In the current climate, humor is more important than ever in the working world – in fact injecting a little humor into your work life could be key to keeping yourself sane. And as with just about every other facet of the modern workplace, there's now a book about it: Adrian Gostick and Scott Christopher's The Levity Effect: Why It Pays to Lighten Up.
As they explain in the book and in this piece on Monster.com has some important information about being funny in the office, humor can yield tremendous results.
"An excited Kirt Womack of the Thiokol factory in Utah sprinted into his manager's office on the first day of spring and asked if the folks on the factory floor could do something fun -- say, head outside and fly paper airplanes -- if they met their quota two hours early. The manager wrinkled his brow and vetoed the idea. Kirt persisted, 'Well, then, what if we exceed our quota by 50 percent?' Figuring he had nothing to lose, the manager finally gave in.
Later that day, at 1:30, the manager checked on things and found that his employees had reached 110 percent of their quota. By 3 p.m., they'd surpassed 150 percent. The airplanes were launched, laughter rang out and people frolicked (funny word, frolicked)."
It may seem like a silly story, but when you factor in the fact that the promise of fun lead to an increase of 50%, you can see how fun and levity can have a positive effect all the way around.
So, even though the world seems to be doing everything it can to make this time at work a miserable thing, in fact it may be more important than ever to have fun while you work.