With more Indians returning to offices following a long period of isolation at home, we’ve all been resuming the old routine of water-cooler talk — whether it’s a good bit of gossip, catching up on news, or, making fun of everything from clueless bosses to confused clients.

A recent LinkedIn survey attempted to further dive into workplace ‘funniness’, and discover which regions in the world brought their humour A-game into the office every morning.

As a South Indian, I’m truly unsurprised that, well, South Indians won the workplace comedy crown. I’m equally surprised that LinkedIn shared something of value, but that’s another conversation.

According to the report, over 2 in 5 South Indians crack jokes at the workplace daily, compared to the somewhat lower averages of 38%, 37%, and 36% across the West, East, and North respectively.

Emotions In The Workplace

The report also told us that along with Indians, Italians are also great office jokesters, with around the same figures when it comes to giving colleagues a daily chuckle.  

The most sombre colleagues are to be found in Australia, Germany, Netherlands, and France — make of that information what you will.

While the sample size was admittedly small, at over just 2,000 people, the study brought up some interesting questions, many of them centred around the idea of showing emotions at work.

Indian workers in particular seem quite unsure of sharing emotions at work, with 70% suggesting that the country’s workplaces have a stigma surrounding such behaviour. The causes are honestly quite sad — more than 25% of all employees feel that being honest with their emotions may result in them being judged, appearing unprofessional, and especially looking weak in front of their peers.

So… Why Are South Indians The Funniest?

Full disclosure — I’m aware that LinkedIn’s all-telling results are likely linked to too many Indians wasting time on LinkedIn. Although… perhaps there’s some merit to ranking Southies as funny.  

Personal bias aside, look at the long list of South Indian comics who’ve struck gold in the last few years. The Kenny Sebastians, Abish Mathews, Alexander Babus, and Aravind SAs of the world have hundreds of millions in collective views, and plenty of regional flavour to their sets.  

I mean, we need a coping mechanism to deal with the rest of the subcontinent, after all.

(Featured Image Credits: LinkedIn)