Do you worry overmuch about offending anyone?
I usually tread carefully around new people until I get to know them and have a better idea as to what they may or may not find offensive. I do this because I can have a pretty broad sense of humour, but I've no interest in making anyone unduly uncomfortable.
That said I've found people who are unrealistically sensitive. They're so focused on their own perceptions and their own comfort zones that they don't make allowances for anyone else.
My view is that I don't intentionally seek to offend anyone directly, but that if a harmless remark is taken out of context or construed to mean something entirely different than what I intended then that's too damned bad for them. Get over it and live in the real world.
I recall a woman who was my superior several years ago who took offense over hearing a somewhat racy joke between myself and my male coworkers. She called me aside and asked if I respected her. I replied that I had no reason to not respect her since she hadn't yet done anything to earn any disrespect from me. She responded that if I did respect her then how could I have made such racy remarks among coworkers. And, no, the joke had nothing to do with her.
I was floored. I replied that no disrespect was intended and that the joke was no more offensive than what could be heard on Just For Laughs on the Comedy Channel. It was intended as wry, goodnatured humour.
I got the sense where this was going and decided to draw a line then and there. I said that she was unrealistic if she expected to come into a workplace and expect everyone to stop being who they were just to accommodate her. She had to accept that she was now working with a bunch of middle-class men who periodically might get a bit raunchy with their remarks. It didn't mean they disrespected her, but that a little locker room like humour didn't hurt anyone.
She countered that she had a good sense of humour and was still offended. I countered that everyone thinks they have a good sense of humour, but what we all have are different senses of humour and if we're going to interact with each other then we have to make allowances for each other to some extent.
Things were left like that with her somewhat unsure of whether she'd gotten her point across. For myself I shrugged it off, and although I didn't change my behaviour around my male coworkers I did make a point of avoiding certain subjects when she was within earshot.
That said far more often than not most women I've known can be just as raunchy if not sometimes more so than guys. Most women I've known can see humour in sexually tinged observations.
I do believe, however, that how a remark is made and in what context goes a long way in diffusing it from being potentially offensive.
Truth is I'm offended all the time by things I see and hear around me everyday. I'm offended whenever I have to deal with or endure something I don't like. What it comes down to for me is whether it is really personally offensive or intrusive. I'm offended by the idea of gay marriage yet in the larger scheme of things this doesn't really affect me personally. So like with so much else I suck it up and chalk it up to living in the real world.
Are you easily offended? Or do you have a tendency to cause offense unintentionally or otherwise?
Anyone?
Really? So if I'm at my store, and a kid comes along and tugs at a pant leg, am I gonna charge that kid with assault? No, I'll just smile and wave and let them go about their business. Assault would be if a customer whacked me across the head because we ran out of Jennie-O turkeys. A simple tug on an article of clothing is annoying, yes, but hardly assault.
As I stated before, going up to a Muslim and yanking on her headscarf or going up to a Jew and yanking off his Yarmulke qualifies as assault.
