How Faith didn’t see Ray’s six foot, 260 pound frame packed under her desk I’ll never know.   It had been a long 3 months.  The five of us in our office had been working 14 hour days preparing for an inspection and we were getting a little slap happy.  Practical jokes were getting more common (usually from Ray and I) and this one was taking the cake.

Ray (like I said) was a big guy.  Not just kind of big…he was neanderthal, missing link big.   Faith was nearly 15 months pregnant.  Okay, I know that’s an exaggeration but, for all of us, that’s what it seemed like (especially her).  Every day she lumbered into the office plopped down and didn’t move much the rest of the day.  She worked but used her wiles to get people to bring her work to her so she could continue.   We all got along so we didn’t really mind.

On that particular day, Ray decided to get underneath her desk with a high powered squirt gun (the kind with the continual stream).  When Faith came in and plopped down, Ray aimed at her and let ‘er rip.  As fate would have it, she got it right between the legs.
Faith started screaming, “Oooh….Ooooh!  My water broke!  My water broke!” and stood up quicker than I had seen her move in months.  Then, she saw Ray.  The entire office broke out into hysterics…including Faith.

Granted, these types of antics aren’t HR approved.  But, it was exactly what the entire office needed.  We laughed about that the rest of the day and into the next week.  That laughter kept our spirits up as we continued to work hard.  Thereby keeping our momentum up and productivity high.

At work, fun can be functional.   We deny it and think of it as frivolity, however, shared laughter can be exactly what a team needs to make the rapid mental adjustment needed to get over the stress hump and get refocused.

What can you share with your team that is fun?  A joke?  A smile?  A simple story about something funny that happened as a kid or with your kids?   Whatever you choose, keep it simple, light, and in good taste (not like my example).  We want to have fun but not so much we get fired (or get an STD).