ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the phenomenon of staffroom humour, and looks at the significance of its location—the staffroom—and its incidence. It outlines one of the most prominent features of the staffroom at a secondary school: its laughter. Conflict-initiated humour frequently involves the attacking through laughter of attempted subversions of status by senior personnel combining excessive bureaucratic features, which themselves call for neutralization. Group solidarity is often aided by demarcation from other groups, hence the persistence of such themes as 'senior personnel' or 'the women's or 'men's staffroom', or 'the kids', or other departments. The staffroom has been swamped by the tide of their misery and offers no relief; and, like drowning men, they threaten to pull the others down with them. It is not surprising that much staffroom humour takes the form of mocking, embarrassment, or compromise of senior personnel, often by 'subversive ironies'.
