Microsoft's Guide to Humor

http://www.microsoft.com/education/competencies/humor.mspx

by jakarta • 16 years ago

252 75 16 years ago

microsoft.com

pw0ncakes2• 16 years ago

Say "Aidsfart" four times fast. Now say it backwards. Now stick out your tongue.

pw0ncakes2• 16 years ago

^ I wish I could delete this. I realize the comment sounds very tasteless out of context.

I was ripping on the sterility and general uselessness of corporate so-called "humor" by describing a behavior that would be offensive and bizarre in normal interaction, but hilarious and awesome within a corporate context (because of its offensiveness and, therefore, its departure from what is expected).

Luyt• 16 years ago

At first I thought this was a joke. But it's dead serious.

lanstein• 16 years ago

This has to be a joke.

justinweiss• 16 years ago

Nope, these are actual guidelines Microsoft uses to make hiring, promotion, and compensation decisions. city41's comment is 100% accurate about how these things are used.

The entire list of 'competencies' is here: http://www.microsoft.com/education/competencies/allcompetenc...

It probably started as your typical big-company CYA in case someone tries to sue them for HR-related stuff and grew into this monster as some middle manager began empire-building.

There's even a wheel, in case you felt like making a poster: (pdf) http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/4/7/3477e49d-315d-4...

sethg• 16 years ago

You need to think like a large-company HR director. Every employee must have an appropriate rank to justify his or her salary, and a list of qualifications to justify the rank, so that nobody can say “hey, this guy across the hall is doing exactly the same work as me, but I’m paid less, that’s not fair”.

All other things being equal, wouldn’t you rather have a manager or co-worker with a good sense of humor than one without? Therefore, don’t employees with good senses of humor deserve to be paid more than the humorless ones? If Microsoft doesn’t recognize and reward how employee-led humor adds value to their stakeholders, then all the employees with good senses of humor will bolt the company, attracted by the free clown suits that Google offers.

sz2• 16 years ago

That's what she said.

greyman• 16 years ago

And that is the joke itself, isn't it? The fun is in the fact that one can't tell whether it is meant to be serious or not.

izaidi• 16 years ago

"Since you are reading this because you or others don't think you are good at using humor, the best technique is to follow the lead of others."

aphyr• 16 years ago

Learning From Bad Situations

All of us will find ourselves in bad situations from time to time. Good intentions gone bad. Impossible tasks and goals. Hopeless projects. Even though you probably can’t perform well, the key is to at least take away some lessons and insights. Was there anything ironic, odd, or downright funny in all of this?

Trapped on the thirty-second floor of Microsoft Documentation Complex 27B/6, Will Burnham shuddered, silently, and wept.

henning• 16 years ago

Reminds me of Microserfs.

nagrom2• 16 years ago

This reminds me of E. B. White's quote:

"Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/E._B._White

It's also reminiscent of Louis Armstrong's

"Man, if you gotta ask you'll never know"

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Louis_Armstrong

Is it really possible to develop a sense of humour by reading a list of bullet points, action plans and self-help advice? I'm not really convinced that this isn't a really brilliant, very subtle joke on a completely higher level.

I can't decide whether this is funnier if posted by someone in earnest, or if posted in total seriousness. I think that's the joke.

gcheong• 16 years ago

"I'm not really convinced that this isn't a really brilliant, very subtle joke on a completely higher level."

It probably started out that way.

ajscherer• 16 years ago

You don't have to decide. Earnestness and seriousness are synonyms.

nagrom2• 16 years ago

Bleurgh. I rewrote that sentence a few times and ended up posting a mish-mash. s/earnest/jest/ :o)

eru4• 16 years ago

> "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."

Sometimes the frog dies in amusing ways. See http://xkcdexplained.com/

msg• 16 years ago

Hehe, those are pretty good, but xkcd makes too much sense. The king of this particular block is Marmaduke Explained.

http://marmadukeexplained.blogspot.com/

http://www.29-95.com/time-suck/comic-strip/marmaduke-explain...

thinkbohemian3• 16 years ago

This may be a little bit convoluted of an idea but when i was much younger I made a concerted effort to be "funnier". I watched stand up commedians on tv and analyzed why some jokes worked and some didn't. I paid attention to my friends jokes and took mental notes. All in all it worked out, i'm no robbin williams, but I make people around me laugh (in a good way) fairly frequently.

