Listen to Some Music

To further enhance my research skills on my topic of the relationship between humor and the workplace, I tried it out for myself. Instead of an official working area, I held a group meeting with some peers that aren’t really acquainted with each other. I am friends with all of them of course, but I could feel the awkward tension in the room even though these people have class with each other and are around the same ages.

To break this tension, I began to play some pop music that everyone could relate to and sing along to. The first song I selected was Magnolia by Keshi since it was one of my favorite songs and I didn’t want to come off too strong to my peers yet. This was a pretty mellow song but it didn’t seem like most of them heard it before so I caught the hint and decided to play throwback music like Baby by Justin Bieber. Almost instantaneously everyone looked at each other amusingly and began singing along to the chorus.

According to the last song that I played, I received a satisfying feedback from the crowd so I decided to play some rave music for the head-bangers in the room. I did a quick scan around the room and saw some heads nodding to the beat and tapping their feet. Once the beat drops, I turned to one of my friends and started head-banging at the same beat and a rumble of laughter erupted around the room. All the while that this was happening, we were actually waiting for more people to come and join this meeting. By the time everyone has arrived, the atmosphere has already been set and the ice has already been broken.

Like how humor is a universal language around the world, I believe music also a language that unites people as well as strangers.