01.04.20

How funny can you be as a Company?

For those of you over a certain age you should remember how mice used to have a small rubber ball inside them, and outside of being shockingly easy to lose while cleaning, they opened your colleagues up to a side-splitting joke if you took the ball out while they weren't looking.

This used to be the pinnacle of office humour, and around April Fool's Day I wish making jokes in the workplace was that simple. With the rise of the internet it has become easier for a simple joke meant for a colleague to circulate outside of your own inbox and across the globe.

This can mean that companies need to be more careful when making light-hearted remarks on wide reaching platforms. What may have passed for a funny joke in the past could now leave larger communities upset and leave you as a company facing backlash from groups you had no intention of offending.

It can also be difficult for large corporations to make effectively safe enough jokes without appearing as parodies of themselves, akin to the granddad trying to fit in with the kids these days by 'dabbing' and 'hitting the woah'.

This year maybe it's time to really think carefully about how you pull your pranks so that we can all have a good time without making anyone feel left out. I myself am currently mixing enough lime jelly to hide an office worth of staplers.