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Do we hold so low standards of people? Are we so much better than everyone else? What’s wrong with fun?

izacus 7y ago
> Do we hold so low standards of people? Are we so much better than everyone else? What’s wrong with fun? Look at top voted answers in this and decide for yourself ;)
chrisseaton 7y ago
Humour doesn't scale. It's probably fine amongst your group of sympathetic homogenous friends, but not at scale. What you think is funny is undoubtedly misleading, harmful or possibly dangerous to someone else out there somewhere. And best case scenario and it's not harmful? You're still probably about 10% as funny and clever as you think you are. No thanks.
- fooker 7y ago
  "Do things that don't scale." -- Paul Graham. It's funny how well this principle translates to things other than triaging startup ideas.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    But you're harming people. People have lost their livelihood based on Google's 'jokes'. And you're annoying many of the people who you aren't harming. If you learn that what you're doing is harmful or annoying to people just don't do it.
    - donatj 7y ago
      The person who lost their job for accidentally including a minions gif in an emails job was basically over anyway.
      - chrisseaton 7y ago
        Oh ok, fine to push them over the edge then?
        donatj 7y ago
        Saved them a day or two maybe? They were looking for a reason to fire them.
  - __s 7y ago
    "Do things that don't scale" is about differentiating yourself by throwing people hours at a problem. This is the opposite of what Google does. I'd rather they work on doing support that doesn't scale, as opposed to figuring out how to do a joke that doesn't usually scale Also that quote was about leveraging being able to do things that don't scale when you only have 100 customers, because that's something large companies like Google can't compete with you on, because by definition they can't do things that don't scale unless it's some skunkswork project
ludamad 7y ago
People are more confused than ever, I think it is a good call
iamnothere 7y ago
Didn't you hear? Fun was cancelled. In my opinion we need fun more than ever, but resurrecting fun will require someone who is willing to stand up to the people who believe that everything must be serious.
- dorkwood 7y ago
  Unfortunately I don't think it's possible for a corporation to be funny, unless they're willing to hand over a large amount of power to a single funny person (or a small team of funny people). A product team of mostly unfunny employees brainstorming "funny" ideas and then filtering those ideas through their managers (who themselves are unlikely to be funny) will result in a funny idea exactly zero percent of the time.
  - iamnothere 7y ago
    Fair enough. Additionally, most large companies are probably too risk-averse to greenlight true comedy. Comedy necessarily involves risk; risk of not having your joke land, risk of offending, and so on. There's a good reason that most comedians try out new material in small venues.
Analemma_ 7y ago
I have a feeling this may have been coming anyway and the coronavirus is a good excuse. Microsoft also did away with AFD jokes a year or two ago to generally positive responses. I'm in favor of it, to be honest. Like sixQuarks said, it was cute and fun when Google was the scrappy upstart; now that they're the new evil empire it's just depressing.
draw_down 7y ago
Augh, give me a break. This corny junk is far from fun.

> Do we hold so low standards of people? Are we so much better than everyone else? What’s wrong with fun? Look at top voted answers in this and decide for yourself ;)

chrisseaton 7y ago

Humour doesn't scale. It's probably fine amongst your group of sympathetic homogenous friends, but not at scale. What you think is funny is undoubtedly misleading, harmful or possibly dangerous to someone else out there somewhere. And best case scenario and it's not harmful? You're still probably about 10% as funny and clever as you think you are. No thanks.

fooker 7y ago
"Do things that don't scale." -- Paul Graham. It's funny how well this principle translates to things other than triaging startup ideas.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  But you're harming people. People have lost their livelihood based on Google's 'jokes'. And you're annoying many of the people who you aren't harming. If you learn that what you're doing is harmful or annoying to people just don't do it.
  - donatj 7y ago
    The person who lost their job for accidentally including a minions gif in an emails job was basically over anyway.
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      Oh ok, fine to push them over the edge then?
      - donatj 7y ago
        Saved them a day or two maybe? They were looking for a reason to fire them.
- __s 7y ago
  "Do things that don't scale" is about differentiating yourself by throwing people hours at a problem. This is the opposite of what Google does. I'd rather they work on doing support that doesn't scale, as opposed to figuring out how to do a joke that doesn't usually scale Also that quote was about leveraging being able to do things that don't scale when you only have 100 customers, because that's something large companies like Google can't compete with you on, because by definition they can't do things that don't scale unless it's some skunkswork project

ludamad 7y ago

People are more confused than ever, I think it is a good call

iamnothere 7y ago

Didn't you hear? Fun was cancelled. In my opinion we need fun more than ever, but resurrecting fun will require someone who is willing to stand up to the people who believe that everything must be serious.

dorkwood 7y ago
Unfortunately I don't think it's possible for a corporation to be funny, unless they're willing to hand over a large amount of power to a single funny person (or a small team of funny people). A product team of mostly unfunny employees brainstorming "funny" ideas and then filtering those ideas through their managers (who themselves are unlikely to be funny) will result in a funny idea exactly zero percent of the time.
- iamnothere 7y ago
  Fair enough. Additionally, most large companies are probably too risk-averse to greenlight true comedy. Comedy necessarily involves risk; risk of not having your joke land, risk of offending, and so on. There's a good reason that most comedians try out new material in small venues.

Analemma_ 7y ago

I have a feeling this may have been coming anyway and the coronavirus is a good excuse. Microsoft also did away with AFD jokes a year or two ago to generally positive responses. I'm in favor of it, to be honest. Like sixQuarks said, it was cute and fun when Google was the scrappy upstart; now that they're the new evil empire it's just depressing.

draw_down 7y ago

Augh, give me a break. This corny junk is far from fun.