Misinterpretation with a coworker
March 30, 2017 7:21 PM Subscribe
So at work, I was joking around, and I asked my coworker if he saw a certain movie, and I asked if he remembered what happened to a certain character, and he said yes. That character got killed in the movie, and so I told my coworker to not let that happen to him. But I guess he heard it the wrong way and walked away as if he was insulted. I guess he interpreted it as if I hoped it would happen to him. Of course, I did not want that sort of thing to happen to him but he misinterpreted it. If he happens to go to my boss, would that be something that I can get in trouble for??? Like maybe lose my job because it's wishing violence on another person?
What an odd joke to make. I think your >priorities are misplaced here. Instead of apologizing to your coworker for a bad joke, your first concern is whether you can be fired over it? Go apologize for to your coworker for the bad joke and explain you didn't mean it that way. Then stop talking and hear out your coworker and don't make excuses.
posted by Karaage at 7:39 PM on March 30, 2017 [36 favorites]
posted by Karaage at 7:39 PM on March 30, 2017 [36 favorites]
Why on earth would you bring up a death scene and then tie that to a coworker? I mean, was he talking about, like, wood chippers and this was your way of telling him to be careful?
Regardless: Go find him tomorrow and say, "Hey, I was thinking about our conversation yesterday and I'm kicking myself for saying such a ridiculous thing. I'm not sure what came over me and I'm sorry about that. Are we OK?"
In the future, maybe don't link coworkers to death scenes in casual conversations.
posted by mochapickle at 7:42 PM on March 30, 2017 [24 favorites]
Regardless: Go find him tomorrow and say, "Hey, I was thinking about our conversation yesterday and I'm kicking myself for saying such a ridiculous thing. I'm not sure what came over me and I'm sorry about that. Are we OK?"
In the future, maybe don't link coworkers to death scenes in casual conversations.
posted by mochapickle at 7:42 PM on March 30, 2017 [24 favorites]
I think it depends on if you're already on thin ice at work and/or if this gets reported, on how your boss and coworkers perceive your general demeanor and attitude. If it's a once-off you'd likely just get a warning. Moving forward, you should refrain from joking at work, particularly if your jokes can be easily mistaken for threats.
posted by vegartanipla at 7:43 PM on March 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by vegartanipla at 7:43 PM on March 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
(And if coworker is NOT okay, go to your manager. Tell them you said a stupid thing and feel terrible about it, and it'll never happen again. Managers hate surprises, so if it looks like it's going to come back to management, make sure you tell them directly before they hear it secondhand.)
posted by mochapickle at 7:44 PM on March 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by mochapickle at 7:44 PM on March 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
OK, you used unclear wording so I initially thought you told your co-worker not to let that happen to "him" [the movie character] - and thought, "that's odd, and I don't understand how it even makes sense".
After reading to the end I realize you said to your co-worker "don't let that happen to YOU!"
Yikes, yeah, that comes off as super creepy unless you guys are really good friends, and it doesn't sound like you are. I think a heartfelt apology and that you didn't realize how it sounded until it came out is the way to go here.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 8:13 PM on March 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
After reading to the end I realize you said to your co-worker "don't let that happen to YOU!"
Yikes, yeah, that comes off as super creepy unless you guys are really good friends, and it doesn't sound like you are. I think a heartfelt apology and that you didn't realize how it sounded until it came out is the way to go here.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 8:13 PM on March 30, 2017 [2 favorites]
It's impossible to know for sure because you don't have your location in your profile, but generally, yes, an interpretation of a threat against a coworker would be grounds for dismissal.
Now, is it likely to happen? If you're a good employee and generally get along with your coworkers, I would say no, it is not likely.
posted by Automocar at 8:14 PM on March 30, 2017
Now, is it likely to happen? If you're a good employee and generally get along with your coworkers, I would say no, it is not likely.
posted by Automocar at 8:14 PM on March 30, 2017
Response by poster: I SAID... don't let it happen... meaning, don't let it happen to HIM... the "you" part means HIM.
posted by pieceofcake at 8:16 PM on March 30, 2017
posted by pieceofcake at 8:16 PM on March 30, 2017
Your clarification still sounds like you basically told your co-worker to make sure he wasn't killed like a character in a movie was, which is a very weird statement to make, and his taking offense/being put off by it is completely normal. Apologize to your co-worker for a joke told in poor taste/gone wrong and, in the future, don't jokingly warn your co-workers to make sure they don't get killed like a fictional character. To answer your specific question, I don't know if you could face professional repercussions for this. Frankly, it depends on the co-worker, your supervisor, and your HR department. Apologize to minimize the chances of this snowballing into something bigger.
posted by katemcd at 8:36 PM on March 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by katemcd at 8:36 PM on March 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
Your clarification still sounds like you basically told your co-worker to make sure he wasn't killed like a character in a movie was, which is a very weird statement to make, and his taking offense/being put off by it is completely normal.
