Office humor, also often called workplace comedy, is humor within the workplace, in particular, office, environment. It is a subject that receives significant attention from students of

industrial and organizational psychology Industrial and organizational psychology (I-O psychology), an applied discipline within psychology, is the science of human behavior in the workplace. Depending on the country or region of the world, I-O psychology is also known as occupational ...

and of the sociology of work, as well as in

popular culture Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...

Academic considerations

Humor is an inevitable part of the social environment of work, and has been argued to be a potential tool for improving worker satisfaction and organizational results. Studies have suggested that humor can increase worker cohesiveness, creativity, motivation, and resilience in the face of adversity.Wijewardena, Nilupama, Hartel, Charmine E. J., and Samaratunge, Ramanie. "A laugh a day is sure to keep the blues away: managers' use of humor and the construction and destruction of employees' resilience." In Wilfred J. Zerbe, Charmine E. J. Härtel and Neal M. Ashkanasy, eds., ''Emotions and Organizational Dynamism'' ( Emerald Group Publishing, 2010), , pp. 259-278.
Excerpts available
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Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

. On the other hand, workplace humor (especially negative humor) can also be misused to reinforce

bigotry Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, rel ...

, denigrate minorities, create an atmosphere of physical or sexual harassment, or as a management tool to reinforce managerial authority.

Legal considerations

Inappropriate workplace humor may be deemed as "evidence in sexual harassment, discrimination and hostile work environment cases".T. Shawn Taylor
"Political correctness (and lawsuits) make workplace humor serious issue."
''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...

'', April 26, 2002 . It has led to serious consequences in cases such as the Krull case, where the ombudsman of

King County, Washington King County is located in the U.S. state of Washington. The population was 2,269,675 in the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Washington, and the 13th-most populous in the United States. The county seat is Seattle, also the ...

was fired for sending a copy of the 1894 booklet '' Instruction and Advice for the Young Bride'' to his soon-to-be-married assistant, or Chevron Corporation having to pay more than $2 million as a settlement with four employees after an interoffice email circulated on the subject of "25 Reasons Why Beer is Better Than Women".

Representations in popular culture

Office humor is the focus of comic strips (''

Dilbert ''Dilbert'' is an American comic strip written and illustrated by Scott Adams, first published on April 16, 1989. It is known for its satirical office humor about a white-collar, micromanaged office with engineer Dilbert as the title charact ...

'', ''Gaus Electronics'', ''Help Desk'', '' Misaeng'', ''

User Friendly Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a soft ...

'', '' Sosiaalisesti rajoittuneet''), movies (''

Office Space ''Office Space'' is a 1999 American black comedy film written and directed by Mike Judge. It satirizes the worklife of a typical 1990s software company, focusing on a handful of individuals weary of their jobs. It stars Ron Livingston, Jennifer ...

'', '' Head Office''), TV series (''

The Peter Principle The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until ...

'', ''

The Office ''The Office'' is a mockumentary sitcom created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, first made in the United Kingdom, then Germany, and subsequently the United States. It has since been remade in ten other countries. The original series o ...

& The Office UK'', '' Dilbert, & Superstore)'' and contemporary art (as in works by Mike Kelley). Federalisms is a Washington, D.C.-based company that uses office humor to improve morale for federal employees and contractors through greeting cards and social media.

Academic considerations

Legal considerations

Representations in popular culture

References

Further reading