Ask HN: Tips on Trying to Be Serious? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Tips on Trying to Be Serious?

40 pointsmoomoo1138 comments

I know this sounds ridiculous but in conversations on zoom or in-person with my colleagues or friends I'm constantly joking all the time. Even in serious moments, I don't know why but if I'm in a group I need to make a joke and make people laugh at something in the situation that's ridiculous. For example we had an incident and I couldn't help myself - I don't know if this is good or bad, but I find it really hard to be serious. There's something in the situation that I find to be out of place and I bring it up. I do my job and take my responsibilities in stride and complete what's necessary. But... It is really hard for me to be in situations that are serious and I just can't help myself when its so dry and boring.

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Is it really a problem? If you are running a reactor next to an orphanage you probably should be serious, but if you are like most people here and building Facebook for hamsters taking it too seriously is bad for your mental health.

I much prefer to work with people like you. The serious tend to get stuck in analysis paralysis and panic at the drop of a hat. That said I won't laugh if the jokes aren't funny, but that doesn't mean I mind you making them.

I work with a guy like this, someone who is always "cracking jokes" and it can be annoying. Especially when someone in your team is trying to convey something they want taken seriously.

I'm probably venting, but consider this: You don't always need to have something to say. Try not to say anything unless it adds value to the topic at hand. In work meetings, the pleasantries should come at the beginning and/or end of a meeting. This is the only time for banter. The rest of it should be focused, most people want to end the meeting ASAP so they can get back to what they were doing.

Don’t try to force anything please or you’re going to lose the joy in life.

The joking I know myself as well, in childhood I was pretty much the worst class clown you can imagine and it continued until I was 21 or so. Usually there seems to be another issue at its core. I stopped doing this after starting to meditate - watching the jokes form in your head - not reacting to them - then seeing them for what they really are. Maybe that could help you as well.

In my case, I found this to be caused partly by my upbringing, a slight emotional neglect that developed together with untreated ADHD and an association of joking to feeling accepted and seen. I still joke now, but I’ve found great enjoyment in a deeper kind of humor that I hide in completely neutral rational discussions and then hits much harder out of the blue. Taking a step back, detaching from thought, allows you to be so much more clever and refined.

Dude, no matter what anyone says, you don't have to fit in with other people or any framework in society. That's the type of person you are, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Yes, everyone wants some prick to change for the better, and sometimes it even happens. But who decides how much of an arsehole a person is? Where is the line after which a person needs to make an effort to become "normal"?

That line is blurred. I doubt that you're abnormal or a real villain. Just be yourself!

We program our subconscious long before we fully know what we are doing and why then define our conscious beliefs and values much later. Unfortunately that is a recipe for a conflict such as yours.

My recommendation is to;

1) Start writing a daily journal so you will become more clear on what you believe and why you do the things you do (and change them if you want) and your value system.

2) The subconscious is mostly automatic and many good or bad habits arise automatically from our minds and before we know it we are acting on them. When I am trying to break a habit I use a counter to count how many times I catch myself doing something that I am trying to change during my day. It is counter intuitive but just focus on the counting, don't analyze, just click the button and move on. Over time this simple technique will help to reprogram the subc by just making you aware of the automatic thoughts/action but it does take time. I use a knitting counter but there are many varieties and I don't use it all the time. These are for the finger but I replaced the strap with a rubber band and wear in on my wrist.

https://www.amazon.com/Kingdder-Electronic-Knitting-Colorful...

3) A couple of times a month do a "laugh log" by which I mean write down during the course of a day anything that makes you laugh or that you find amusing. Introspection can be difficult but what we laugh at is a little peek into what is going on under the hood, so to speak. Collect the log and review it in your journal and identify implications.

Good luck!

Learn to be bored. Also, inappropriate humor – facetiousness – can be a sign of insecurity in a person. Try speaking up about your fears and concerns, or at least work with a therapist or career coach to look into these. Remember the class clown? Always cutting up and acting out? Sometimes it's just about wanting to be the center of attention, but also it can be a sign of anxiety and low self-esteem.

Can be. Not "is"

Humour is culturally informed. I worked in contexts with people who had been to Oxbridge and like institutions, and a wry, punning humour was considered a badge of honour. Scabrous humour was fine: what mattered was that it was witty.

