This is a second tape of school-themed songs from the Presentainers (including "Skateboarders in the Hall" and "Cover of the ATA"). It doesn't answer our questions about How or Why, but we did find an article about member John Dyer and his belief in the power of humour: [img width=755.125px]//7ca49eb9f67ba1319ef136f9d52cd8b8.cdn.bubble.io/f1728528982673x837098868991450500/richtext_content.jpeg[/img] Overlooked tonic for low morale finds its way onto 1994 corporate agendas BE HAPPY ON THE JOB It's time to lighten up-and start paying some serious attention to humor. That's what workers like Everett Gratrix are trying to do. Gratrix is a senior consultant with the outplacement firm Drake Beam Morin. He says searching for a job can be a drain on the spirit. Clients also report a dirth of humor at Herald writer their former companies. So Gratrix has started the "Just for Laughs" club in his office, a bulletin board offering a mix of materials that elicit a hearty chuckle, a deep grin, a twisted smile. "The missing link here is humor," says Gratrix. "They say "when the going gets tough, the tough get going. But that seems backwards. If you light en up and don't take life so seriously, good things happen." It is a philosophy that John Dyer has lived- and worked by. The former teacher and school board administrator is now on leave from the Calgary Board of Education to teach a variety of workers on how to take themselves less seriously. When Dyer isn't standing in front of an audience singing songs like "You Don't Bring Me E- Mail" as a member of the Presentainers trio, he is acting as a business consultant with the Sacramento-based Institute for Intelligent Behavior. Dyer says research shows that laughter and joy at work are energy-producing and regenerating. When employees are in a work atmosphere where humor is encouraged, they are more motivated, more effective and efficient and more creative. Laughter clears the mind. It creates bonding and it defuses tension, he says. "When someone uses humor, you have to think divergently to discover why it's funny. It's the psychological surprise that make people laugh and it stimulates creativity." North American companies are beginning to realize the positive effect of humor on employees and are lining up to hire consultants like Dyer to get a little laughter back in what otherwise have become stressful, stodgy and gloomy places to work. They are setting up bulletin boards, organizing silly events and even establishing humor rooms. One U.S. airline has hired employees specifically with a sense of humor. Some of its stewardesses make boarding announcements in rap. Dyer says companies are learning that in times upheaval, employees with a positive state of mind and a sound sense of humor are the ones. who come out ahead. Burnout is not task-related, but is the direct result of a poor working environment, he says. Humor has become such a hot topic in board- rooms that a two-day conference called Humor Works is planned for next April in Calgary. Dyer hopes to clinch Steve Allen Jr., son of the comedian and a physician specializing in humor and health, as the keynote speaker. Dyer admits organizations may be using humor as a Band-aid approach to solving more deep-rooted problems in their company culture. But regardless of the reason, it's certainly helping. "Misery is contagious. But humor and joy are even more contagious. One or two people can shift the mood just by their presence." Tammy Robertson, a consultant with Stevenson King and Associates who also specializes in wellness and humor in the workplace, agrees workers who are experiencing rapid change and high levels of stress are finding the best way to cope is to lighten up. "Having fun at work is absolutely a necessity right now," she says, adding too many of us are suffering from 'terminal professionalism." "If we're uptight, we only get inefficient and less productive. Yet we wear stress like a red badge of honor." Robertson says humor is not necessarily telling jokes, nor is it looking at the world through rose- colored glasses. Rather it is looking for the absurd, the unusual. "It's the ability to laugh at yourself and take yourself lightly, to ask what good is there in this, what positive thing can come from this?" "Humor is a way to loosen up both the mind and body a way to help people flex and adjust to the tides of change."