So structured learning of "un-learnable" fields can pay off, though your intent, desire, and actions all have to be aligned. Microsofts attempts to introduce humor to the workplace could legitimately be successful if they really really followed through, sponsoring weekly sitcom watching parties, making jokes in email signatures the internal norm, etc.

What makes this document so sad, is the perception that feelings and enjoyment can be delegated to a memo.

jemfinch• 16 years ago

I did the same thing. I found that a frequent key component of humor is unexpected word choice, which synergized well with my extensive vernacular.

Can you summarize some of the lessons you learned?

earlybird• 16 years ago

More information about how you structured your learning of this would be interesting to me, should you chose to disclose it.

Semiapies• 16 years ago

"I watched stand up commedians on tv and analyzed why some jokes worked and some didn't."

That's what they do, after all. As much as people protest that you can't dissect a joke, comedians and humor writers pull on gloves and end up elbow-deep in the things to improve their craft.

philh• 16 years ago

>Is it really possible to develop a sense of humour by reading a list of bullet points, action plans and self-help advice?

To some extent, of course. When you know enough about how frogs work, you can make a new frog. I don't think humour is any different to writing or music in this case. In particular,

>There are some basic humor tactics. Use exaggeration, use reversal, be brief. Cut out unnecessary words.

This is good advice. Someone who paid attention to it could improve their ability to tell jokes. It's neither necessary nor sufficient, but it's a start.

eru4• 16 years ago

It's more fun to cut out necessary words.

SandB0x• 16 years ago

There's a short story by Asimov where the cause of humour is explained and then disappears forever. Or at least that's how I remember it (proving hard to Google).

EDIT: I remembered this a little incorrectly. The story is called "Jokester", from the book Earth Is Room Enough. Someone has it in a Word document online (on the first page of hits).

GFischer• 16 years ago

Wasn't the cause of humor... oh wait, I was going to spoil the story. Here's a review (with spoilers): http://www.helium.com/items/1714669-jokester-by-isaac-asimov

akkartik• 16 years ago

"Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind." http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/E._B._White

Odd: I just came across a similar analogy in Cory Doctorow's "Eastern Standard Tribe":

"The difference between reading a story and studying a story is the difference between living the story and killing the story and looking at its guts."

hop• 16 years ago

Strategic Agility and Innovation Management - http://www.microsoft.com/education/competencies/comp_strateg...

Really, Microsoft...

tom_ilsinszki• 16 years ago

Rule #28941: When someone cracks a joke say "ha-ha-ha" out loud.

ElbertF• 16 years ago

If online, post the letters L, O and L (in that order) to indicate laughter in real life. Optionally the letters X and D may be used to form a so called "emoticon", for added effect.

eru4• 16 years ago

If (or perhaps when) making a joke yourself, you can also use a (semi-)colon and o or dash and a closing parenthesis at the end of your sentence as a hint to the recipient who may otherwise--in the absence of body language or tone of spoken words--not notice that your utterance was meant to be humorous.

However, in some circles this may be frowned up on as an insult on the readers intelligence.

projectileboy• 16 years ago

Wow, I thought this would be ridiculous, but it's actually a pretty sharp analysis of how to effectively use humor in the workplace.

emilis_info• 16 years ago

So did you find the information useful? [Yes] [No]

thinkbohemian3• 16 years ago

Doesn't look like they have a policy on "that's what she said"

ashishbharthi• 16 years ago

Is this their 'Intranet' accidentally published on the Web? I don't understand what is the purpose of it being up there.

city413• 16 years ago

It's similar. They use the same proficiency level guidelines for many different aspects when doing employee reviews. There is also a pre-established ruling on at what level of proficiency an employee of a certain level should be at for each one. So, for example, a level 62 employee should be at level 2 humor proficiency. Level 64 should be at proficiency 3, etc. Being above the expected proficiency for your level is a factor in getting a bigger bonus. You also can't get promoted until your proficiencies are at least at the next expected level.

eru4• 16 years ago

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

paulgb• 16 years ago

The way you put it, the Microsoft career path sounds like a boring RPG.

sriramk• 16 years ago

Wow. I'm an engineer at Microsoft. I don't know what this particular site is about (from poking around, it seems to be targeted at education) but I can assure you that career paths and employee reviews at Microsoft have nothing to do with humor.

