A good situation comedy succeeds because it takes real life and caricatures it a little to make it silly so that we’ll laugh at it. But, it’s “this close” to real life, which makes us all relate to it at some level.
For example, in “Everybody Loves Raymond,” all the adult characters were absurd, but each had an element of truth about them. Ray was self-centered and prone to fibbing to make up for his shortcomings. His mother, Marie, was controlling and manipulative, and his father was insensitive and crude. They were all funny because everything they did was something we could imagine someone we’ve known doing, plus 5%.
The program “The Office” is sometimes hard to watch because the characters – usually the boss, Michael – do something that is so inappropriate that it makes us shudder. Inappropriate, but not beyond what people in our own work experiences are capable of.
One recurring theme in “The Office” is the ubiquitous office party or birthday celebration. The planning committee generally settles on the lowest common denominator, since any new, good idea is voted down by one or more negative employees.
At a former job of mine, there used to be an informal tradition of people in one’s department bringing in doughnuts or cupcakes to celebrate birthdays. One employee had his feelings hurt one day when his birthday came and went without being noticed, and he actually complained to the boss.
The next day, the “Goodtime Club” was formed. It was a committee that took care of getting baked goods for all birthdays, no matter what. Not only did it take the fun out of the previous departmental gatherings, but we all had to pay $5 per year, whether we wanted to or not.
Someone I know has just been assigned to co-chair a company committee to cause fun to happen. So far, some of the good ideas have been discarded because negative “half-empty” committee members don’t want to do anything creative or interesting.
I suggested that she find video of a number of episodes of “The Office” that deal with party committee planning, edit them together, and show them to the committee. After viewing the clips, she could then ask for a show of hands to see who found the Dunder Mifflin committee’s behavior to be normal. Then she should kick those people off the committee, and make some fun happen with colleagues who still believe in it. Fun, that is.
Unfortunately, there are people who seem to feed on negativity and unhappiness. Their biggest pleasure in life is to get other people to buy-in to their sour attitude. Misery loves company, you know. Their best lines are, “That won’t work,” “We tried that once,” and, “Why can’t we just leave things the way they are?”
The nice thing about watching “The Office” is that, unlike our real jobs, after 30 minutes it’s over. Maybe the trick is to enjoy the absurdity of the people we work with, and pretend we’re living in a TV show. Although, it’s probably best not to laugh out loud if one of those absurd people is your boss.
