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We managed to get in touch with the creator of 'Consulting Humor', Mo Yang, who was kind enough to have a little chat about the ins and outs of his social media project, as well as the universal challenges workers face every single day. Yang, who is an ex-Big Four consultant with nearly 10 years of experience, explained he started the account in January 2018 as an outlet for some of the unique, sometimes frustrating elements of the consulting industry.
At the time of writing, the account has amassed over 423k followers who enjoy being a part of a collaborative consulting community. And, of course, sharing a few laughs along the way. Yang revealed that initially, there was no specific goal in mind. "It was very much a personal place to share experiences with a humorous twist. As it turns out, my experiences overlap with so many other consultants, which is what I owe the success of the page to," he told Bored Panda about the inspiration to create the page.
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When asked to describe his community, Yang explained that people who follow the page are simply great, candid, and authentic. But if you believe that to laugh at the memes he shares you have to relate to them and actually have a job like this, that’s not necessarily the case.
"The following are mostly consultants," Yang said, "but [it] also overlaps with other professional services." After all, the nine-to-five grind holds certain shared experiences any office employee can complain about — shortly before looking for some memes to help them laugh about the misery of having to work their lives away.
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"I think a core part of the engagement is driven by user submissions, which often involve people working on their laptops during vacations, and even weddings," he continued. "The account has been increasingly difficult to manage as it has grown so much but I've enlisted the help of a great guy, Jacob, who has been helping tremendously." As stated on their website, Jacob is a consultant for one of the most prestigious strategy consulting firms in the world. Thankfully, he decided to add one more task to his list and take up the challenge of leading the business development of this project.
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In general, work can be both a blessing and a curse. You can’t live without it, but only the lucky few actually enjoy dragging themselves out of bed in the morning to join the gloomy rat race. But thankfully, people can find comfort in knowing that at least, they're all in this together.
"I often forget how important relatability is," Yang said. "I get so many DMs from people going through exactly what my content is describing, and I think a lot of times it's easy to feel like you're alone. But the page provides powerful evidence that thousands of people understand your struggle, and I think that makes some of the harder aspects of consulting, which is a highly demanding field, more tolerable," he added.
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As Joshua Klapow, Ph.D., a psychologist and creator of MentalDrive, told Bored Panda in a previous interview, every single employee is in need of some comic relief. "Laughter is the polar opposite of the stress, distress, frustration, and fatigue we can often feel as we work our jobs day in and day out. An intermittent dose of humor that results in a mood shift, even temporarily, can reset us emotionally and give us more emotional strength to carry on in our work," he explained.
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While going to work in real life often lacks excitement, memes about corporate life can provide us with much-needed entertainment and help us unwind from the grueling day. Klapow said that these jokes mainly serve two purposes. "They often connect us in a humorous way to the not so humorous situations we may find ourselves in at work. They are a way of both acknowledging the difficulties we may be having at work and pointing out the absurdity of them in a funny way."
They can also "validate our frustrations and irritations but at the same time put them into perspective by lowering the negative emotional intensity. In this way, they can at times help us to communicate our frustrations or desire for change at work," Klapow added.