Two things that might help. First is acknowledging that the benefit of a joke isn't just the humor, it's making yourself look funny. If you notice and factor out the part of you that wants to seem funny, fewer jokes will cross the threshold of being worth saying. (Maybe 10% fewer. :) The second is the understanding that jokes disrupt a conversation. A conversation is a collective effort that creates a certain mood, and unless entertainment is the main goal of the conversation, then jokes have a cost. They hinder people from what they're trying to do.

I have the same impulse and also wish to keep a grip on it. Partly, this is from watching the bad example of my boss, who is always making slightly inappropriate jokes in meetings. His behavior communicates insecurity, immaturity, and poor boundaries. To this end, I’ve found that if I can manage to maintain a feeling of being solidly “in my own skin”, then I’m less compelled to joke sarcastically on the proceedings.

This is going to depend so much on the culture of your team, it is hard to give advice. Maybe ask other members of your team, and your team leader for feedback to see if it is a problem.

Being cultural, it might be that the team 'likes' this and sees it as a good thing, or they might think it is an annoying distraction.

If you have to joke less, I don't have specific advise for that. It depends if it is hard for you to stop, like an impulsion, or something easy. If it is easy you could just not joke unless it is the start of the meeting when you are waiting for people to arrive, or a specific "social" meeting just for the purposes of getting together.

Also retrospectives are more laid back than say a critical bug meeting, so it all depends on the specific meeting.

Like others have said, if you have to be serious and you are just not, then you might have a miserable time. But I am sure you can find a team/company where you can be yourself. It sounds like you are worried, but it is not clear that the team you are in see it as a problem until you ask.

See if you can start moderating by selectively telling the joke to yourself and enjoying it without sharing it or laughing in the moment. The instinct and thought is not bad but you should be able to not let it control your actions. Sometimes it's best for a one-person audience. If it's easier said than done, maybe getting it out by journaling as proposed by dmfdmf could be helpful.

The internal conflict and dissonance is what seems or could become problematic.

I'd also say that none of us know you personally and don't know to what point this is perceived as a problem by those you interact with. I've personally had a coworker where joking too much was problematic and part of a pattern that made things not work out in the end with the team and company. If you have a coworker or supervisor you trust and knows you well, you could try to probe them and see what they have to say.

I also do this.

The one way I limit is to restrict myself to 1-2 jokes per meeting, and that too at the initial part of the meeting. As the meeting gets to meatier sections, I tend to go mum.

>> I tend to go mum

Which implies you are cracking a silent joke ;-)

A) if the situation is so dry and boring that you’re joking all the time, find a more exciting / engaging / challenging situation. I know your job is great, you _are_ engaged, excited, yadda yadda yadda (so was I). But when you find something that really knocks your socks off, and demands you to be your best, you’ll joke less. You’ll probably still joke some, but the jokes are less, better timed, and hit harder. The crowds usually better in these situations too. Comedy’s a powerful tool.

B) I don’t recommend this to the uninitiated, but you can try just getting kinda high before the boring situations. This helps because 1) you’re a little stoned, so inane details seem more vivid / interesting. And 2) you’re probably a little paranoid about whether other folks know you’re high, so you joke less. Being high all the time killed my dopamine though, so I quit permanently after a couple years. Got me through the boring stuff (shoutout school, my first couple dev roles), but much preferred the sober exciting stuff (option a).

Throwaway because well, you know, the above is very personal experience.

I also do this, but it's never really occurred to me to be more serious in social contexts, only in my personal life. In social contexts, I sometimes worry not about being serious, but as some others mentioned, perhaps taking sarcasm or observational humour to such an absurd level that I later reflect on it and feel bad because I might have come across in a mean-spirited way, when really I'm just trying to get people to laugh at absurd things. I'll sometimes pre-emptively apologize if I feel like I've taken some line of joking way too far while drinking or something, and emphasize the genuine bits that I intended to highlight through humour, but that might have been lost though attention-seeking. I think I sometimes get away with more than I should, and if I pressed some of my friends, they'd probably agree that I'm a habitual line-stepper. In general, I'm okay with this, but I do want to dial it back a bit, because I don't want to embarrass anyone I'm with or discourage people from inviting me out, but overall it's hard to tell if this effect has happened or if I'm in a bubble, or if I'm just over-thinking things.

