Global Humor in the Workplace

If you're headed for a meeting in another country and want to get a laugh--for the right reasons--get a copy of Laughlab: The Scientific Search for the World's Funniest Joke. LaughLab was created by Dr. Richard Wiseman (University of Hertfordshire) in collaboration with the British Association for the Advancement of Science. LaughLab was an ongoing scientific experiment to find the worlds funniest joke.

Here are some of the findings:

Differences emerged between nations in terms of the jokes they found funny. People from The Republic of Ireland, the UK, Australia and New Zealand expressed a strong preference for jokes involving word plays.

Americans and Canadians much preferred gags where there was a sense of superiority – either because a person looked stupid, or was made to look stupid by another person, such as:

Texan: “Where are you from?”
Harvard grad: “I come from a place where we do not end our sentences with prepositions.”
Texan: “Okay – where are you from, jackass?”

Many European countries, such as France, Denmark and Belgium, liked jokes that were somewhat surreal:

An Alsatian went to a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote:
“Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof.”

The clerk examined the paper and politely told the dog: “There  are only nine words here. You could send another ‘Woof’for the same price.”

“But,” the dog replied, “that would make no sense at all.”

How about those wild and crazy Germans? Germans did not express a strong preference for any type of joke - this may well explain why they came first in the experiment's  league table of funniness – they do not have any strong preferences and so tend to find a wide spectrum of jokes funny.

And the winner is. . .

I live in southern New Jersey--in the woods--where there are plenty of hunters in season. It's easy to visualize the winning joke as a real conversation:

A couple of New Jersey hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn't seem to be breathing, his eyes are rolled back in his head. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls 911. He gasps to the operator: “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator, in a calm soothing voice says: “Just take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead.”

There is silence, then a shot.

The guy's voice comes back on the line: “OK, now what?

Comments

[Frode H.]

Steve.
Humor is very important at work. I have a strange sense of humor, if the joke is plain meaningless and stupid, I would love it, not just because it has no point, but also because it make other people surprised. My favorite does not easily translate into English but I will give it a try. A common Norwegian name is “Finn” – can be translated to “Find” So for the translations smoothness I will call this one character for “Find”; Find, John and his dog Find Find went camping, and suddenly in the middle of the night, John discovered that Find Find was missing. He woke Find and said: Find! Find Find Find! – Find was confused, looked funny at John and said: John John John John!

And we make a lot of fun of our neighbors, Denmark and Sweden. There are numerous jokes about the Swede, the Danish and the Norwegian, where the Norwegian of course is the clever one :)

[Steve Roesler]

Frode,

Thanks for adding the Norwegian humor.

I have a friend here who is always telling "Sven" jokes. Perhaps you two could get together and write a small joke book:-)

[peter vajda]

Hi, Steve,

In your two most recent posts, you offer two interesting perspectives on humor -laughter and teasing. I'd like to offer another, if I may, the ubiqutous nature of "put-down" humor.

Consider: You’re standing in a group, talking, and one of the members starts shooting verbal “zingers” at you. Everybody gets a hearty laugh at your expense. Everybody but you.

Light (and not-so-light) insult humor has become almost a national pastime. When you’re the butt of the jokes, you may try to shrug it off as harmless, but it stings. And if you’re the one getting laughs at others’ expense, you may not realize what you’re revealing about yourself.

For the past year, I’ve been engaged in coaching groups and teams, formally and informally. Each of these groups had been intact for months; some, for years. Participants represented the spectrum of “types” that might be included in the myriad descriptions of the MBTI or DiSC-type assessments or profiles. So, nothing unusual in the participant makeup.

However, across teams and groups, I was struck by one behavior that stood out above all others, namely, the propensity for many of the members to consistently engage in making destructive, cutting, sarcastic remarks to and about others in their group or on their team - for me, destructive comments personal or professional are those which are hurtful, demeaning, sarcastic and verbally abusive, for me, a form of "workplace violence".

The comments I experienced were directed at folks’ physical characteristics (hair, clothes), their perspectives or ideas, life choices (others’ choices of restaurants, movies, sports teams, even spouses or friends), folks’ current performance, and even where others had worked or attended school. These were not simply run-of-the-mill light comments. There was an underlying anger, resentment and destructive element (most likely unconscious) wrapped around the comments and barbs(no wonder Kathleen McGowan's article on teasing which you refer to appeared in Psychology Today, not Parade!).

On more than one occasion, I had to do a “double-take”, and ask myself, “Did I really hear that?” “Did he really say that?” “Did she really throw that zinger at him?” What continually came to me was “Why? What is this all about?”

In Western culture today, the biting, sarcastic, demeaning put-down has become an art form, everywhere TV, movies, talk radio, sports events, journals and magazines. It’s part of the fabric of everyday conversation. And more, many folks today see such behavior as “business as usual”, as “no big deal.” In fact, when I asked some of these folks if they were aware of what they said, most responded, “No.” or “So, what?” Like I had three heads or came from another planet. For many of these folks, their behavior is a true “blind spot.”

So, I'm curious as usual and for me the question is, “Why?”. In my experience in the realm of psychology and psychodynamics, we understand most folks engage in put-downs, sarcasm and barbs as a way to look smart, witty , sharp and cool ( as a defense against their own inner, deeper feelings of deficiency, insecurity, or lack in some way, shape or form). That’s the upside for them. The downside is that the person for whom the comment is directed is often harmed, hurt, demeaned, or otherwise made the point of ridicule.

When I ask other group participants, “bystanders”, why they often react with laughter, or “atta boy” comments, they generally say they don’t know, they just do. “It was funny.” Basically, a knee-jerk reaction. "What's the big deal?" The truth is many react this way, in the “go along to get along” fashion as they don’t want to stand out as different, serious, politically correct, etc. They want and need to be “one of the boys”, to have friends, etc., so speaking out, or pushing back against such comments and behavior will only serve to get them ostracized. So, they laugh or jump into the banter. (It’s like a verbal gang rape. Fun(ny), I suppose, when you're in on it; not so much when you're the victim)

The deal is, no matter how sharp one is, how educated, how senior in the hierarchy one is, how wealthy one is - no one has the right to strive to look witty, sharp or cool at the expense of another human being, at the expense of being disrespectful to another human being. And, for those who have a need to do so, the underlying question is, “Why? What does it get you? Does it make any difference that you might be hurting someone else?”

I very much apprciate your two most recent posts, especially the PSA. Good for you!

[Totally Consumed]

Steve,
I love it! Though I've never been to NJ, I laughed the hardest at your winning joke.
~Totally Consumed

[Steve Roesler]

Peter,

That is one of the most complete and pointed treatises I've seen on the biting impact of put-down humor.

I suppose what got me started on this was watching a company's internal meetings over time. If someone proposed something in a meeting and it was met with a legitimate question, the response was not a legitimate answer. Instead, it was a very, very clever put-down that always left a bit of a question about the intent (that was the clever part) and had the impact of shutting down any more dissent. Who wants to be on the receiving end of that kind of thing?

As for the "right" to do something at someone else's expense? Actually, I suppose people do have the "right," since we see it every day in all aspects of life via various media. Most of what passes for TV panel/interview programming is nothing more than a host bringing on two people with opposing viewpoints and then prodding them to argue with each other through put-downs vs. intelligent debate.

Perhaps the real question is: Just because one has a "right" to free speech, is it responsible to exercise it underhandedly at the expense of another?

[Steve Roesler]

Hey, Totally,

You are hereby cordially invited to stop by the All Things Workplace oudoor office deck the next time you are on the east coast. We can have a cup of coffee, watch the deer walk by, and listen for the impending 911 call:-)