Humor in office: the best Stress buster?

It is a well-documented fact that humor provides umpteen benefits for both mind and body. As few areas of life are more stressful than a workplace, humor at place of work could be the best way to communicate and get things done with least of stress or anxiety. Humor not only reduces stress, it helps boost the morale, bring people closer, and perhaps even wards off burnout. Humor helps in connecting people and removing those invisible barriers while making a lively office environment. However, please remember that too much of everything has a down side of it. Humor may even alienate people and even create a hostile environment. There is a fine line between being humorous and offensive.

A survey showed that although humor is the best way to de-stress, it could be offensive. A vast majority of people who polled stated that jokes at their office mainly centered around making fun of their colleagues based on factors like age, weight, and even sexual orientation. Almost half agreed that they themselves made fun of co-workers’ age or weight. While there was not a lot of difference between what women and men found offensive, women were more likely to feel offended if remarked upon their physical characteristics, like scars weight or cleavage.

There is a very thin difference between being funny vs. being offensive in office humor. How can co-workers have fun without making the other person offended? Following are some guidelines we need to remember while telling jokes around the office:

• Understand the message: Ask yourself, is the message I am sending could not be said without adding the joke along?
• Know the Audience: Do you really know the person you are intending the joke. Mere acquaintances are not the right people to joke about, specially on their physical attributes.
• Abandon serious topics while joking: Never joke on topics that are contentious in nature or excruciating to your audience. Jokes on issues like physical disabilities, death, or discrimination etc should always be avoided.
• Be cautious of politics: Avoid making political jokes at office. You may hurt somebody’s ideology.

When you are in doubt, might as well leave it out: If you are unsure on how your joke will be received, might as well leave it out.

Humor is a good medicine to de-stress, if the taste is right. We need to understand that although you are very chummy at office, office jokes need to be in good spirits. Understand that the person you are talking about is a colleague first and then your friend. Make jokes, not to offend but to underline a message that helps the organization than cause unnecessary harassment.