The Work Laugh

A dedication before I begin: To all my beloved colleagues, you know I love you guys and really think you are all funny, I just had to parallel my thoughts with a Friends episode. The work laugh can be used in many situations. And you know you have done it too!

I don’t know if anybody remembers the Friends episode where Monica discovers that Chandler has a horribly annoying work laugh and she tries to convince him that he doesn’t need it. But after a terribly awkward situation Monica realizes that it is just better to have a fake work laugh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agb8h0fGlVw

In the essence of drawing parallels, my current life situation complements this Friends episode quite nicely. See the problem is, that people make jokes and I don’t think they are funny. When people say something that is not funny, doesn’t make sense, or isn’t relevant I just don’t laugh. It’s not funny, and it doesn’t need my laugh. My thought was that hopefully the absence of laughter would help mold their humor. * I am not saying that my opinion on funny/not funny is the end all. We all know I have told me fair share of bad stories, jokes, and one-liners.

However, my plan has backfired. It turns out that this is a rather pompous attitude and I am just coming off as a stick in the mud; with no sense of humor…go figure. Either that or nobody that I work with is funny. So I talked to a good friend that told me I might just need to get a work laugh. She said her work laugh was…”ha, that’s funny”. So I have been practicing work laughs and I think I have a good one. Here’s how it goes…I do a quick closed mouthed “ha ha” and then calmly move my head back then to the side and then point my finger at the person, and give them the YOU RASCAL look. So my new plan is to test it out and let you guys know how it goes. Let me know if you have a good work laugh that I could try.