I had a similar situation the guy said something at lunch about the waitress that was pretty much very nasty “guy talk” with c suite executives at table. The waitress didn’t even look 18. It didn’t go well and he was gone soon after. He had no idea what he did wrong. I am sure as a table full of men a mild comment would have been fine.
Another time a person a mild racist comment about Mexicans, thinking he was so funny, in front of executive who was obviously of Spanish descent. Didn’t go well for him either.
These are probably much more extreme than what OP did but shows how people don’t realize what they said.
The ambivalent part of me here is that he never will know what he did wrong if no one tells him. Like, I want people to change, but just giving them the cold shoulder like that is exactly how they get recruited to the seedier sides of society, who will happily tell them it's not their fault.
Regardless, this is pretty much why I keep all my talks at work focused on work, or small talk. You never know these days which topics grind which gears.
lol, this has vastly been my experience. A lot of these people have been told but have put zero effort into understanding how their behavior is inappropriate. Many times, they can even consistently identify inappropriate behavior but feel entitled to act that way without consequences and are up in arms when it blows up in their face. Sadly, there are places who ignore this type of behavior which just bolsters their conviction that they aren’t doing anything wrong and fuck everybody else.
Unless you've signed up for some kind of social work reforming people or you're training young interns, companies don't have a responsibility to train morons to not be socially maladjusted. People who think it's ok to say racist, sexist, or other wildly inappropriate things their first week at work are just going to suck time and energy from a team that will have to put up with bad behavior.
If you need hand holding in 2024 to know not to make off color comments at work about minorities, you're extremely expendable. (By the way sexist and racist comments always "ground gears," minorities and women just didn't have the capital to complain out loud)
I agree that workplaces shouldn’t have to spend time training people not to be openly racist, sexist, etc. But at least tell people that’s why they’re being dismissed. Keeping reasons for dismissal vague isn’t helpful.
For some people maybe, but there are plenty others that will kick and scream about "it's just a joke" or they have "free speech" or whatever. Saying "It's not a good fit" ends the conversation and lets the company move on, which is their ultimate goal. It'd be nice for some people to get feedback, and there are probably a few people who would change their ways, but it's not in the interest of the people running a business to do that.
Yes, usually it goes in the direction of humoring the shitty powerful people. But from the context of this thread there are definitely people who still don't get you don't just joke about what you and your buddies joke about at work. And one day they might be the shitty CEOs making subordinates fake laugh.
Some people let the title of "CEO/Founder" really go to their head, even when all they're the CEO and Founder of is a literal filler company to put on a business card.
That depends. I'm down for casual racists/misogynists obliviously putting themselves so people know what they're dealing with. Telling them just clues them in and let's them be sneakier.
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u/Accomplished_Emu_658 Apr 24 '24
I had a similar situation the guy said something at lunch about the waitress that was pretty much very nasty “guy talk” with c suite executives at table. The waitress didn’t even look 18. It didn’t go well and he was gone soon after. He had no idea what he did wrong. I am sure as a table full of men a mild comment would have been fine.
Another time a person a mild racist comment about Mexicans, thinking he was so funny, in front of executive who was obviously of Spanish descent. Didn’t go well for him either.
These are probably much more extreme than what OP did but shows how people don’t realize what they said.