5:30 AM Sunday Jul 24, 2011 It must be hard being a stand-up comic. Not because it's difficult, although in my limited experience the eerie silences when I've finished are quite awkward. The difficulty is knowing what you can poke fun at and what you can't, as social mores wax and wane. Life is moving so fast it's possible things that were funny at the start of a routine may be off limits by the finish. Look at the evolution of the term "gay". For many generations it meant carefree, but late last century it became a term of abuse for sexual orientation, then a positive word for homosexuality, and now it seems another generation is using it to mean stupid. By next Thursday it may have come to mean enlightened, before turning into a synonym for Antichrist by Friday lunchtime. Another example was highlighted once during a course I was on. It disintegrated when a social activist in her 50s aggressively took the facilitator to task for referring to us all as "guys". She refused to step down when the younger women insisted "guys" meant everyone, including women, leading to one of them calling her an old interfering hag. To this day I'm not sure whether "old interfering hag" was meant as a term of endearment or positive reference for a wise middle-aged woman - but it certainly wasn't taken that way. It is probably time for some lateral thinking, maybe a weekly forecast on what you can and can't use for comedy for at least the coming week. It could become a regular feature, like the weather. Here's how it might look. "You can't use racist terms this week as they make the deliverer look stupid, and comments that are anti-women are so out of favour you could lose your senior lobbying role before you can say 'sick leave'. "Criticising religion will get you rested for several weeks - unless you're making fun of Christians, which can be used in columns with gay abandon. (You can choose the meaning you attach). Cloud banks cover a number of 'one true religions' and raise too many insurance risks for the working comic. "By Tuesday, age will still be fair game, although if you're using this to discriminate in employment it has to be dressed up as 'won't fit into the team' or another euphemism. Baby-boomers changed our attitudes to older people in the 1970s and will get as much respect as they gave the elderly in their day. "It will stay fine to pick on very skinny or obese people, but get in early as the study of epigenetics (how our specific genes and food types interact) may take this off limits by the weekend. "Surprisingly, the outlook for viciously abusing people with red hair (particularly former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks) remains good. This symptom of the Celtic gene pool is fair game and use of the word ginga is only deemed hurtful to people who need to toughen up. "Making fun of journalists who worked for News of the World is fine at any time. They've been taking the piss for years. "The long-range forecast is positive for continuing to make snide comments about men's inability to multitask. "Rude comments about intelligence and geekiness are expected to come into ascendancy in the future. 'The prediction for next week is the best target for jokes could be the freakishly extroverted show-offs who want to publicly make fun of others - so columnists, stand-ups and buskers wrap yourselves up well and stay indoors. It may just not be funny any more."
24 July 2011
Sam Fisher: Stage jokes backfire before you can say 'sick day' - Herald
17 July 2011
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I feel another career-change coming on. Since there is little of any practical value I can actually do, branching into motivational career seminars seems a great way to make money. Sorry, that came out wrong; I mean, it would be a unique challenge to empower and assist colleagues in management to have their organisations punch above their weight, create powerful learning workplaces and delight their customers. There has been a bit on the news wires lately about the way different generations behave in the workplace. The general thrust seems to be that Generation Ys are the most amazing, collaborative and talented generation in the history of the modern workforce - provided you promote them to chief executive in the first six weeks. They can leap tall bureaucracies, are faster than a screaming Baby Boomer and can stop a committee with their sheer strength, but they aren't interested in the mundane tasks and rigid hierarchies that Generation X or Boomers crave. Having employed and supervised people, I should be able to provide my own insight into the differences between the generations. That should lead to a popular blog and the ability to charge hapless managers for my motivational Powerstaff management TM ©programme. I have no experience in industrial or any other form of psychology, but I have watched two episodes of The Mentalist and all of The Office. So it is not hard to deduce that the current theory is that regardless of the ages of the team you work with, you assume anyone who works for you is likely to be an idiot. This is the Groucho Marx theory: "I wouldn't join any club that would have me as a member". It can easily be translated to "anyone who's already here must have nowhere else to go". So the general approach is to treat them like rubbish. Not with Powerstaff. In the case of Gen Y, they haven't been around long and promoting and giving them all the best work will be seen as being a good corporate mentor. Forget Gen X - they're never going to amount to anything as their age cohort is too small and most of them didn't use computers until they were 15. They don't count. Boomers are important as they all have good lawyers, so you need to be nice to them and restructure them out. But like all good programmes, Powerstaff is more helpful than that. Here are further things to watch for. Gen Ys want to make all the decisions, which challenges the Boomers as they are used to doing that. So you package the decisions that don't matter and let the under-30s set up collaborative working groups to solve them. They'll do this cheerfully and although they'll all sweat, the loudest, best looking, and most confident will propose the solutions. Gen Ys are also interested in what trips, conferences and cool assignments they can score. I had one some years ago who borrowed a work car all day to go flat-hunting. Just keep the trinkets clearly obvious and you'll be fine. Gen Xers like conferences so they can travel a bit by adding on their leave and maybe get lucky while they're there. They have no future and no power so just let them have leftovers. Boomers like power and training to add to their CVs - I can recommend a great course on the inter-generational office where they can learn to empower and assist colleagues in management to have their organisations punch above their weight, create powerful learning workplaces and delight their customers ...Herald on Sunday
Sunday July 17, 2011 Sam Fisher: Career enhancement a triumphant motivator
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/employment/news/article.cfm?c_id=11&objectid=10738958
