JJ Parker: Joe, why did the software developer go broke?

Joe Bailey: I don't know. Why did the stuff for a developer go broke.

JJ Parker: 'cause he used up all his cash.

Joe Bailey: Nice.

JJ Parker: All right. That was a terrible damage.

Joe Bailey: That's pretty good.

JJ Parker: And appropriate for a software company. Here's one that I liked better. Um, so the other day I ordered a chicken and an egg from Amazon. I'll let you know.

Joe Bailey: Sounds good. I've got one to kind of match, um, and programmers. Says, Hey, will you run to the grocery store? Um, get a loaf of bread and if they have eggs, get a dozen, um, he comes back with a dozen loaves of bread

JJ Parker: Uh, because of the, and

Joe Bailey: of the aunt. Yep.

JJ Parker: that is an incredibly

Joe Bailey: every time.

That's my go-to.

JJ Parker: so let's talk about, let's talk about like making jokes and joking around at work. 'cause I think part of like our culture is joking around a little bit, right.

Joe Bailey: Yeah.

JJ Parker: Ribbon each other a little bit, taking things, not so seriously sometimes. when I think about that and I think about, especially some of your, past roles, In tech support, right?

Like, I don't know, just getting yelled at by customers for like day after day,

Joe Bailey: day, every day.

JJ Parker: the way you've kind of like taken some of that, in good stride and good humor, is impressive. So tell me, like, like, why do you think it's important to like have humor as part part of your day at work?

Joe Bailey: Well, what would it be like without it? terrible, you know, it's like, everything. That happens to you, positive or negative, you know, you can perceive it, you know, seriously or the sensee or so someone's coming at you yelling at you all the time. It's like pretty easy to just get down in the dumps and think everything's your fault and lose sight of like bigger picture stuff.

definitely found that when I started like leading the support team, when I think it was like, it got down to the support team of like Ryan and me

JJ Parker: Yeah.

Joe Bailey: for while.

JJ Parker: For a bit.

Joe Bailey: Yeah, that was very important to just like, Hey, let's go like watch some funny YouTube videos for awhile. Like we had pizza Wednesdays eventually where we're watching YouTube veils and people falling off skateboards and stuff, which, you know, it's a certain brand of humor.

It's not super,

JJ Parker: not, not everybody's,

Joe Bailey: not for everybody. but just taking an extra minute to. To laugh. It's super important. It

JJ Parker: So like a way to like a way to decompress, right?

Joe Bailey: decompress to not let everything pile up on you. And, you know, everybody loves a good pun. So I throw those out all the time to the point where like, I can't wait to be a dad because like I've got such a good library.

JJ Parker: It's a belt up. It's like codex of puns, puns and dad

Joe Bailey: Yeah, exactly.

JJ Parker: Yeah.

sometimes frankly like the puns run so deep with your jaw. I can't tell if it's a part of a pawn if we're like in some sort of meta pun situation. Right.

Joe Bailey: They just leak out sometimes where I don't even know I'll sit there and do all like beautiful mind calculations. There it is.

JJ Parker: I think it is true. Like it's funny to me like that in business, like business, right. people can get so serious. Right.

Joe Bailey: wear it as a badge of honor. Like I'm a very serious person, so I have to be taken

JJ Parker: Yeah.

And you know, the fact is, is we've got like, we've got lots of, you know, people to support. We've got lots of dollars flowing in and out. we've got lots of customers. This part, we don't want to like mess any of that up. Right. Because at the end of the day, that's like paychecks in our pockets. Right.

And that's how we, that's how we live. You're right. Like, I certainly don't want to go to a job where it's super serious all the time. I mean, it can be serious. Like we take our job seriously. We are accountable and we deliver what we say, but we don't have to do that in a super like stuffy manner.

Joe Bailey: yeah, no, I think there's one thing I've always appreciated about the culture is everybody can kind of smirk a little bit at an urgent ACEP email forward with 50 people CC'd on it. Cause it's like, wow, I'm glad I'm not living that life. I mean, I kind of am because they're sending it to me.

But if, if you're living in a beehive, you know, there's honey, there, you gotta find.

JJ Parker: All right. what, like, so how do you, how do you just, cause not everyone gets to it, not everyone gets the pleasure of working with you every day. so how do you bring like humor and, and sort of this like good natured thinking like into your team every day, besides the nonstop

Joe Bailey: right. It's mostly just the pump. Yeah.

JJ Parker: some very, clever internet memes

Joe Bailey: Right. Poems means

JJ Parker: just at the right time.

Joe Bailey: that are puns, mean gifts that are Putins. Yeah. I mean, looking at everything with, you know, for what it is and not getting too whipped up about, you know, a situation though, it is serious. Like. how many people have perished as a result of this tragedy? Right? Like

JJ Parker: This digital signage tragedy.

Joe Bailey: not very many and even, you know, like it's nobody, nobody likes being all, you know, like, I don't think anybody likes being serious all the time.

especially like, you know, in our struggles with some of our relationships with partners and stuff that we've had recently, like. my style has always been to just like, you know, I was, I, I was yelling at somebody, but I also snuck in like an Indiana Jones, like sandbag, idle metaphor, a little bit that like cuts the tension, gets people back on earth.

