6 ms·

Humor isn’t universal. Had a coworker who would routinely make jokes assuming alignment with his own extremist political preferences and it was uncomfortable l

• hprotagonist 4y ago
  dad joke time.
• micromacrofoot 4y ago
  If you can't tell a joke without insulting someone, the fault isn't with humor, it's with you.
  • swatcoder 4y ago
    It’s not just about insults. If you come into a tight culture of people who will riff all day on harmless puns, or crack references to old Jersey Shore dramas, or whatever, it can be acutely alienating. I wouldn’t personally want to work in a place so sterile, but I also feel confident in my ability to float around and either find a lively culture that suits me or work my way into a culture that once felt alienating. But not everybody feels so confident in that, and sterile results-focused work communities get the opportunity to have these people thrive. That sounds good for those people and for those organizations. As long as the whole job market isn’t made to look that way, I’m not sure there’s a big critique to make.
    • drewcoo 4y ago
      > a tight culture of people . . . can be acutely alienating Exactly. And people are saying "don't rob us of our culture." That ain't woke.
  • munk-a 4y ago
    I think that most people can't - and that'd make avoiding jokes a good rule for the majority to follow.
  • throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    Disagree. Insult everyone approximately equally is a much more tractable goal and delivers far better results. There's a line to be walked but it's not hard, it just takes practice.
  • bachmeier 4y ago
    Or you could spend your energy doing your job rather than figuring out which jokes are safe. [Tells joke about Bob] [No laughter] [Bob is on the conference call] [Tells political joke] [Others think you're stupid but don't say anything]
• tetraca 4y ago
  In that case, I don't think the idea of joking was the problem so much as shoving politics into the workplace.
  • vkou 4y ago
    The problem is that what you think is funny may be uncomfortable to a other people, and for some reason, it's always the funny guy who thinks that the onus is on everyone else to shift their behavior to accommodate his comfort. It gets worse when half the team is laughing, and the other half are praying for you to be struck dumb already.
    • lijogdfljk 4y ago
      Man it just sounds like such a miserable drone workplace to have no one laughing. Giving up on laughter seems a "baby with the bathwater" approach to inclusiveness. I suppose being miserable is rather inclusive though :/
    • tetraca 4y ago
      It's really not that hard to keep your forms of merriment clean and appropriate, if you are a generally good-natured person that likes who you work with and wants to make them laugh. That said, there are certainly people that can only perform humor as a zero-sum game. But in my experience they are also generally the kind of people that subject their coworkers to uncomfortable conversations in a myriad of other ways.
  • throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    Or not being able to pivot when your jokes aren't well received.
• jimmyjazz14 4y ago
  I've been able to laugh and joke around with people I work with from all over the globe (literally), its one of the most valuable tools I have found to create a sense of ease of friendliness in the workplace. Self deprecating humor is also a great way to show that you don't take yourself to serious and to ease tensions when divisiveness may arise. I think the better suggestion is to not talk about politics and don't gossip.