Levity in the Workplace!

One of the ways to develop camaraderie with your colleagues is to share a laugh.

As an HR professional I wasn’t very silly at work, but when I could, I turned on my silliness, and it was these times that are highly memorable to me.

In the 80’s I worked at the Canadian Hearing Society (CHS).  CHS held a lip synching contest where employees could enter as a group or solo act.  I entered the contest as a solo act.  At the time Madonna recorded a song called “Like A Virgin” and “Weird Al” Yankovic sang a parody of the song called “Like A Surgeon” (the medical kind).  I thought I would do a parody of a parody.  I lip synched to “Weird Al” Yankovic’s song “Like a Surgeon”, but instead of being a medical surgeon, I was a tree surgeon!  I dressed in costume as a medical surgeon.  The premise was that I took an unhealthy plant, popped some pills into it (miniature billiard balls) and lo and behold, the plant became healthy again!  I found two plants to use in my act, one was healthy and the other was, well, dead.  This being the Canadian Hearing Society, there was an interpreter who interpreted my lip synching words.    You may be wondering, but I won in the solo category!  One of the prizes was a roll of toilet paper that had bright red lips imprinted all over it!   I still have this roll of toilet paper after all these years!

In the 2000’s, I worked at Combined Insurance where we shared an office building with tenants from other companies.  I chaired six United Way fundraising campaigns.  Each year we executed our campaign throughout the month of October.  It was a tradition at the company to hold a Hallowe’en costume parade where employees could (if they want) dress in costume.  We (about 15 of us) would then go around to all the departments and collect spare change from our colleagues for the United Way!  This was right up my alley as I loved to dress up in costume and be silly!   I took the tradition a step further by leading my very game colleagues around the building and soliciting spare change from other tenants in the building!  (Prior to the event, I did some networking and went around to the other tenants to see who would be amenable to receiving a group of unusually dressed people asking for money!)   To everyone who gave spare change, I offered a piece of candy as a thank-you to the donor.  Each year I dressed up in a different costume (e.g., Austin Powers, pirate, prisoner, hippie, mad scientist).  In the year that I was a prisoner, I tied a ball-and-chain to my ankle and we joked that the HR department let me out because I was known to be at my desk all the time!   

The Hallowe’en costume parade always did well in terms of raising money.  Everyone (participants and spectators alike) enjoyed themselves and had a great time!

It’s nice to share a laugh with colleagues now and then.  It releases stress.  It builds camaraderie.And in my case, I got to show a side of me that I don’t get to show all that often!

Originally Published on LinkedIn:  July 19, 2016

Image Credit: Pixabay