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Don’t fret – this article isn’t going to be a tricky or lecturing discussion about political correctness and delivery work. It’s going to talk about humour in general and how easy it is to get yourself into trouble. Let’s get something straight – not everyone in life is either a naturally gifted comedian or someone that has a particularly good sense of humour. Even if you get someone that is a great natural joker and someone else that has the world’s greatest sense of humour, if the timing’s not right then everything can go pear-shaped – and fast.

Consider for a second, the interaction between delivery work companies and their clients. Of course, a good, easy-going but professional relationship should always be the norm and in today’s world, most of us dislike formality. Yet a good relationship with a client can be ruined in an instant by an ill-timed or misconceived joke – even if bad luck plays a part.

For example:

• When referring to third party, a sniggering aside of “who would give their child a ludicrous name that sounds like an unusual chemical?” might end up with you trying to hide under your desk if the response is “er, my child has the same name actually”.
• Your rapier-like wit that savages a particular politician might fall flat because “Oh, I always vote for him given he’s my best friend from school”.

Now these sorts of howlers are part and parcel of life and most of us do our best to try and avoid making them. Yet there are those that seem compelled to vent the frustrated comedian inside them at every opportunity and who, as a result, inflict all sorts of collateral damage on the way.

So, the delivery work driver that turns up seriously late and proclaims, “I’m not late today – just early for tomorrow” is likely to generate, at best, a grinding of teeth in the client or find their head on a pole outside the client’s premises. Another favourite is the comedian that apologises with “the M62 near Manchester was bad” as they wait for the consignee to grasp that the delivery was from Bristol to Exeter. Cue much sidesplitting laughter from the perpetrator as realisation dawns on people’s faces – and the sharpening of axes by those that have been waiting.

It, of course, also works the other way around in delivery work. So if you’ve already been waiting some time to collect a consignment, the wit that announces that they’re now all off to lunch and you’ll have to come back later, may not go down too well. Of course, you’ll find it even less amusing if he’s not joking! Then there are those that seem to have no sense at all of time when they’re telling a joke. You usually discover this as you’re trying desperately to get away from the loading bay and beat the traffic but the customer’s loading bay manager is still less than half-way through their joke that started about 5 hours ago – or at least it feels like it did. As you stand there feeling like you’re turning to stone, the coup de grace is when they suddenly say “er, no, hang on, that’s not how it goes…”

Inevitably, political correctness has influenced humour in the delivery work business as elsewhere and maybe that’s no bad thing. However, what it has done sometimes is to make what was originally a desperately unfunny joke now just a much longer and even more desperately unfunny joke. So, when one of the company’s wags opens up with, “ Have you heard the one about the three people of no particular national origin or of any specified gender or sexual orientation, that were sitting in a boat in the middle of a protected lake where finishing wasn’t allowed, when one said to the other….” you know you can start secretly texting home to say that you’re going to be late.

So, what’s the conclusion to this ramble? That humour has no place in our business? That we should all conduct ourselves like Mr Spock from Star Trek? No, not at all! Humour makes the world go round and it would be a duller place if we didn’t all sometimes try and have a laugh.
Perhaps the message for all though is – use it sparingly. If you’re a delivery work specialist and want to spend all your time telling jokes, making wisecracks and horsing around, then maybe a career change is the order of the day!

Norman Dulwich is a Correspondent for Haulage Exchange, the leading online trade network for the road transport industry across the UK and Europe. It provides services for haulage companies to buy and sell delivery work , road transport and delivery work in the domestic and international markets.

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