JokesUsing a joke to open a meeting, class or function
A room full of people who have just arrived is stiff. Some are still thinking about the traffic, some about their phones. One short, clean joke in the first minute tells everybody, "You may relax; this will not be painful." Used well, it earns you the room's attention for the next ten minutes. Used badly, it costs you the same ten minutes. Here is how to stay on the right side.
Pick the right joke for the room
- Make it about the shared situation. At work: meetings, emails, the tea break. In a class: homework, the bell, the timetable. At a family function: the buffet, the photo queue, the late start. A joke about what everybody in the room is living through cannot exclude anyone.
- One or two lines only. A long story with a weak ending is the commonest way to lose a room. A one-liner that fails costs three seconds; you simply carry on.
- Make yourself the subject where you can. "I was asked to keep this short, and I have never managed that even with a grocery list." Nobody is hurt, and you look at ease.
- Nothing about a person or a group. No jokes on the boss, the newest member, any community, age, gender, language or body. In a mixed room, you do not know who is carrying what.
How to deliver it
- Know it by heart. Reading a joke from a phone kills it. If you cannot remember it, it is too long.
- Say it in your normal voice. Do not announce, "Let me tell you a joke." Just say the line as a remark.
- Pause before the last few words. One second is enough.
- Smile, and move on at once. Whether the room laughs loudly, smiles or does nothing, your next sentence is the first real point. Never wait for the laugh, and never explain.
Lines that fit common occasions
These are from this site, and you are welcome to use them aloud.
- Weekly team meeting: "'A quick call' is office language for forty-five minutes. Let us try to prove that wrong today."
- Monday review: "Monday looked at my to-do list and laughed before I could. So let us begin with the easy items."
- Parents' meeting at school: "Report card day is the only day a child walks home slowly and still reaches too early. So first, the good news."
- Society meeting: "During a power cut, the whole colony meets on the balconies. That is our real society meeting. This is the official one."
- Family function: "The card said seven o'clock, so I thank all of you who came at seven, and both of you may sit in front."
When to skip the joke
Skip it when the meeting is about bad news: results that hurt, a loss, a complaint, a farewell that nobody wanted. Skip it when the room is already tense or the last speaker was serious. Skip it in a condolence gathering, always. Skip it if you are new and do not yet know the group; listen first for a meeting or two. And skip it if you are not comfortable. A warm "Good morning, thank you for coming on time" opens a room perfectly well. A joke is a help, not a duty.
If it falls flat
It happens to everybody. Do not repeat the joke and do not blame the audience. Say your next sentence as if nothing happened. Within a minute nobody remembers. What people do remember is a speaker who stayed calm.
More lines by subject: office jokes, school jokes, wedding season jokes and everyday life jokes.