Regarding tech specifically, it's not something to be serious about. There are so many laughably serious or "passionate" people who think they're changing the world with Javascript or whatever, but it's just such an inane delusion that I'd just roll with it and accept who you are, but take feedback to heart if someone says you really disrupt their day in some form. Code can have real consequences, but if you have some level of pride in the quality of work you do, then whether you're overtly serious about it or not is only important in-so-much as people believe you're joking.

I'd add that sometimes I do feel myself consistently joking too much, or being too much of an ass, too aggressive etc.. and not letting any real social conversation happen, or I make light of everything instead of just some things, and in those moments I know it's time for a vacation, because I'm probably projecting my stress and insecurities on others or into the world, and it's time for a break, because I've probably been taking work too seriously, unironically, for too long, and not enjoying life, consequently sucking the joy out of things for others, and that makes me feel bad. I stop being able to read the room, read others' reactions, and say whatever bullshit is on my mind, and that can be unintentionally hurtful.

If you experience this as a problem, get professional help. Don't listen to randos on the interwebs. Except for this rando, obviously.

I do this. I don't really want to stop though, because I think it's important to enjoy what you do and to have a fun workplace.

However, it's not always appropriate to derail meetings. Some meetings are more informal, and that's ok. Most of the time, keep the jokes limited to the introductions/farewells.

One thing that helps me in teams meetings is instead of speaking the joke I pick someone who's camera is on and type it to them. My goal is to get people to burst out laughing on camera.

It also helps to have a teams chat with only your friends in it so that you can share the humour with them and not a wider audience.

Also, make sure your jokes aren't hurtful. Typically I joke about the situation or the software or something, but don't really say anything that can be seen as negative about someone, not even customers.

Oh, whatever you do, don't type jokes into the chat when it's an all hands and there's 800 people in the meeting, especially not jokes about profitability or whatever. trust me on this one.

It sounds like you make jokes when you feel uncomfortable. There's nothing wrong with that, and you're probably better leaning into it rather than trying to punish yourself for having a personality. Make light of the fact that you've got a little too much levity sometimes and others will get comfortable with the fact that that's just who you are.

Keep the attitude! In the end, few things really matter. Better be jolly and funny too often, than taking too much (too) serious.

Thanks. All of these humorless responses were starting to get me questioning my own attitude, which matches yours. Hopefully OP can find the right tone and join us in the perspective club. :)

For those who are serious all that time. Your attitude is a gift.

While it is annoying, it is important to have these type of people within a group . If every single one in the group were serious we will all burn out easily.

So dont try to change, but do try to read the situation a bit better, and use it to smooth the "atmosphere" in the room.

Reverence. I don't say this as compelling advice, just a description of an alternative. Prayer and worship can instill a sense seriousness, reverence or solemnity (depending on the faith) that you can carry with you anywhere and takes the sting out of boring events.

People are leaning in to a kind of false compassion and habitual relationship. If you can tolerate the falseness of those types of relationships, just get into the habit of responding to whatever people say with a pre-canned response and giving blood into really boring events reflexively.

If you're joking around just to fill in the boredom and making white noise out of the grind, that's going to get on people's nerves. If you're laughing cause there's something joyous (or sorrowful) to laugh at, there's meaning behind that and you're more likely to find those moments accepted.

Just mute the microphone, that way you have a step in-between wanting to say something and people hearing it.

Still make the jokes if you want, if after hearing it you think it's worth repeating, unmute.

I'm prone to joking too, mostly by means of extreme sarcasm, it's simply my natural way to highlight the absurdity of a situation or which options are available and which only seem to be (but are absurd), and also.. I can't help but find and consider the least likely/effective outcome/option, and so I have to vent that to clear my head and get to the serious ones..

I've not had any obvious negative feedback on this, so I don't know to which degree it is an annoyance, and I do try to hold myself back, but it's not always working..

Have you had any negative experiences due to your joking around?

Consider jokes can either be

Neutral. Jokes that just fill some space that would be unused. Positive. Jokes that move the conversation forward. Negative. Jokes that derail the conversation.