Yeah I don't think it's insulting so much as just a not-typical thing to say and could be vaguely menacing depending what the context was and what the power dynamic is between you and your co-worker. It's not so much "This is something you could lose your job over" to me (though it could be) as "This is something which could indicate an inability to get along with people which, combined with other similar things could lead to you losing your job" This isn't one of the co-workers you mentioned in another question is it? Because if it's someone who has been harassing you, there's a slightly differing context there.
posted by jessamyn at 8:48 PM on March 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
Yeah I don't think it's insulting so much as just a not-typical thing to say and could be vaguely menacing depending what the context was and what the power dynamic is between you and your co-worker. It's not so much "This is something you could lose your job over" to me (though it could be) as "This is something which could indicate an inability to get along with people which, combined with other similar things could lead to you losing your job" This isn't one of the co-workers you mentioned in another question is it? Because if it's someone who has been harassing you, there's a slightly differing context there.
posted by jessamyn at 8:48 PM on March 30, 2017 [7 favorites]
I mean, if you hadn't been leading the conversion along so much, I could see it being an okay joke. Like if he was talking about how he identified with the character's life, and you said, "I hope you don't meet the same end!" For you to do the whole setup is what makes it weird. I doubt you'll get fired over this one thing, but if you didn't/don't understand the why the distinction I'm making matters, it'd probably be a good idea to work on your social skills in general so it doesn't get to that point.
posted by teremala at 8:49 PM on March 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by teremala at 8:49 PM on March 30, 2017 [4 favorites]
If I were your coworker, having a defensive attitude about it after the fact (e.g., to the point of trying to have internet strangers have your back, then being defensive to them) would potentially be weirder than the initial statement. Not threatening or menacing, just weird. He had the reaction I would have-- to walk away and stop engaging with someone saying strange things.
Of course we're all getting this second hand, but my inclination would be to leave it alone and just try not to say strange things to this coworker (or any coworker, or anyone else) in the future. Or if anything, "That was a weird thing for me to say. I didn't mean anything by it. Sorry about that." Don't defend or explain.
posted by supercres at 9:11 PM on March 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
Of course we're all getting this second hand, but my inclination would be to leave it alone and just try not to say strange things to this coworker (or any coworker, or anyone else) in the future. Or if anything, "That was a weird thing for me to say. I didn't mean anything by it. Sorry about that." Don't defend or explain.
posted by supercres at 9:11 PM on March 30, 2017 [1 favorite]
Uh... that was a weird joke.
This is good advice:
>>>"That was a weird thing for me to say. I didn't mean anything by it. Sorry about that." Don't defend or explain.
posted by My Dad at 9:41 PM on March 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
This is good advice:
>>>"That was a weird thing for me to say. I didn't mean anything by it. Sorry about that." Don't defend or explain.
posted by My Dad at 9:41 PM on March 30, 2017 [5 favorites]
Are you in an at-will employment state? Are you in a union? Your actual question isn't really something we can confidently answer. Try not to worry about the misfired joke, don't bring it up again, and play it straight with this coworker in the future.
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:07 PM on March 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:07 PM on March 30, 2017 [3 favorites]
Every once in a while, I let a joke or joking insult go too far, and either embarrass or shut down a coworker. When I figure out I've done this, I send them an email or text, and say "Hey, I just realized I overshot the mark when I was talking to you about ______. Sorry, I didn't mean anything beyond a dumb joke. I'll try to be more self-aware in the future."
Eat some crow; it's not so bad. Owning up to your stupid joke and watch how far you go in the future. Everyone screws up, and character is about trying not to do it again. I forget exactly what the elements of an apology are, but they're along the lines of "I'm sorry," and "I know what I did was wrong," and "I'll fix it." Doesn't need to be a big gesture, just make in sincere. And, you know, actually be sincere-- you did screw this up as far as you can tell, and now you know you've gotta watch your mouth better, so do that.
