A Course Called Humor in the Workplace?

There are more standup comics then there have ever been. People actually make a living as humor consultants. College courses in humor have made humorology a legitimate, almost respectable, field of study. Paradoxically, in the world of work, less humor exists.

Where has the humor gone? It existed once. It was not a scarce resource. Humor and laughter has trickled to nothing or gone underground in the last two decades. Why the change? Here are the answers from the workplace---participants in management classes and workshops:

(1)There isn't much to laugh about in many organizations. The job security issue is real. The threat or actuality of layoffs, downsizing, and/or outsourcing permeates. Although one can be amused at CEO salaries, which are nearly 300 times average employee salaries, there just aren't a lot of belly laughs there.

(2)Many managers have returned to the sweatshop mentality. "Humor and laughter are not productive" they say, ignoring all evidence to the contrary. This philosophy has always existed, but now with with today's spin--the global economy ---it is retuning as the default management style.

(3)There exists an element of political correctness that has made all humor suspect. Undeniability there are inappropriate types of humor in the workplace that are based upon the disparagement of others---gender, race, ethnic, and religion just to name a few. In those areas as well as others, the use of humor to hurt others is not appropriate anywhere. This being said, however, it appears that people are discarding the natural situational humor as well as the harmful.

This sounds desperate.

It is.
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Hence the reason I teach a course on humor and laughter and have written a book on the subject. I promise you, however, in this blog that I will peddle humor and laughter and maybe some satire from time to time but not my book. Cheers and jest wishes.