What, you can’t take a joke?
Posted on Thursday, February 16th, by Rock Hardson
And now, a little about me…I'm not politically correct. Feminists can't stand me. I make lewd, crude, and just plain rude jokes all the time, and I rarely temper them for my audience, especially if I'm friendly with those within earshot. So who cares, right?
Well, given the amount of sexual harassment lawsuits that occur each year (along with claims of lewd and lascivious misconduct - ok, so I just wanted to use an "SAT word"), apparently a lot of people care that a guy like me throws caution, temperance, and *cough* tact to the wind just to get a few laughs. I'm mainly talking about the stale and hideous corporate environment, and I wanted to solicit some outside opinion on the matter.
You see, a few years ago, I was involved in a family-run business that had very few employees. The main employee was a secretary/receptionist who also happened to be a young woman. 
Given the close-knit nature of the company, we normally felt pretty free to crack jokes about all things politically incorrect, and personally, I felt as though no subject was off limits. The secretary chick played along with everything and even made cracks of her own, like calling her Ford Focus a "Ford Fuckus." As a man in a work environment, having a chick joke around and loosen the tension is huge. It's like taking that first, much-needed piss after knocking back three or four al-key-haw-lick beverages…a real "ahhh" moment, if you will.
Problem was, that little slut irresponsible secretary stopped bothering to get to work on time after a few months of employment, and so we had to fire her. Next thing you know, she's suing the company for harassment. Talk about your bullshit 180, and what's worse is that our judicial system is set up to protect her lying, two-faced, backstabbing ass. I hate that we have a system that gives people this "out," so to speak, and I hate more that people are fine and dandy with using it to their benefit (when the motives are questionable at best).
So, this leaves me with two questions:
- Can you joke around at work and leave that PC horse shit at the door, or are you one of those prudish types who embraces the "rules" that have been put in place by our completely fucked up legal protection system?
- Would you ever pull a bullshit move like that
$2 whorebitch pulled, especially when you were friends once upon a time?
Ladies, we all know you control sex (which is bad enough for us)…but turning humor around in a man's face 3 months down the road after you played along the whole time is downright evil. Somebody, restore my faith in humanity here…
February 16th, at 3:16 pm
Yeah I can joke around. I gave a co-worker a “you had me at anal beads” valentine this year.
Hell no would I ever do something like that. But there are girls out there who like taking the low road, always out for themselves and/or a buck. Which really bites, because it lessens the likelihood that a real bastard who deserves to get f*ed over for sexual harrasment will get what’s coming to him.
February 16th, at 9:26 pm
Yeah, way to ruin it for all of us, bitch.
I work in an office with all women. You wouldn’t believe the shit we talk about behind closed doors.
February 17th, at 1:22 am
Sorry dude, that’s tough.
Personally, I can take all kinds of shit, my friends are constantly appalled and amused by the stuff that comes out of my mouth (or goes in). And I’ve been cautioned about how familiar I tend to get with people, especially people I work with and like a lot. Whatever, they end up being your friends, so you should be able to joke around with them.
But in a work environment, it really depends on the type of work you’re talking about. In your situation, that girl was truly just a cheap bitch. But having said that, as the employer/supervisor, you should always be cognizant of what you say and how you say it because of bitches like that. Hate to say it, but unfortunately that’s the world we live in today. You just can’t trust anyone anymore, or at least, you shouldn’t. I hope you guys got a good attorney. Harrassment is usually pretty hard to prove and it sounds like you guys have a pretty good case BECAUSE her behavior was so amenable to the banter. And if you can prove that she was fired because of her tardiness, she doesn’t have much of a harrassment claim.
On the flipside, and this really doesn’t apply in your context, in certain jobs where it’s still very much the old boys club, a lot of men feel that it’s their right to be able to act suggestively and overly-flirtatiously with the women and expect them to respond. It’s more of a power trip than just messing about and being comfortable with one another. That kind of bullshit, I can definitely do without.
February 18th, at 11:18 pm
I worked in a warehouse with a gal. We became close “friends”, sat together at lunch, with others, but talked a lot, and laughed.
One day I spoke of a girlfriend I once had named Bobbie. She said later, to other workers, “Steve had a boyfriend named Bobbie” repeatedly. I complained of sexual harrassment to the boss (I was the fastest packer there), and the next day, she was not there. She had been fired.
Not sure how I got so lucky, but what a thrill.
February 20th, at 12:10 am
ugh, yeah we’re not all like that. some times i have to make sure that my sense of humor doesn’t get taken the wrong way myself! one time a co-worker was showing me some eye shadow he had ordered online for his girlfriend (it came in a surprisingly small case) and I said, ‘It’s not the size that matters, it’s how you use it.’ Oops!
February 20th, at 11:45 pm
Mmmm, sexual harrassment laws are in place for a reason and I hate to hear about them being abused, but I also hate to hear about women that won’t just speak up for themselves right then and there. I’m as raunchy as the next guy, but when one of ‘em actually made comments on my @ss, I told him to knock that sh!t off. It’s like that 24-year-old executive assistant to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. who was waved back into a room by Baltimore Comptroller William Donald Schaefer. Then he told her to walk back out again so he could watch. He’s an 84-year-old controller; she’s a 24-year-old assistant. This is when sexual harrassment laws come into play, but you really wish she just told the dirty old bugger to go screw himself. He only apologized for “embarrassing” her. Please.
February 21st, at 5:23 pm
It’s really just horribly two-faced of her to have done that, especially since she was coming up with the jokes herself. The best policy is to not make jokes no matter what because of the possibilities of “sexual harrassment”. What makes this bad is that real cases of harrassment aren’t taken as seriously, a “cry wolf” situation.
Many women like the attention, go along with it because they like it, and when they “tire” of the “game” or get let go due to nothing but their own inability to perform their work up to par, it turns into “magical harrassment”.
The laws were established for a reason. It’s best to take office humour, well, out of the office! And that makes no sense at all.
Stop looking at my legs in this miniskirt and boots now! Or I’ll sue!!!