When office jokes go wrong

When office jokes go wrong : "'I'd certainly counsel bosses against trying to be funny,' he said."

No wonder we have become a joyless society and no wonder we are fed up with work and no wonder we are stressed. We need a laugh. We need to be able to laugh. A healthy workplace is somewhere where people can exercise their wit and it is self regulating. People get told plainly they have gone to far. People get told they are a bit over the top. People are told they are too serious as well and they need to lighten up. We are far too serious and way too precious. We are more flexible and resilient than we think and one fo the ways we establish values is by communicating with others and then discovering we haven't got it quite right. We've been too harsh, too hurtful, too intense...tooo something. Others give us feedback and then we learn. There is nothing wrong with learning and I think we have lost our boundaries because they are set externally by this vague appropriate-inappropriate notion. Being told by others we are inappropriate doesn't make us learn . We never discuss what we mean and what is meant. There needs to be discussion and there certainly needs to be more laughter. We are old enough to determine whether we have gone too far because that then is decided by consensus and it creates balance. We need to have natural responses because most people are reasonable. Losing our humour is the saddest thing which has happened to us. I am lucky because I have a very funny work environment which is not afraid to tackle the tough stuff. We can do that through laughing or crying or simply knowing we can say it as we feel it and someone will shut us up if we are being unreasonable or unfair. There is a nice sense of balance and it means you can lighten up and lighten others up before you get stuck into the mundane, the routine and the just plain difficult. It has been the boss who has given us this freedom because they are a very straight talker with a great sense of humour. We are better for it. Our last boss gave us a long list of what was appropriate and not appropriate and we just wilted and shut down.