Humor is a tricky business–and in a recent article in Inc, Kit Eaton argues that humor has no business at work. He notes, there’s one fundamental reason to avoid comedy in the office:
“It’s actually much harder to be genuinely funny than people think. And in a workplace setting, the downside of a joke landing badly may be larger than the upside you’d get from telling a real corker.
One big issue, the researchers point out, is that for a joke to be funny, it has to break certain social rules while simultaneously seeming harmless: Jokes that are too lame ‘get yawns,’ but jokes that violate too many rules may end up ‘triggering outrage.’ Landing a joke is hard enough in a comedy club, they note, but in an office environment, the ‘razor-thin line’ between hilarity and upset ‘becomes even harder to walk,’ and what makes one colleague laugh may cross a line for someone else.”
