How to Correctly Laugh at an Area Manager’s Joke

(and a few other things of minor importance)

Remember that episode of Friends when Monica gets annoyed at Chandler for laughing at his boss’s bad jokes? Of course you do! Thanks to E4, everyone has seen every episode of Friends enough times that the image of those six burkes dicking around in a fountain is ingrained into the back of our brain like a traumatic childhood incident, unable to be removed even with the most extensive counseling.

Well that situation is surprisingly true to life. Your boss makes a crap joke, you laugh. It’s the rules. Why do you think so many people in high positions are so painfully unfunny? Because there is no one under them to tell them that their jokes are shit. And the higher up the career ladder you go, the less people above you to tell them that your jokes are awful. Ever laughed when the Pope does his Christmas stand-up show? Of course not. There’s no one on earth that can warn the pope that his routine isn’t getting funny anytime soon. So he still rattles out the same skit about the imaginary dude in the sky, year after year, until it becomes so boring those in the audience, unable to effectively heckle him off stage, resort to diving at him and dragging him to the ground in a effort to get him to stop.

But what that episode of Friends doesn’t go in depth about is the manner in which you should laugh. Not every laugh is appropriate for every situation. For instance, today my Area Manager, the most senior member of the company that I am going to have to deal with, came in. We were busy so she came behind the bar and gave us a hand. After a few orders she messed up and, laughing loudly, said to me, “Looks like I should be in your position and you in mine.”

Now, this is barely a joke. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that it was the least entertaining thing I’d heard someone say without mentioning Belgium. However you’re forced to laugh at it.

But how?

You can’t go for an all out, belly laugh because it’d be inappropriate and you don’t know them that well. You can’t go for a small little, half assed snicker because then it wouldn’t seem as if it were funny enough. You can’t go for the ridiculing laugh that you use to laugh at someone because she’d think you were laughing at her. You can’t go for a nodding, i-see-what-you-did-there-laugh because even she’s aware enough to know there is nothing clever about this joke (she just doesn’t realize that there is nothing funny about it either).

So in the end I just ended up puffing out a series of artificial, subdued chuckles that sounded like I was mildly out of breath or had something stuck in my throat. She didn’t look entirely satisfied with this response, perhaps aware of the forced nature of my laugh. She didn’t make anymore jokes for the rest of the day. Maybe I did some damage to her self confidence and will force her to reevaluate how she interacts with people. Or maybe I’ll check the Rota for next week and find out that I’m working 12 hour shifts all week in the solitary store room. The latter is sadly more likely.

On another note, if you’re one of those teenage girls that’s into Flight of the Concords, Biffy Clyro and MGMT, who wears checkered shirts and Mighty Boosh t-shirts and thinks saying things like, “I like cheese,” is random and hilarious; STOP IT! No one likes you and that one that guy you fancy, your “artisan” friend that hangs out in your large, all female, group is only one trip to Brighton away from coming out of the closet.

And one more thing; your cup of coffee does not represent your personality and when you hear a slogan that says, “customize your cup to suit you!” don’t take it as a personal challenge. The more you try and individualize your coffee (skinny/soya milk, single/extra shot, decaf, extra hot, no/extra froth, pre-warmed cup, only coffee beans that have been picked by left handed people) the more we’re going to deliberately get it wrong.

One final note: I'm not entirely sure what fotolia stands for in the picture that accompanies this entry. All I can imagine is that it is a word that describes the atmosphere of shame and self loathing you feel when you try and stick your tongue up your superior's asshole.