Avoid being the guy that's always making jokes of the last type.

There are differences between sensing a situation that could use some levity, saying a joke to get your mates laughing, deflecting tough feelings using jokes, and trying to get the focus off of someone else and onto yourself.

Turn camera/mic off briefly. Scream. Resume

I've heard people screaming in teams meetings who forgot the mute step.

Everybody loves a kidder, but nobody lends them money...

At 55 with a career in technology and manufacturing, I support your concerns. Your spidey senses, or 'situational awareness' within the business context are warning you about a long-term potential issue.

A sharp wit reveals an active and creative mind capable of engaging in the immediate context as well as operating separately at the 'observational' layer away from the engagement. Strong leaders use this ability for managing the topics, discussions and participants through the engagement in productive ways.

It's a bit like poker where understanding the other players takes time, but offers opportunity for control and manipulation over time.

Ultimately, this is why executives turn into psychopaths because they only focus on the art of manipulation and control with complete disregard for the humanity of others. If this sounds like fun, congrats, go into banking or finance.

For the rest of us, a little bit of wit goes a long way and should be used like habanero peppers in cooking; sparingly and with purpose.

There are some excellent suggestions in the other comments here about redirecting this energy into more creative or productive activity. I recommend first developing interpersonal and engagement skills that help you manage others by expanding your situational awareness tools. Buttress this with other drawing, writing or thinking activities as suggested.

Your concerns about long-term impact are well founded.

Act on them

Hello sensei,

Are you looking for a mentee?

I could really use your wisdom.

Make it a small group...

I'm curious, do you find that you can be dead serious at other times, for example in comparing yourself against others, or achieving personal goals when you're the underdog?

One of the common patterns behind this kind of behavior is a general swing between those two points: A (serious) and B (trickster archetype), throughout the day.

If this seems to apply at all, you should immediately build in a relief-psychology routine for yourself. At intervals you should schedule in and watch funny Youtube comedy sketches, listen to favorite humorous podcasts, write funny lyrics about people who drive you crazy, listen to loud and annoying music, or whatever. This should effectively soak up some of the excess prior to boring meetings.

When things are dry and boring and you're in the thick of it, take a page out of Bill Clinton's book (and other doodlers) and draw some funny stuff on the side.

And you're right to focus on this. There are people who will naturally seem less-important to you who appreciate it if the levity can be kept to a minimum. They may even raise the diplomacy voice inappropriately or less-authentically themselves, which can drive funny people out of their minds with irony.

Anyway what I'd not want to do is be on those individuals' target list, because the diplomatic fixes to things like too much joking around often happen behind the scenes. That's where diplomatic people do their own embarrassing trickster stuff, contrary to your naturally direct style.

So it's a good idea to work at avoiding the worst outcomes, even if the best outcomes may seem out of reach for now.

In the meantime...if you feel like you're faking any of this, that's probably not going to help either. So be sure to look at your career and life and make sure you're making whatever changes are needed so you can keep it real, make jokes when appropriate, and avoid anything embarrassing, by finding yourself in an environment that's a naturally good fit for you.

It may also help to study: Acting, team personality dynamics, character analysis, sales & management skills. A goal would be to deeply understand the others, be able to see through their perspectives, and lift yourself out of your focus on your own, subjective perspectives on what's going on around you. If you can help others out by understanding them, they will probably want to like you AND find a way to appreciate your humor.

Good luck and I hope this can help a bit.

Unless you are working in a domain where being serious is important otherwise it may endanger lives and most of us are not in such domains/situations, it's much preferable to be able to look at the funnier side of things.

You have a rare ability and we need more like you :-)

You could ask a few of your friend/colleagues if your joking is annoying, or if they love it.

I get the feeling from your comment that you're fine just the way you are! But why not ask them if it's a positive for them, rather than try to guess.

I'm the opposite right now. I wish I would be less serious all the time. I find moderation really hard. I hope you find that balance.

Try to tell your jokes without opening your mouth. They are for you so why bother other people with them?

You don't have to be somber to be serious.

Making jokes and being serious is not a dichotomy.

Looks like a coping strategy on your part, try to do some things with other people that force you not to speak e.g. play some team sports or join a knitting club.

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