Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Serious Fun :(


I hate when restaurants or other places advertise "serious fun" (actually it generally is in boldface type in all caps: SERIOUS FUN) on their storefront. It's like telling the customer that there is no choice:

"We here at funcorp are completely dedicated to a longstanding tradition of paint by the numbers fun and you will be involved in our rigorous fun schedule. There will be no spontaneity or innovation in the fun you will have in our establishment, all of it will be regularly mandated and time tested fun. Mandatory fun will be had between the hours of 9am-1am, at which both customers and workers must take a break from fun and engage in no less then two hours of cooldown. Anybody on the premises not willing to have serious fun will be forcibly removed by the fun police after awaiting trial in front of a panel of fun experts. Thank you for choosing funcorp, where all your fun is boxed into strict guidelines and spoon fed to you."

It's time for some SERIOUS FUN !


Serious fun seems like an oxymoron to me (your mom is an oxymoron), I know you can have fun at work and while being serious. But trying to make that a selling point for your business to potential customers is somewhat silly, but not the good kind of silly, the highly regulated with management oversight kind of silly. Mandatory fun is equally strange to me, who the heck are you to tell me that I must have fun! I'm going to go sit in a corner and discuss politics or cry at my own will and nobody will tell me that I must be having fun. The world is a serious place, rarely do fun, and seriousness cross over, and when they do, you usually aren't paying for it.

Going on something I said earlier, who would be on my panel of fun experts? Would it be mindless bureaucrats or some of the funnest (not funniest) people I know? What if it was a mix! And would the fun people play jokes on the bureaucrats? Like a clown throwing a pie in the face of a businessman! Except the pie must be of regulation flavor and size and the force of the pie must be under 5 lbs. of pressure. Only then according to bylaws will this be considered fun, assuming it is not an alternate tuesday. Fun is serious business.

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