Should work be fun?

Every morning when employees at Pinnacol boot up their computers their screens first come up to our company intranet homepage which we call WIKI. Part of the home page includes a section called Industry News. Our folks in communications are very good about updating us on a daily basis on news related to our company, our industry, as well as general work trends. This morning's Industry News had a link to something titled "Feel Good Videos". The link took us to an article in Business Insurance Magazine about how some companies were using videos to get across messages. For example, the staff at a Portland hospital provided some fun entertainment to raise awareness about breast cancer. As I watched some of these videos, regardless of the message they were trying to convey, what came across was that these companies looked like fun places to work. When you think about it, hospitals and insurance companies may not top the list of 'FUN!' places to spend 40+ hours a week, but the fun factor comes through in these videos loud and clear. What also comes through is that they're not 'trying' to have fun - they just clearly enjoy what they do, where they do it, and the people they do it with.

The clip below is performed by the Laryngospasms, a group of practicing Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists who create and perform medical parodies for audiences throughout the United States. It's a light-hearted look at the work they do. Despite the humor, I'd have no problem being a patient of one of these folks.

At Pinnacol we work in a serious business - taking care of people injured, sometimes killed, on the job. Our customers depend on us to be good at what we do. That doesn't mean that we don't enjoy what we do, where we do it, and the people we do it with. These videos remind me of the adage that life's too short to not do something you love. Now if I can just get our claims adjusters to do a video....