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Atmosphere E-mail Humor Jokes and Jokers

Our manager read or heard that one way to improve the atmosphere is to add a joke at the end email messages. I don't think this helps the atmosphere at all. What do you think?



It's a complete joke to think that adding a joke at the end of email messages is going to help the atmosphere. If your manager is truly intent on improving the work atmosphere, he should actually try to identify the factors that might be interfering with the atmosphere and focus on them.

Placing jokes in email is a colossal waste of time not only for the sender, but also for the receiver. The sender has to scrounge around for some supposedly funny little ditty, and the receiver can have any number of reactions. Some receivers will cut right to the joke and ignore the meat of the message, while others such as yourself will be annoyed over another unfunny postscript.

Once the jokes get the green light from a senior manager, it will not be long before others follow suit, and then even more time can be wasted. And if your company has a policy regarding the misuse of email, these jokes make that policy rather meaningless and do not help any other policies as well.

Wrapping up email messages with a joke also trivializes any message that is sent, and it will not long before the jokes slide further into subjects that have no place in the workplace.

Humor at work can definitely help the work atmosphere, but pasting jokes at the end of practically every email message is not funny.




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