Articles

Do you agree that human intelligence is the biggest threat to humanity? Are you taking me for a cynic? Please don’t! I will prove to you with a fair amount of authenticity that both human progression and regression have happened because of the use and abuse of human intelligence. Technology has been used to kill and destroy, be it through an atomic war, trojan, or through creation of a biological weapon. Now technology or should I say applications have intruded every aspect of our lives? We wake up through an app, get up and start walking and another app counts our steps and pulse rate, and then another helps us to remove the curtain to let the sunlight in, and so on. Suddenly there is an avalanche of apps, an app-avalanche out there. It’s an app and apps all the way! We hardly realize that the more dependent we become on apps, the more we resemble our distant ape ancestors.

Read more: The Looming Menace of Artificial Intelligence

Don’t feel offended as apes are our most respected ancestors. Although some people use their brains less than an ape does in deciding which banana to pick, still the humans get offended if compared with an ape. This is one of the biggest concerns of humanity. They have a self-esteem which they feel is their birth right! It’s something that has been carried by their forefathers to be handed over to them and they feel offended if they are called a dolphin. But they feel elevated if they are called a lion although this animal is not in our lineage!

Humans lack acceptability but most of them accept technology at ease. They take pride in accepting and using new technology. We take it as a compliment, and feel a chip on our shoulder if our intelligence is compared with artificial intelligence. But it is our human right to protest if our intelligence is compared with an ape, no matter what relationship we have had with them in the past. Who cares about the past? We always want to make our future glorious. In that endeavor, we can blacklist our shady past forever painting black on its face! That’s why we invent technology and try to forget our past. Precisely, that’s the reason we have so many applications right from the time we wake up.

Read more: The Menace of Security in New Age Enterprises

The Application Revolution – The Trackers and Trickers

In the office and at work we have at least ten trackers and applications to fill up. Just doing the work well is not enough. Measuring it with a yardstick is also necessary. You have to bisect, dissect, and intersect it with more trackers like a paranoid detective. How many times have we gotten up from the desk and how many times we went to the restroom and wasted our productive hours? All are measured by the applications. Machines and applications are becoming smarter day by day. The day is not far when your toaster will start giving you performance reviews.

Laugh aloud: Ace the Performance Appraisal Process and Praise the Lord

There shouldn’t be any regrets. Freedom has to be impaired to push humanity to prosperity. To get something, you need to sacrifice something. So, you are always under 360-degree surveillances. Cameras on the top, trackers in the computers, several applications, and worksheets to measure your productivity, biometric systems to measure how long you were in the office and so many. You are also told to fill out different trackers with diverse details. It’s like asking to dig your graves and the depth of it is measured by the trackers. All these data taken together are compiled to make your karma chart. These trackers decide your destiny. It’s not the quality of your work or your customers’ happiness that matters, but these trackers decide how good you are at your job and what you deserve.

We know, our phones suck! The computers suck! The biometric machine sucks! The trackers suck! At the same time, the tragedy is we cannot live without them. We are surrounded by technology and machines, and we are allowing them to rule us. They will rule us tomorrow. Wars will be fought by robots and worker’s intelligence will be replaced by artificial intelligence. Babies will be born in test tubes, and we will have enough problems to laugh at our progress. Before this dreadful day comes, read my comics, appreciate my foresight and hindsight, and laugh aloud. I will be around again next week to amuse you and tickle your funny bone. Till then, goodbye!

See ya!

Yours laughingly,

Norman & Ozi.

First of all, a hearty welcome to our fun club. The fact that you have opened this piece of newsletter and are reading it hints you are fond of humor and love to laugh. Not only that, but you also want to tickle and tune your funny bone and increase your status. You want to take things and situations lightly and crack jokes when everyone is embroiled in terminal seriousness. Phew, you want to show how confident you are when confronted with a challenge. You want people to laugh at your jokes and make them feel that you are with them with a sense of warm comradery. By now you must be impressed by my character reading skills as I predicted so much about you without seeing your astrological chart. That’s because not only great men think alike, but jokers also do!

👉 Read here! Transform Your Workplace with Humor!

