---
title: Southwest Airlines tries to be humourous
date: "2004-08-28T12:00:00Z"
categories:
  - links
wp_id: 808
description: I shared a critique of Southwest Airlines' forced humor routines, highlighting how scripted jokes humiliate employees and fail to drive business compared to the company's actual competitive advantage of low fares.
keywords: [southwest airlines, corporate culture, customer experience, employee morale, aviation]
---

Southwest Airline's [effort to be humourous](http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/8/26/1157/80793).

> Southwest ... have [my business] because of low fares, and force-marching their employees through comic routines will do little to affect my choice of carrier. They are, however, wasting their "research" dollars and undoubtedly humiliating their employees. I suggest they stop.
>
> While the phrases themselves were well-crafted specimens of humor, delivered with carefully practiced inflection of the voice, the eyes of the pressganged comedians were cold and dead.