Dark Comedy or Dark Management?

I love many of the movies that are classified as "dark comedy." I was thinking about what dark comedy means. I looked it up in Wikipedia and this is what it said:

dark comedy is a sub-genre of comedy and satire where topics and events normally treated seriously – death, mass murder, sickness, madness, terror, drug abuse, rape, war etc. – are treated in a humorous or satirical manner.

We take ourselves too seriously, don't you think? This is particularly the case at work (and politics). If I had a nickel every time I told (or wish I had told) a manager to chill out or get over it, I would be writing this blog post poolside from my Tuscan villa.

We don't take the right things (the stuff that matters most) seriously enough and we take lots of little stuff way to seriously.

• Appearances
• Meeting agendas
• To-do lists
• Management training university concepts
• Titles
• Offices versus cubicles (walls is walls - break out!)
• Brand of coffee in the break room
• Who's right and who's not
• Expense accounts
• Parking spots
• PowerPoint presentations
• Performance Evaluations
• Job descriptions
• Mail room protocol
• Ourselves and our little habits - like we are any more "right" than the next person!

Disclosure: I am writing this post while listening to Chris Isaak. That's what got me thinking dark - his music is perfect for this genre (remember Blue Velvet?). And in case you are ready to pounce on me - this is NOT multitasking. The Isaak while writing is like putting spicy brown mustard on my 4th of July hot dog - more flavorful.

Imagine what would happen if we talked the Cohen brothers, John Waters, Quentin Tarantino, and David Lynch to produce corporate training films? Would be fun.... I am getting some book ideas just thinking about this.

Here are a few of my favorite dark comedies in case you are looking for something delicious.

• Blue Velvet
• Brazil
• After Hours
• American Beauty
• Being John Malkovich
• Crazy People (it's interesting how the notion of transparency has progressed since this picture came out)
• Fargo
• The Big Lebowski
• Pulp Fiction

Comments

[Dick Richards]

This is great Lisa. I've been wanting for some time now to write about ENDARKENMENT. It does have value if not overdone.

[Lisa Haneberg]

Endarkment - wow, that's a new word for me. I look forward to reading your post about it.

[John Jensen]

I often think of dark comedies as minor things taken to absurd proportions. This certainly applies to some management’s focus on the “numbers”, to the avoidance of all other business factors.

How often has a bad sale been made at the end of a quarter to make the numbers? A sale that created unreasonable expectations with the customer, or where the terms were undeliverable by the company. The same sale that ends up costing the company more than the margins, if not the whole company. I think that has been the subject of a few dark comedies.

[Lisa Haneberg]

John - that's a good way to put it. We make a lot of mountains out of mole hills at work. The end of the month sale is so dumb. Customers learn to shop only at the end of the month and devalue the product (it is only worth the end of the month price).

Macy's is a good example of this too. I never buy regular price there because they have so many sales.

Car companies too. You can now get Saabs for zero interest - used to be unheard of.

As a customer, I like paying less. As a company, the margins plummet.

I fear what the future of the airline business is going to look like. They need to turn things around, but I am not eager to start paying more for plane tickets.