Laughter Is the Best Medicine
Erma Bombeck Image Courtesy of couriorpress.com
We are in the process of getting ready to move to Denver, Colorado. This requires us to go through, sort and determine whether to discard “stuff.”
I was given a stack of files about three miles deep, representing things I had accumulated over my life. My analogue legacy, shall we say.
In determining the fate of said sacred documents, (that should be a hint as to my decision), I stumbled on an email from NOV 1999, printed out neatly on copier paper of the new-fangled acid-free variety.
I giggled to myself when I saw the footer on the printout and remembered the heady days of the internet when I had a CompuServe email address. Whodathunk?!
Back to the email
These were the days when humor was incessantly forwarded time and again, until it landed in your inbox and you had to go down pages of headers (Reply All and entire address books made to be email groups intended to be forwarded to), to get to the small bit that was the purpose of the replies all and forwards to.
This all made me think of someone I had not thought of in a very long time, humorist Erma Bombeck, famous for her book, “If Life Is A Bowl of Cherries, Why Am I In The Pits?” and a syndicated newspaper column that ran from the time of my burgeoning childhood to nearly the date of this email of which I speak.
Fond memories.
Anyway, back to the email
Laughter truly is the best medicine. For this reason, or perhaps some other, I kept a printed copy of this email for nearly 25 years. Here is what the email said, sans plethora email addresses:
How To keep a Healthy Level of Insanity (updated and editorialized to maintain relevance)
At lunchtime, sit in your parked car wearing sunglasses and point a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down
Without disguising your voice, page yourself over the intercom
Editorial comment by Dawson: If you are two young to know what an “intercom” is, YouTube university likely has several tutorials
Insist your email address be
tony-stark-aka-ironman@company.com or
harley-quinn@company.com
Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that
Invite your colleagues to join you in synchronized chair dancing
Put your garbage can on your desk and label it, “IN”
Put your recycle can on the other side of your desk and label it “OUT”
At the end of the day, empty the “IN” to the “OUT”
Develop an unnatural fear of staplers with a pronounced reaction to red Swingline staplers
Put decaf in the coffee maker for three weeks
Once everyone has passed their caffeine withdrawal, switch to espresso
Editorial comment by Dawson: Does not work with coffee pod machines
Finish all your sentences with, “In accordance with the prophecy”
If a colleague leaves their computer unlocked when they leave
Take a screenshot of their desktop
Set the screenshot to wallpaper
Hide all their desktop icons
Sit back and enjoy the show when IT is called to fix the problem and multiple reboots do not work
Dont use any punctuation
Skip rather than walk as much as possible
In the drive through, make it a point to let them know your order is “to go”
Sing along at the opera
Go to a coffee house poetry recital and ask why the poems don’t rhyme
Set up your OOO message for simple daily biological activities, i.e.,
“If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the bathroom”
If you need assistance, please call <insert name here>
Put mosquito netting around your workspace
Conclusion
I got a big giggle out of going through this again.
If you giggled as well, rather than a “Like” emoji, please send a “Laugh” emoji.
Sometimes we really need to have a good laugh to place things in perspective.
Laughter truly is the best medicine!
I very much appreciate you and the time you have taken to read this article. You can find more articles like this from me at https://www.legup.solutions/blog.
If you have thoughts on this or other topics regarding yours or your organization’s journey of excellence, feel free to continue the conversation on my Secret Sauce slack feed.
Originally published at https://www.legup.solutions 13 MAR 2025.