The first step that you need to take without taking any offense either to me or to life is you need to rediscover the joyous and carefree spirit of your inner child. The more you do the more you will have the ability to embrace the absurd and laugh in the face of adversity and seriousness. Seeing the life around you, especially the impermanence in nature and your inability to hold on to something or anything will also make you laugh.

Have I made you a little serious with my philosophies? Then take a few deep breaths and when you exhale make a sound that relieves your exhaustion. The people near you may feel amused or laugh at your sudden grunts. Ensure that you laugh with them too! Laugh at yourself or add a comment that makes them even more amused. If you can, you have learnt it! This is what I mean by taking situations lightly and without purpose.

Are you thinking that my ideas are a bit risky, and you may have to bait your self-respect? Fear not, my aspiring humor aficionado, for the risk is merely a mirage in the desert of your doubts. In the grand comedy of life, taking risks is the punchline that leaves everyone in stitches. Remember, the legendary comedians didn’t play it safe; they took risks, made bold moves, and, yes, sometimes faced tomatoes thrown by disgruntled audience members. But guess what? Those comedians became icons, and those tomatoes became souvenirs of their audacity. So, my friend, dare to be bold, throw caution to the wind, and let your self-respect dance to the rhythm of your laughter.

👉 Click here to read: Laugh Out Loud with These Office Pranks!

Humor can be a great glue for relationships strengthening bonds and banishing bruises. Your witty remark or playful banter or maybe a well-timed joke can become a balm for someone’s heart. It is indeed a great gift when someone recollects your banter and laughs alone. Don’t forget that’s an opportunity to make a mark in one’s heart forever! All being said, remember, a couple that laughs together stays together and an organization that laughs together prospers together! So, laugh and make people laugh till we meet again, and beware that you don’t contract the disease named Acquired Amusement Deficiency Syndrome (AADS).

Laughingly Yours,

Norman & Ozi

While the Statue of Liberty stands tall in the open beside the Hudson River, there is a tendency for people to flock to the cubicles. It so seems that power, peace, and prosperity are all in the corporate cubicles and behind glass doors. Although people take pride in getting segregated in the cubicles, I feel it’s a novel way to isolate people’s stupidity, lest their brains get contaminated. But the bosses don’t understand this underlying intention. They take pride in being isolated in the cabins and cubicles. They feel their social prestige gets a boost if they are in a cubicle rather than in a common space. This is the subtle relationship between space and power that people most often misinterpret.

Then there are rooms with glass doors. These are the places reserved for even more incompetent people. These are not the people who are born smart. They are the kind of people who are born dumb, and these ninnies are made to believe the more intelligent you are, the more isolated you should be. They believe isolation breeds power.

They end up in isolated glass chambers away from the maddening crowd only to conserve their stupidity.  The paradox is, that these folks consider themselves very intelligent or rather the most intelligent of the lot. Some consider themselves the most intelligent on the planet and so they are unique as homo sapiens. They deny the fact that we are all stupid by nature and intelligence is just a faculty like that of the olfactory function. They ignore the fact that intelligence endowed by nature is to make us feel we are self-reliant in this world of natural stupidity.

These bunch of clowns feel they are so intelligent that they are self-sufficient, and their exceptional qualities need conservation. This vanity makes them more imbecile than they really are and for the conservation of Karma, they are imprisoned behind the glass doors. The irony is that they don’t realize this in their lifetime. On the contrary, the paradox is as they become more isolated, their pay cheques become fatter. This renders these folks a sense of complacency based on the perceived value of their talents. In reality, they get their share of the incompetence bonus as they seem to be more intelligent in this seemingly stupid world.

Where are you? Are you in a cubicle or behind the glass doors? Jokes apart, wherever you are, irrespective of whether you are surrounded by glass doors or bound by a cubicle, you have to realize your limitless self. For that, you have to laugh and make people laugh! Read my web comics, subscribe to my comic newsletter, go through my office cartoons, and amuse yourself and others. Read my blogs and newsletters regularly and go through my office comics to laugh and be happy and don’t forget to share these with your friends and foes.

Laughingly yours,

Norman & Ozi