--By Sue Shellenbarger

 

Using humour well at work can boost your career and make you popular among co-workers.  But a joke that goes wrong can undo all the benefits, and few moments are more painful than the stony silence that follows a failed punchline.

 

Skilled humourists quickly turn the joke on themselves, says Michael Kerr, a speaker, trainer and author on workplace humour. He suggests having a few recovery lines in mind, such as “Beam me up – NOW, Scotty,” or “Where’s my stunt double?” or, “If you’re going to mess up, I always said, go big or go home.” A deft recovery can be even funnier than an original joke. It’s wise to do a post-mortem later, critiquing your timing and motives, humour consultants say. Workplace humour should always be positive, aimed at bringing people together or easing stress. If your joke failed because you were putting people down, driving a wedge between co-workers, or conveying a racist, ageist or sexist attitude, then give it up.  Another common misstep is poor timing, or failure to read your audience’s mood and attitude.  And never try to be funny when you’re nervous or not feeling upbeat yourself, experts say. Another common problem is overdoing it; “people who use too much humour can lose credibility” in the workplace, says Kevin Cruthirds, an assistant professor of management at the University of Texas, Brownsville, and co-author of a widely cited 2006 study on humour in the workplace.

 

If your humour passes all those tests, just try again.

 

Any office humourist has to accept that some jokes will bomb, says Zach Ward, managing director of ImprovBoston, a comedy theater and school where people often enroll to improve their interpersonal skills at work. “We have to be willing to fail and joke again,” says Ward. “Failing at humour isn’t the end of the world.” And if your good-natured, appropriate attempts at humour get laughs elsewhere but draw only deadly stares at the office, “then maybe you’re in a work environment where you can’t have fun,” suggesting you might be happier elsewhere, he adds. Margot Carmichael Lester considers humour so important in the workplace that she’s willing to risk an occasional flop. In an administrative job years ago, she accidentally threw away her boss’s paycheck while sorting the mail. Figuring that she would soon be fired anyway, she wrote and distributed a satirical press release to a few close co-workers, saying, “One way to make a lasting impression is to throw away the boss’s paycheck. Once you’ve done that, nobody is going to forget you.”

 

A colleague shared it with the boss. To her surprise, he thought it was so funny that he congratulated her – and kept her on.  (The paycheck was later recovered.) “I’ve made some bad jokes or those that nobody got,” says Ms. Lester, owner of The Word Factory, a Carrboro, N.C. content creator. But she keeps making jokes anyway; business is hard enough, she says. “At some point you really have to laugh, or you’re going to cry.” (http://blogs.wsj.com/atwork)