Humor in the workplace

I had a couple of colleagues who were very good at coming up with jokes on the spot. It helped me get through some tough days at work. Here’s why:

1. Humor makes things out of your control more tolerable - if you can laugh about it, you can beat it. No famous person has said this. If you want my autograph, I can send it to you(although it will be called a signature rather than an autograph). Coming back to the point at hand, humor helps one execute the Stoic philosophy ‘The Dichotomy of Control’, by not worrying about things outside your control. When you can make light of things outside your control, you can proudly proclaim that you are part {insert profession} , part Stoic follower. Then you can sound like a genius when you explain the Dichotomy of Control to people who scratch their heads(or other parts of their body) in confusion.
   

2. Stress relief - there’s nothing better than a good laugh. Imagine cracking jokes over a software, or a process which doesn’t make sense to you. It helps release some of the frustration of working on clunky software or with clunky processes(if there’s something like that). We had a software called Prophet and in the one year I worked on it, I kept asking it to predict my future. But all it was interested in was financial products and their future. Bah!
   

3. Makes you more likeable - humor makes you much more likeable. The colleague who makes one laugh is like a free entertainer employed to make your days sunny and bright. And you don’t worry - you don’t have to pay entertainment tax to the funny guy. It is all free!
   

4. Humorous leaders are more effective - no one likes grumpy pants, when it comes to leadership. We all like a leader who makes fun of their flaws. Brene Brown(author and Ted speaker) talks about how talking about our imperfections helps bond with people better. As per the Pratfall effect, we tend to maintain a distance from people we consider perfect or near perfect. No wonder, I maintained a  distance from my ex who thought he was God. 
   

These are a few ways in which humor helps in the workplace.