It's a weird day when you have to write such a comment :)

mkramlich• 16 years ago

Level 5: Super Expert

Can recognize the humor in Microsoft publishing strict guidelines documenting requirements for various "proficiency" levels in humor. Microsoft spent money doing this. Money that came ultimately from Windows license revenue. Can barely hold back tears at the thought of this.

leif• 16 years ago

> Can see humor in almost everything

I must be an expert because this page is hilarious.

Particularly the fact that they suggest learning to shoot skeet.

cptvideo• 16 years ago

Is this a joke?

sz2• 16 years ago

That's what she said.

mooneater• 16 years ago

Its smart. They know that the best executives will be able to use humor, anger, and a spectrum of human emotions, to further their goals.

nandemo• 16 years ago

The funny thing is that some people think it's serious.

gabrielroth• 16 years ago

Level one, 'Basic,' includes: "Tries to diffuse tense situations with appropriate humor."

In a different row, level two, 'Intermediate,' includes: "Uses humor to boost morale or decrease tension."

Similarly, level one includes "Is conscientious about timing and setting for humor," and level three, 'Advanced,' includes "Realizes when and where humor will backfire, and withholds."

If this were a real skill being assessed, that kind of redundancy would be a problem. In fact, it probably wouldn't be there at all, because the person writing it would sense that something was a level-one trait or a level-three trait. But when you start down the path of bullshit like this, you find yourself in the land of arbitrariness, and pretty soon you're just desperate for some more words to fill up the boxes.

And it is, indeed, bullshit. A good sense of humor is important in the workplace, as it is everywhere, but it's not something that can be assessed in some abstract way like this, separate from the person's other qualities.

ezy• 16 years ago

This is depressing. How can you work for Microsoft, see that, and not be depressed? Whatever you think of the company's technology over the years, you have to wonder how old timers feel about starting a career at a software company and ending it at a company that exists solely as charity for office workers.

klochner• 16 years ago

I can't believe I'm the first to post this nugget:

"In a seemingly serious situation, what nuggets of humor or irony can I find?"

madmanslitany• 16 years ago

All I can think of right now is the Chinese room thought problem for artificial intelligence.

Even if you make people laugh following these guidelines to the letter, would you have a sense of humor?

dolphenstein• 16 years ago

The author of that page is obviously a "Level 4: Expert" in humor.

jjs• 16 years ago

This is well and good for those zany jokesters at Microsoft, but what are we to do?

aufreak3• 16 years ago

This is really funny! The one who wrote this has to have an incredible "expert level" sense of humour!

defen• 16 years ago

> Do I ever encourage a near party atmosphere because of my comfort with using humor?

How many points do I get for encouraging near party atmospheres because of my comfort with using alcohol?

tchvil• 16 years ago

Hey boss, I learned 50 jokes last year. Will I have my pay rise?

asimjalis• 16 years ago

Level 5: You cracked the humor algorithm and developed a small humor library that now ships with the operating system.

chbarts2• 16 years ago

This library thinks Franz Kafka and Charlie Chaplain were the funniest people ever, particularly as epitomized in The Trial and Modern Times, respectively.

Raphael• 16 years ago

I don't get it.

houseabsolute• 16 years ago

Humor: something Microsoft could stand to learn a bit of.

navyrain• 16 years ago

I can't believe this is real. Just wow.

mindcreek• 16 years ago

Guide itself is more funny than the subject.

RiderOfGiraffes• 16 years ago

I'm surprised they haven't used a PowerPoint presentation.

phugoid• 16 years ago

Humor in the workplace is mostly a way to assert dominance.

prole• 16 years ago

From the article: "Learning From Bad Things That Happen

Bad things happen to everyone, sometimes because of what we do and sometimes with help from us. We all have bad bosses, bad staffs, impossible and hopeless situations, impossible tasks, and unintended consequences. Aside from the trouble these bad things cause for you, the key is how can you learn from each of them.

Learning From Bad Situations

Hmm, the Internet Explorer team wrote this? At least they've proven their "Level 1: Basic" proficiency by being able to laugh at themselves and their hopeless predicament.

Microsoft's Guide to Humor

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