I love to joke with my coworkers, but it can be dangerous and you have to do it carefully.
The biggest danger of joking with coworkers is that something you can say might hurt someone’s feelings, and you never want to do that. So before you say something that you think is funny, think it over for a bit and make sure you changed places with that person and knowing what you know about them if they might be offended.
Now I must admit that I haven’t always had my sense of humor appreciated. Some of my coworkers find me funny and some don’t. One-on-one is the safest way to joke since if you accidentally hurt someone’s feelings you can immediately apologize. I have also seen that most people aren’t ready for humor until they are comfortable with you and know you. Then watch out my inner comedy comes out!
Funny people often do it because they desire others’ good opinions of them, or they have a tragic backstory. Fortunately, I don’t have those issues. I have lots of humorous thoughts and sometimes sharing your thoughts with others shows them that we are alike. Other times people like to feel superior to you and don’t want to realize that we often think/feel the same as others. So I don’t share it with them. I trust my gut feeling on when to share my sense of humor.
No doubt that I haven’t always been right. Perhaps people have misunderstood me or taken something I said differently than I meant it. I think on the whole, being willing to be funny is worth the inevitable misunderstandings that happen. I understand when people are serious at work. They don’t want to take the chance of the difficult path of being funny at work. It’s ok. People can be as serious as they want. While they are a time to be serious in life I find that most people benefit from relaxing and being easygoing. So I might share a joke that can diffuse a tense situation. Perhaps I have shared too many jokes with some people. I am sorry if you were one of them.
Also if you decide to be funny at work be ready to apologize. I have apologized when I thought that I might have hurt someone’s feelings. Sincerely apologize when you even have the smallest hint that someone may not like your humor. Then don’t be funny around them again. Some people are a DMZ for humor. You don’t do it again.
We don’t need to be funny to others. We are funny because we can be open and vulnerable and show our humanity. If people don’t respond to that, that’s ok that’s on them.