LINKDOUT GUIDES · Workplace humour
Workplace humour that helps people laugh together
A calendar full of meetings about meetings. A project with five ‘final’ versions. A message that begins ‘quick question’ and takes an afternoon. Workplace humour often starts with a familiar situation. Linkdout makes room for those stories alongside honest venting and supportive replies.
Make the situation the subject
Humour can be specific without identifying a person. Focus on a process, a confusing instruction or your own reaction. ‘I opened the planning document and found a plan to plan the planning’ describes a recognisable frustration. A joke about a colleague’s appearance, identity, disability or personal circumstances can turn a shared laugh into targeted humiliation.
Use a small setup and a recognisable turn
Tell readers what you expected, then what actually happened. For example: ‘The meeting was called to reduce meetings. We booked a weekly follow-up.’ This is a fictional prompt rather than a claim about a real workplace. A short story gives other people space to respond with their own experiences.
Keep confidential material out of the punchline
A screenshot may seem like the easiest way to explain the joke, but it can expose names, contact details or company information. Retell the situation in your own words. Remove customer references and internal numbers. If the humour depends on revealing a person or a confidential conversation, choose another story.
Check what the poster asked for
A funny reply fits a post marked ‘Make me laugh’. Someone asking for support after a difficult experience may want a different response. Read the whole post before replying. You can acknowledge the feeling without trying to improve the mood immediately. The same joke can land very differently depending on the conversation.
Keep the comment useful even when it is playful
Avoid piling on a person, making threats or inviting others to investigate a workplace. If a thread stops feeling kind, step back or use the report option. Common profanity is masked on Linkdout. That filter is a first-line language tool; it does not turn a cruel comment into a helpful one.
Start a conversation people can join
Ask a question with a low-effort answer: ‘What phrase means the opposite of what it says at work?’ or ‘What meeting could have been one sentence?’ Invite stories rather than personal details. Do not invent member responses, engagement totals or testimonials. A small real conversation is more useful than a busy-looking feed with fabricated activity.