A familiar scene: You're standing in a circle of co-workers telling a super funny joke. Things are going fine until you reach the punch line; then, disaster strikes. No one laughs. Some people even look offended. Is that your boss shaking her head disapprovingly? Is that your chance at a promotion leaving quietly through a side door?
True fact: not everyone gets you.Even amongst your friends, jokes will (only very occasionally, due to how amazing you are) fall flat, and you've probably known those people for years. So when your audience is a group of people whose only binding tie is that they work together, how do you know what's funny? Certainly we, the Simpsons-South-Park-Family-Guy Generation (much better than 'Gen Y', don't you think?), can't be expected to stand around the water cooler telling tame jokes, without even a hint of irony! Never fear. Like everything else, there's a science to laughter, and it starts with knowing exactly who you're messing with... punk.
Dr. Steven M. Sultanoff, PhD, clinical psychologist and professor at Pepperdine University in California, and the former president of the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor, explains that being successfully funny is all about knowing your audience. Differing cultural roots, socio-economic backgrounds, even generational gaps, can make cracking jokes at work a potential minefield of badness. "Know that the humour you're going to use is something that the people around you will get," he says. "That's shared context." Which means that while it's possible, it's not terribly likely that your 60-something boss watched that YouTube video of a cat looking really, really surprised — but that she probably would understand and appreciate a crack about a certain promiscuous golf player.
Aaron Eves, a Toronto-based comic and member of the Laugh Sabbath collective, remembers learning this lesson early in his working life. “At first, my humour was just to be as dry as possible. I would never laugh after saying something really silly and took pride in my ability to deadpan every joke,” he says. “So people would laugh at first, but then I wouldn’t laugh with them, and after doing that for a little while I realized I wasn’t having any fun with the jokes. Unless I get to laugh too, at some point, it’s no fun. It’s best to tell jokes when they’re all inclusive.”
Making a joke all inclusive means understanding not only who you’re talking to, but what you should be talking about. According to Dr. Sultanoff, there are three primary targets of humour. Perhaps the easiest one to turn to, especially in a new and intimidating situation, is yourself. And while it’s fine to a point, self-deprecating humour should be used sparingly. As Eves puts it, “Don’t keep it up too long or everyone is gonna start to think of you as an incompetent piece of garbage who hates themselves. Then people will wonder why you have a job.”
You could always make fun of individuals — but you’d be playing with napalm. While even the most aggressive ribbing amongst close personal friends is often hilarious, making a co-worker the butt of jokes is almost always a terrible idea. “Generally that target is the most dangerous and toxic,” Dr. Sultanoff sums up. And you don’t have to name names to be insulting: jokes based on race, ethnicity, sexuality, or even on a certain very light hair color can all be, and usually are, pretty tasteless and mean (to say nothing of potential lawsuits). Eves advises, “Basically just don’t make jokes that aren’t funny. If there’s any doubt, just don’t.”
But there’s that one individual who often bears more than their fair share of ridicule: the boss. Your superior doesn’t have to be a Monty Burns or a Michael Scott to become the subject of mockery; in fact, the desire to make fun of the higher-ups comes from a perfectly valid place, psychologically speaking. “We sometimes use humor to try and empower ourselves,” explains Dr. Sultanoff. “The humor adds a false sense of superiority. Psychologically, that comes out of lower self-esteem and a need to build oneself up in the face of others.” Harsh, but it doesn’t make it any less true — or less common. And that’s for good reason as well, since one of workplace humour’s most important functions is to help build relationships amongst employees. Comedy, then, is essentially a social lubricant that acts in much the same way as its social cousin alcohol— finally, an analogy everyone can enjoy!
“My co-workers always figure out my sense of humour faster because I’m around them more, socializing with them, building camaraderie,” says Eves. “I think every boss must know that all their employees are making fun of them, whether they’re a nice person or not. At some level there’s always that divide. And it’s not always meant as an insult to the boss or anything. It’s more of a way for employees to deal with the fact that they have, um, no power.” But between those paper-thin cubicle walls and that tricky Reply All button, we’d advise against openly ridiculing someone who can fire you and your good intentions before you can say ‘just kidding’.
“Humour gives you three primary health benefits: the first is laughter, and that’s a physical reaction; the second one is mirth, and that’s an emotional reaction; the third is wit, and that’s a cognitive reaction,” explains Dr. Sultanoff. We’ve all heard that laughter is the best medicine, and many studies have shown its health benefits. But the emotional benefits are what immediately effect your working environment. “We’re most distressed by the way we see things, and emotional distress interferes with productivity,” he says. “Perspective, which is a cognitive shift, will a/effect emotional distress.” And lo, the stressful situation: our third, and best, possible target of humour at work. Situational comedy is safe, fun, and effective because it truly functions on shared context.
“When people get really intense and start saying things like, ‘Look, this has to be done by three o’clock or else,’ I think that there’s something funny just in that, in people taking themselves so seriously that they’d think anyone would respond well to that kind of statement,” jokes Eves. “At a lot of workplaces, people get really wound up and intense and focused-in on a job or a task, so that they forget to step back and remember that we’re all just these sad corpses stuck to the earth by gravity.”
So, yes, you can be edgy, and cool, and hip to the jive, and all kinds of other adjectives. You can even quote your favorite animated satire if the situation calls for it. Workplace humor doesn’t have to about obvious set-ups and tired G-rated anecdotes that make you want to stab yourself in the face six times — it just has to be funny. And even if you’re not the office clown, a few well timed one-liners can establish you not only as an ally to your peers, but as a pleasant addition to the team in the eyes of the higher-ups. jp