Humor Transcending the Workplace
We all know people whom we consider to be funny. They tell great jokes, have a tremendous sense of humor and like to get a good laugh out of the people around them.
There’s nothing like a real belly laugh to turn a frown upside down, especially in the workplace, which is often home to a wide range of emotions. None are better than joy and laughter.
Over the last 40-plus years, we’ve had some tremendous storytellers and hilarious people as a part of our staff. With that said, the funniest HMA employee of all-time has to be Jennifer Kaplan Stein. She was a top student at NAU before she was hired at HMA where she thrived for several years. She was creative, more-than-competent, resourceful, a rising star and quirky. She went on to work as a producer at KTVK-TV Arizona’s Family before leading the communications teams at the cities of Glendale and Peoria. She is now Peoria’s economic development director. And she now adds stand-up comic to her resume!
Among the hilarious stories Stein told during her recent debut performance were a barrage of funny things that have happened during live morning show TV remotes – often stressful for PR pros yet huge wins for our clients. She talked about having to convince various school principals more than once to let a dozen or so random students get out of class to come to a live shot to make it look busy. She shared the story about how her then elementary-aged son said during a Christmas-in-July live-shot that he didn’t believe in Santa Claus because he’s Jewish. The crowd laughed when Stein, known for her modesty, told a story about having no kids show up at a live-shot forcing her to ditch the dress she was wearing for her next meeting, go into a lost-and-found box to find a swimming suit so she could be part of a water-slide segment. A self-proclaimed germophobe, Stein also shared how she began stockpiling hand-sanitizer years before the pandemic made it commonplace as if she knew it was coming!
Her jokes are clean. And she’s funny.
Stein’s next appearance is Sept. 23 at Lenora’s Comedy Club at Let it Roll Bowl & Entertainment Center in Phoenix.
It will be worth some laughs.
