Government bureaucrats are known for many things but humor, I submit, wouldn’t make the top 10 on anybody’s list.

Indeed I suspect many people would argue that the larger share of bureaucrats, at least while engaged in their frequently dour business, are utterly incapable of anything resembling comedy.

(Intentional comedy, anyway; bureaucracies are prone to doing amusing things, unwitting though these may be.)

Given the relentless banality characteristic of government operations — and in particular the way they communicate with the public — I always get a particular thrill when I run across an exception.

My wife, Lisa, for at least the past couple of years has occasionally rushed up, still chortling, to show me a Facebook post on her phone.

The page is maintained by the Portland District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

This agency, which builds and manages dams, by any reasonable measure ought to rank as an especially straitlaced branch of the federal government.

Dam engineers, who are after all engaged in a serious business — their foul ups could flood cities and kill a lot of people — aren’t renowned for getting up to the sort of hijinks normally associated with fraternities.

But the employee who manages the Portland District’s Facebook page relentlessly refuses to issue communications that seem to be the product of a microprocessor rather than a human brain.

Chris Gaylord, a public affairs specialist at the district, has overseen the district’s Facebook page, among his other duties, since the fall of 2019.

The page’s most persistent trait is its wittiness.

Gaylord said his first attempt to inject not only humor, but also a sense of humanity, into the Corps of Engineers was an internal publication distributed only to agency employees.

That effort, which involved the installation of water bottle filling stations, was well-received, Gaylord said, so during the Christmas season in 2019 he decided to try a similar approach with the Portland District’s Facebook page.

“It’s social media so it should be social,” Gaylord told me in a recent phone interview. “It can be funny.”

Ever since Gaylord, as he puts it, “flipped the script,” comments from the public on the District’s comedic Facebook page have been almost exclusively positive, he said.

“Humor keeps people engaged and interested,” Gaylord said.

Which is to say, it encourages them to check the page frequently.

And that’s the goal, Gaylord said.

The next time the Corps of Engineers needs to use the Facebook page to get vital information to the public — a flood, for instance — more people are likely to see it than was the case before Gaylord revamped the page.

And of course a post about a potentially dangerous situation would be rendered in more straightforward terms, he said.

In the meantime, though, Gaylord will continue to enliven the internet with what I consider a beacon of good-natured humor.

He said his efforts have also encouraged some of his colleagues to contribute ideas for potential posts. One of those led to an Oct. 4 post. It’s the sort of announcement that is not exactly scintillating, but which government agencies usually leach of the tiniest shred of humanity.

But Gaylord, with the assistance of a co-worker, will have none of this.

The Oct. 4 post reads: “Recreational boaters can now pass through our three lower #ColumbiaRiver navigation locks during daylight hours only — which eliminates the possibility that vampires will be travelling down the Columbia as the nights grow longer. Sorry, vampires. You’ll have to resort to draining people’s energy via the internet (or else send a familiar through on your behalf during the daytime).”

The post concludes with a parenthetical:

“(We did not consult the Vampiric Council.)”

Here’s another example:

On Oct. 1, in recognition of National Body Language Day (an event which somehow has managed to elude me until now), the page had a post lampooning the tendency for engineers to deflect attention, by way of pointing, from themselves to the inanimate objects they work with.

Gaylord’s post, which refers to this as the “Engineer Point,” says the gesture “says so much at once, including:

• “I’m an engineer. I’m awkward. If I have to pose for a photo, then I’m going to direct your attention to something that isn’t me.”

• “Look at that spalling.”

• “Look at that cavitation.”

• “Really just fill in the blank for any object you could be looking at.”

• “I just really like pointing at things.”

• “I am extremely uncomfortable.”

On Sept. 28, which is National Ask a Stupid Question Day (another unofficial holiday I have, until now, missed), Gaylord had a post saying, “Of course, there are really no stupid questions. But we’ve definitely been asked some that have made us go, ‘Huh?’ ”

I don’t as a rule recommend anyone browse a Facebook page, but I’m pleased to make an exception for the Portland District.

Nor is the mirth limited to Gaylord’s words.

He also makes deft use of photographs — doctored photographs, in most cases — to augment the humor.

Gaylord’s responses to comments are clever, too. And, perhaps most refreshing of all, given the onslaught of invective and nastiness that is a hallmark of social media, almost all of those who comment seem to appreciate, as I do, this beacon of joviality from such an unexpected source.

Jayson Jacoby is editor of the Baker City Herald.