So they're not, you know, cause like in a serious situation, some people crawl back and they forget, you know, it's like they kind of shut down and stop listening and think that, you know, They, they just kind of disappear and it's like, Nope, stay present. We're all, we're all in the same room together.

JJ Parker: So Like

even with our customers, you've used it like as a, like a disarming

Joe Bailey: hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Not as like a manipulation necessarily, but you know, the end result is

JJ Parker: The fact is like, we use, we use humor to disarm each other all the time. I mean, it's.

like one of the primary things, right. I mean, even if like, it goes way back, like if you have like a kid who's freaking out, you try to like, get them to smile or laugh.

Joe Bailey: exactly. Look at that funny bruise. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it all comes back to getting whooped on the playground. And how did I, how do I avoid that without throwing on

JJ Parker: throwing

Joe Bailey: Yep. Clown it up a little bit. Yep.

JJ Parker: Now we're getting deep. Now. Now we're getting into like, like

Joe Bailey: Tell me about your mother.

JJ Parker: Didn't expect it to go there so quickly.

Joe Bailey: Yeah, this is, we're doing an hour, right? There's so

JJ Parker: Yeah. At least

Joe Bailey: the session I

JJ Parker: everyone should really just pour themselves another cup of coffee and buckle it. let me ask, let me ask you this. has there been a time where, you feel like thrown out a joke or tried to do some, some little riff and it just really landed flat?

Like you really just stepped

Joe Bailey: A hundred percent either stepped in it or it's just, you know, did you notice that every year since I've worked here, I make on Halloween scare a cell joke and slack. nobody notices that. Yeah. I said, it's always something like everybody make your best effort to say scare it's all the phone at least three times.

And see if somebody notices, it's just not gaining enough traction. Maybe now that I've got this. Please please. No Halloween

JJ Parker: come October.

Joe Bailey: come October. I want to see scarce though. Memes. I want you to say it on the phone with people.

JJ Parker: of your funniest carousel derivatives. that that, that you came up with was, was calling, calling carousel horse

Joe Bailey: The horse tornado. Yeah.

JJ Parker: horse, tornado.

Joe Bailey: I can't claim a hundred percent credit for making that up, but I did associate it

JJ Parker: Yeah.

Joe Bailey: our work. Yes. I think it was a fun. Twitter meme posts thing. I forget the guy's name, but he posts the funniest tweets I've ever seen. It was just a, he's from India and he's got a very straight face. I don't know.

I'll send you a link to his Twitter feed, but, yeah, full credit. Not yet. We'll take 50 50 on

JJ Parker: Yeah, yeah, Yeah.

Joe Bailey: Yeah. Cause yeah, stuff like that really can resonate and kinda like go through the organization. I mean, I think we beat that horse to death. And then for like years until everyone was like, what does this even mean anymore?

Why are we saying.

JJ Parker: That's what's awesome about using comedy at work. It also makes us like closer as a team,

Joe Bailey: Yeah. A hundred

JJ Parker: Like we have this like little insider thing about horse tornadoes. And when everyone says horse certainly knows everyone chuckles a little

Joe Bailey: Just a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. And then it gets into like naming projects and stuff. Like, you know, the Kara salsa, all those

JJ Parker: oh Cara salsa. It turned into all those jars of salsa. Yeah. Yeah. So this, like, I, I love this. Like, I love this part of our culture, this Like,

this, this comedy, this humor, this like kind of silliness, right? Like, like you said, I would rather have a company that is a little silly and, and jokey then serious, because like you said, it's just more fun.

Joe Bailey: Yeah, a hundred percent and it turns out, I mean, the humor turns into like, You know, like you say, it turns into project names, it turns into things to, you know, make features more sticky and make, you know, like just kind of brightens everyone's day. It can help people remember the system on a chip. What is that?

Oh yeah. Why is it called that? And then it's like, you've got an, a, on an association there. So it's definitely like a device.

JJ Parker: And you know, All.

of this stuff at the end of the day, Jay, end of the day just makes us work better as a team. Makes come into work where we spend most of our time. Just that much better

Joe Bailey: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I wouldn't want to work at a place where like, you know, if I'm typing and I'm just giggling and my wife looks over and she's like, what do you do? I go like, never buy it. It would take too long to explain.

JJ Parker: I'm working. this is work.

This is what worked here. It looks like typing and giggling. Awesome. Well, cool. Well, keep the, keep the puns rolling and, keep the, the quick, a wooded memes happening on slack. And

Joe Bailey: I'll try with somebody. Who's got to do it, you know?

JJ Parker: got to do

Joe Bailey: I mean, everybody does. Yeah.

JJ Parker: All

Joe Bailey: Cool. Good chatting.

JJ Parker: That was easy.

Joe Bailey: Funny business.

JJ Parker: I'll have to cut it somewhere in there. We'll see where.

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