Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Work Humor


HUMOR IN THE WORKPLACE

Alexander Bain's fax machines are nearing extinction, but for those who still insist upon scanning documents with a telecopier, you may appreciate the following true story. 

This morning I vowed to get some paperwork done. One of those tasks was sending my extremely patient and congenial CPA some tax documents. Rather than gathering all my documents and submitting them in one easy, convenient package for her review, I, instead, fax, email, and snail mail them to her piece by piece. 

Today, a cringe of guilt hit me over not having a fax cover sheet to accompany the tax statements I sent over, unsolicited and without explanation. I vowed to add "Create Fax Cover Sheet" to my To-Do List and hoped that the acknowledgement of my "Fax Faux Pas" would keep me in her good graces. 

Immediately thereafter, I found myself with a few extra minutes to spare and decided to go ahead and create a Fax Cover Sheet. My traditional dull, unimaginative, plain-vanilla dullsville document was transformed into this: 


Incorporating humor into the workplace doesn't need to be overly outlandish to serve as a tool to lighten-up an awkward moment (eg., when out of exhaustion, denial, or sheer laziness we fail to follow through in a timely fashion). 

The next time you find yourself avoiding a work task or chore, ask yourself if you can come up with a humorous spin - that might just be the hurdle you need to avoid procrastinating on dealing with a work issue and your colleagues will thank you for it! 


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