advise to keep the humor to a minimum and maybe be smarter than me and find a way to artfully dodge a request to be funny. Check back next week for some ideas on how you can artfully use humor in an interview to boost your chances of getting that job.

One of the things I try to tell people is that adding a little fun or humor in your day to day is not all that difficult. Take a look at the above picture. This sign, clever and funny, likely at park or other public space, sets exactly the right tone for humor in spaces like a workplace. Imagine walking in that park for the first time and you come upon that sign. I know I'd smile. I'd also snap a picture. What would you do? Making that sign isn't all that difficult. All you'd need to do is play around with an idea and then convince the parks department to open up the $100 or so bucks it costs for the sign, and put it up. The smiles that sign alone would draw would be worth it. Imagine watching a loved one of yours smile at it for the first time. That would easily be worth a C-note. On my Instagram page @mirthprofessor I post mostly funny images from workplaces and such. Give it a follow. I've become a huge fan of clever uses of the barcode on packages. But if you look around, they're all about us. Again, these little additions in our lives are not hard. It doesn't take much to think and be on the lookout for places for humor to thrive. Just take a look around. Look for word-plays. Imagine you had to come up with some Dad jokes. As we move forward in the world, humor can make everything better. We can enjoy our days in fun and clever ways if we only look for them. Have some fun with your day, place a funny sign at your desk, or in a hall. I use this one after I grade my students' first paper. It tends to help them relax a bit--college students can be uptight about their grades and with good reason. These little punctuation marks of fun enhance nearly everyone's day and the importance and value of that cannot be underestimated. And remember,

When I try to convince people that humor is important in medical care and practice, I trot out examples from the panoply of evidence that shows how humor helps people with disease, cancer, difficult treatments, and pain. The evidence is fairly clear and it's mounting. Humor is beneficial in a variety of ways when we treat individuals. Humor is restorative, regenerative, and, let's face it, enjoyable. Humor helps folks tolerate pain and stress more readily, makes people literally feel better, and improves patients’ outlooks on life and their condition. But there is another way that humor also beneficial in treatment situations. When I began to do my research into humor in medicine, I was focused, as most people are, on how humor helps the patients. I completely overlooked another important benefit. Humor is also beneficial for those providing the treatment and care. That's right, humor helps the caregiver. From family members to physicians alike, humor makes the interactions and relationships between caregivers and patients stronger and better. And this will certainly have salutary effects on how effective the healthcare relationship is. The problem now is that there is little evidence or research how humor helps those other than the patient. Some studies show that caregivers’ lives are improved, but these are typically in-home or family member caregivers, not staff you may see at an office or hospital. There is a good reason why the evidence is so scant. We think of physicians and medical professionals as ones who “deliver the best patient care.” In language very much inspired by business and marketing; care is patient oriented. This is not a bad thing. Who wants to go to a place where they even remotely suspect patient care is not the topmost priority? But the care professional/patient relationship involves two or more people. And like any relationship, there are ways we know that augment and diminish relationships. Humor can do both to be sure, but let’s focus on humor as an augmenting factor, especially for the physician. How do we know that humor is helpful to the doctor as well? One way is to simply ask physicians. Before writing this post, I had just completed a talk on humor and medical care and I went to visit a local dermatologist who had a reputation for using humor to great effect with his patients, Dr. S. Tafeen. I was very interested to get a first-hand account of how he used humor in his medical practice. I wanted to understand why he chose to feature it so prominently, and then see what sorts of benefits that the humor had for his patients. I also wanted to know if there were issues that had arisen. I was clearly patient focused in my approach. I asked Dr. Tafeen why he used humor and what caused him to really feature humor as a part of his interactions with patients. His answers were in line with the data. It helped patients to relax and be more communicative. It helped patients during procedures that were unpleasant and or painful. It also made the relationship so much better with his patients. I asked him if his humor had ever backfired. He paused, acknowledged that it had, and then told me, pointedly, that it had happened twice to his knowledge. Dr. Tafeen isn’t a new dermatologist; he’s been practicing for nearly 30 years. I then asked how he dealt with the failures. In another pointed and matter-of-fact response, he said he apologized, both with a hand-written letter and in person. The apology had the desired effect. The offended persons accepted the apology. As Dr. Tafeen and I discussed humor more and more, I imagine he sensed my focus on patient care and he made an interesting point. He stressed that his use of humor wasn’t only about the patient. He was clear that joking with his patients helped him to enjoy and cherish the relationship he had with his patients. And with the exceedingly high levels of physician burn-out he found that humor made him want to remain treating his patients. It made him want to stick around and remain a doctor. I cannot tell you how much I had missed this factor. Humor is as important to the doctor as it was to the patient. I might say that it was even more important in Dr. Tafeen’s case. To my narrow thinking and limited understanding of the way in which humor helps with both patients and care providers I simply never thought of how important humor is for the health care professional. It’s truly nice, and quite humbling, to have a part of the world you’re interested in opened up to you, despite your focus. We academics have been teased of our myopic approaches. Dr. Tafeen related stories of looking forward to the visits he got from patients that reciprocated his humor. People who not only enjoyed the jokes, but also shared their jokes with him and his staff. Even if he knew the basic joke or had heard it before, he dearly enjoys listening to his patients tell. While this isn’t terribly surprising, it isn’t something that one typically thinks about when one imagines the patient-physician relationship. Could you imagine an ad for a hospital where doctor humor is mentioned as a plus? Is humor part of the patient centered care model? Not one we would typically expect, but one we should hope is there. There is plenty of evidence that humor is important in working environs. Just as with patients dealing with pain and illness, we all deal with stress in our work lives. Physicians, nurses and care staff do as well. Further, is there anything perhaps more intimate that certain relationships with our physicians. Given that I am now of an age where certain exams must occur (the wonderful prostate exam), my physician knows me in ways my spouse doesn’t. 😉 Health care professionals more often than not deal with patients who are ill, distressed, or both. In such a place where good news is less typical, certainly good humor would make those days more bearable. Looking forward to not only dealing with a patient and her ills, but also her humor would make me open that chart with a smile, rather than a groan. Humor is just as important to the patient as the physician. And I heartily thank Dr. Tafeen for opening my eyes to this part of the relationship. The positive for researchers like me is that we now have another window for research, the effects of humor on the treating care provider, we also now have some strong anecdotal evidence how important humor is beyond the patient. Dr. Oliver Sacks once reminded medical care providers not to “look at the disease the person has, but rather the person the disease has.” I think in our understanding of humor we can also see how important it is not to see the medical provider as more than a vehicle of treatment, but also a partner in the care activity: a person who treats, not simply a deliverer of treatment. And if humor makes us do our jobs better, then medical care providers will benefit from an increase of their daily dosage of humor too.

I've been sparse in the postings lately, but that's due to parenting stuff, work-life (who knew having a full-time job and trying to get a business off the ground was so tough!?), and the rest. But things haven't been slack here at Mirth Management. I've given a talk on humor and health to the Wake Forest AHEC group. I have given a talk on humor and politics at Elon University. I also gave a talk at the Lighthearted Philosophers' Society on self-deprecatory humor. I also received good news that a short article I wrote on humor and the classroom will be featured on the Teaching Professor blog in a few short weeks. I will add a link soon. I will also be adding some new content and have been thinking of doing a Podcast or V-log on humor in the workplace. Maybe just a way to talk about how humor is used well in the classroom. If you're interested let me know. Have a good week and have a few laughs at work.