(FORTUNE Magazine) – Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist Dave Barry of the Miami Herald, whose weekly column is syndicated in more than 400 newspapers, has faced the corporate beast without flinching: For seven years he taught business executives how to write concisely and understandably. He failed. Next he started churning out columns and best-selling books that have bestowed fame and fortune. The TV series Dave's World is based on two of Barry's books. Barry discusses CEO pay, bad customer service, women managers, golf, and other sundry topics with senior writer Linda Grant.

Why isn't work more fun?

When you meet business people, they're pretty funny and cynical. They've been through every kind of stupid meeting, seminar, and motivational thing, which they know are ridiculous. But I discovered when I was teaching the writing seminars that people who were funny and smart individually felt they were being subversive when they acted that way at work. I mean, if you attended a four-hour meeting about objectives in paint quality, and nobody ever said a funny thing, wouldn't you conclude everyone else was a corpse?

So they're just afraid to be funny?

Yes. People who work for large corporations--and I include myself in this statement--have no clear idea why they're being paid. We know in our souls we're not doing anything that needs to be done. We could fall down an elevator shaft and die, and the corporation probably wouldn't notice. We're not sure what we do, so we're afraid to say the wrong thing. Whereas, back when people were shoemakers, they could say anything and people would still buy their shoes.

Would American business be more successful if it took itself less seriously?

I know that in journalism the more serious, goal-oriented, and success-oriented people get, the fewer good stories they produce. I think the productive people I've worked with have been more freewheeling and less interested in writing down their goals and managing by objective. When people become editors, they start going to meetings and talking about how to achieve objectives. I want to say, "What objectives? Aren't we supposed to be putting out a paper?"

The exceptions are salespeople, who generally do have a sense of humor but don't get a lot done. Their problem is that they play a lot of golf, which is right up there with heroin abuse as a killer of our nation's productivity. The only difference is that golf is more expensive. If you had an employee with a heroin habit and one with a golf habit, you'd probably get more actual productive time out of the one with the heroin habit. But that's just a guess, you know. We need to do a test.

Why do business people talk so mysteriously about things like core competencies, paradigms, and value chains?

Dilbert has cashed in big time on just that. When I was teaching, I'd deal with chemists who had to use complicated technical terms to be precise. But marketing people were the worst, because what they were trying to say, when they explained it to you, was so simple. It would be something like "People like the red box better." They would use a lot of terms like "modalities." I've gone through my entire life without knowing what a modality or paradigm is. I've never been sure about a parameter either. I believe it comes down to this: The marketing person thinks, "I went to Harvard. I have an MBA. And it embarrasses me that my living consists of trying to find out which color of box people prefer, so I am going to make it look as complicated and significant as possible. I'm going to make it look a lot like cold fusion."

How do you think customer service evolved to today's high standard?

I think customer service is a really brilliant system designed to keep customers from ever getting service. My theory is that the most hated group in any company is the customers. They don't know company procedures or anything about what you do, which drives you crazy! So if your company manufactures VCRs and everyday you talk to people who don't know they aren't supposed to put French toast in the film slot, after a while you'll think customers are all idiots, and it's hard to be nice to them. At the same time, your bosses, who are idiots who don't have to talk to customers, tell you day in and day out that the most important person in the world is the customer.

Do you have any suggestions about how to improve customer service?

Yeah. You would have a button at the side of your desk, and when you pushed it, a guy or a woman, Bob or Mary, would walk in your door. They would understand what you meant when you said, "There's, like, a pinkish light on my laptop that comes on, but it doesn't come on all the time." They wouldn't ask, "What's the serial number? Have you remodulated the transfiguring drive?" They'd say, "Okay, I'll take care of it." That would be great.

Don't you love those letters that begin "In order to serve you better..." when they plan a penalty or cutback in service? Do you think this is taught in MBA courses?

Somebody's teaching it somewhere, because it's not just letters. It's also like, if you go to an airport and you can't park at the perfectly good structure you've always used because it is being jackhammered into grit by big hairy men, there will be a sign that says, "For your convenience, we ask you to park in Dayton, Ohio."

Do you think someone's trying to be funny?

Well, yes. It's the same person who says, "People are our most important asset."

What are your views on CEO pay? Do you think chief executives should be paid like Madonna or Tiger Woods?

I think we should make Madonna the CEO of a company and see what happens. My guess is that she would do really well. The other way to test this would be to take CEOs earning $40 million to $100 million and make them perform arena concerts. See if they stack up. Better yet, stick Michael Eisner into a football game, and make him return a couple of punts. Let's just see if the guy is really worth big-league money.

Shouldn't workers be proud to work for a company where the chief executive makes $40 million?

You could probably prove on a graph that the number of things employees do to sabotage their companies, both psychological and physical, is directly proportional to the millions of dollars paid to the CEO.

Do you think that if women ran our companies, work would be a lot more fun?

I would like to think so. Women should be in charge of everything, because I cannot imagine we would have war if women ran the world. However, I have noticed that women, as they rise through executive ranks, slowly turn into men. First they start wearing nun's outfits. Pretty soon they're making those chopping gestures with their hands. Then they start talking about paradigms. Who knows, maybe they are taken upstairs and given massive hormonal shots. Maybe they shave every morning. If they would stay women, it would be great.

Is there anything I haven't asked?

Yes, the capital of Vermont.