Furloughs, layoffs, burdened bosses, and stressed coworkers: Tension can stifle your office and kill productivity. But if you can defuse that tension, you may also be making yourself a valuable employee, even if you're not the manager.

"Being the office tension manager can be a wonderful reputation to have," says corporate trainer Marlene Caroselli. "Every time you resolve a conflict you really enhance your own skills."

Consider these four types of tension tamers:

The Charmer

"They know the exact moment to insert humor that breaks the tension at work," says Kathi Elster, coauthor of "Working With You Is Killing Me."

The charmer doesn't crack one-liners or riff on the boss's toupee, though. Instead, she:

• Focuses on policies, not people. "It could be a lot of fun to make fun of a mean boss, but it doesn't cut tension because it has a dark edge and and it could get you into trouble," said Elster's coauthor Katherine Crowley.
• Tests the office humor quotient. "We work with a high-tech company where all the staff have piercings and tattoos," said Crowley. "Their tension-cutting jokes are going to be very different than the jokes at a bank."
• Renames it. Reframe furloughs as "funloughs" and say it lightly, with confidence that everything will work out.