Office humor indicates a variety of jokes that usually feature a business office or other workplace as the setting for the joke. Other aspects of the business world can also play a part in such jokes, including relationships between bosses and other workers, stereotypes about different types of jobs, and how co-workers often relate to each other. There are many types of jokes that use workplace settings, usually based on different types of jobs. Office humor may also refer to jokes told at a workplace, in which case there is usually a focus on what jokes are appropriate for such a setting.
Many different types of jokes can be included in office humor, including both spoken or text jokes as well as pranks and practical jokes. Most of these jokes utilize the office environment and how different relationships and activities often develop in an office as the basis for the humor in the joke. These jokes are often built on ideas regarding the relationships that can occur between co-workers and ways in which bosses often frustrate employees. Much like other types of jokes, office humor can also play off stereotypes in the workplace, which may be offensive to some individuals.
Since office humor is often based around a particular type of workplace, a number of sub-genres within this type of humor have also developed. Lawyer jokes, for example, can range from jokes non-lawyers tell about legal professionals to humor based on an understanding of the law discussed between two lawyers. There are also a number of medical jokes based on workplaces such as hospitals and doctor’s offices, often with nurses and doctors as the objects of the joke. The corporate world has also been the basis for a great deal of office humor, including comic strips, television shows, and movies.
Office humor can also refer to spoken jokes and other humorous activities that occur within the workplace itself. This can indicate jokes sent around an office through employee e-mail, as well as jokes that employees or managers tell each other while at work. A number of practical jokes and pranks have also become quite popular in the workplace, though discretion should be used so that employees avoid punitive action for wasting time at work. This type of office humor is often the subject of company policies regarding harassment in the workplace, and employees should be careful to only tell jokes that are inoffensive to others to avoid potential disciplinary or legal action against them.