Humor within organizations

    Imagining how humor plays out in organizations can be tough for most people since they mostly expect organizations to be professional and serious environments. Humor, however, can practically show up in any place. In organizations specifically it can show up among a full organization level of many people, among fewer people like those in groups and departments, and even among fewer employees like those that are friends. When showing up in organizations humor can, like in other places, be both a good and a bad thing depending on how it shows up, but it can also make the overall environment of organizations more fun.

    How humor shows up in an organization can actually be seen in the clip below from the movie After We Collided. In this clip it can first be seen that a character named Tessa is running into a building. After entering the building, she tries to catch the elevator by asking another character named Trevor who happens to work in that building to hold it for her, but the elevator shuts right in her face. Once this happens Tessa angrily spits out a phrase that some would immediately find offensive. Trevor, however, decides to see her phrase in a humorous way because he ends up opening up the elevator for her and then with a smile on his face asks her if the phrase she said was directed at him. When confronted Tessa first tries to avoid answering him and then she tries to use humor because she smiles while denying that she had said the phrase to him. Eventually after a brief moment of tension between the two Tessa decides to apologize and explains that she just wanted to make a good impression because it was her first day in the building. Once she explains this Trevor uses humor in a serious tone to tell her that she had achieved her goal. After this they both get out of the elevator and a character named Kimberly approaches Tessa to welcome her into the building, which is a publishing firm. When welcoming her she tells Tessa that she is impressed by her good memory and Trevor jokingly says that Tessa is indeed good at making an impression. Right when Kimberly hears Trevor say this, she assumes that Tessa and Trevor know each other, so she asks them if they do. Finally, after Kimberly asks this Trevor again uses humor because he jokingly says that he and Tessa are friends who go way back.

    All in all, the clip evidently shows that humor can surely emerge in organization settings. It even shows that humor in these settings does not always have to surface among the already existing employees of an organization but rather that it can also surface when newer employees enter an organization. Something to thoroughly consider though is that people in organizations might not always see things as humorously as Trevor did in the clip since they might get angry or upset.