If it comes to HR or whatnot, nobody wants your excuses or explanation, they want some contrition. Everyone misreads other people from time to time. You didn't actually threaten to kill your coworker, you just made a joke that worked better in your head than in real life. Oops. Try harder next time, apologize now (seriously, ASAP) and show some consideration in the near future.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:46 PM on March 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
Eat some crow; it's not so bad. Owning up to your stupid joke and watch how far you go in the future. Everyone screws up, and character is about trying not to do it again. I forget exactly what the elements of an apology are, but they're along the lines of "I'm sorry," and "I know what I did was wrong," and "I'll fix it." Doesn't need to be a big gesture, just make in sincere. And, you know, actually be sincere-- you did screw this up as far as you can tell, and now you know you've gotta watch your mouth better, so do that.
If it comes to HR or whatnot, nobody wants your excuses or explanation, they want some contrition. Everyone misreads other people from time to time. You didn't actually threaten to kill your coworker, you just made a joke that worked better in your head than in real life. Oops. Try harder next time, apologize now (seriously, ASAP) and show some consideration in the near future.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:46 PM on March 30, 2017 [8 favorites]
I guess he interpreted it as if I hoped it would happen to him. Of course, I did not want that sort of thing to happen to him but he misinterpreted it.
Hey, so one reason you might not want to make jokes like this in the future is because abusive people who really do mean to harm someone often threaten others in this way to maintain a "fig leaf" of plausible deniability. Imagine a gangster who shows up at your house saying, "Great place you got here, be a shame if anything happened to it."
This is non-intuitive if you tend to be a more literal or concrete thinker or if you have trouble "reading a room" and knowing when a joke has gone too far. I think you should stop joking around like this at work if this a repeated problem for you.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 1:05 AM on March 31, 2017 [15 favorites]
Hey, so one reason you might not want to make jokes like this in the future is because abusive people who really do mean to harm someone often threaten others in this way to maintain a "fig leaf" of plausible deniability. Imagine a gangster who shows up at your house saying, "Great place you got here, be a shame if anything happened to it."
This is non-intuitive if you tend to be a more literal or concrete thinker or if you have trouble "reading a room" and knowing when a joke has gone too far. I think you should stop joking around like this at work if this a repeated problem for you.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 1:05 AM on March 31, 2017 [15 favorites]
I've heard people make jokes like this before so it doesn't seem like a super weird joke to me but as you've seen from the variety of responses here, a lot of people do. And I'm guessing your coworker probably did too. He may have just thought it was weird but his reaction is also really going to depend on context and your relationship with him. If he goes to your boss your boss will need to speak with you about it. You could try having a chat with your coworker to make sure he's okay but most likely, he will brush this off as you being weird, not as you handing him a death threat, but again, this depends on personalities, context and your relationship. My rule for work is that I try not to make jokes with people who I don't know well.
posted by Polychrome at 1:18 AM on March 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Polychrome at 1:18 AM on March 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
Having a quick look at some of your posting history, it looks like some interpersonal communication is stressful/difficult for you to parse. And that's ok. Everybody does things a little bit differently, and the intersection of social conversation and work conversation can be really fraught (I also have a hard time with this).
If I'm understanding your question, it sounds like in a conversation with a work colleague you 1) brought up a certain film, 2) drew attention to a death in the film, and 3) made a joke about hoping your work colleague doesn't die that way. Without knowing if there was other context (were you already talking about films? or is it a film one of you saw recently or has recently been advertised? was your colleague complaining about things going wrong for them already this week, so the joke was about something else that could but hopefully won't "go wrong"?), it does sound like your colleague could have taken your remark as a non sequitur "joke" that didn't fall right (I can't see that any reasonable person would think you genuinely were wishing harm on them, just that you made a joke that didn't strike them as funny or they didn't understand).
I often think of comments I find funny, but having learned that others often don't find the same things funny that I do, I usually avoid saying it to people I don't know well enough to know if they'll laugh or tilt their heads in that "are you ok?" way. And I know that I have a slight reputation for making remarks like that, so if one slips, oh well. Weird Pam strikes again. I wonder if perhaps you may also occasionally make these kinds of remarks/jokes, so your colleague could just file away as "you being you" and - while not engaging with your remark - wouldn't find it particularly out of the ordinary.
If this person did go to your boss, I don't see it being anything you could get in trouble for. "I made a silly joke, and it was funnier in my head than it came out. Sorry," is all that I would think would be needed. But I honestly think that - unless the slant of your jokes are often related to violence/anger (and I don't get that sense from you) - this wouldn't be anything a boss would be interested in. If you do often make these kinds of jokes that relate back to dark themes, someone might be worried about you, but being worried about you doesn't correlate to getting you into trouble or firing you.
posted by pammeke at 7:49 AM on March 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
If I'm understanding your question, it sounds like in a conversation with a work colleague you 1) brought up a certain film, 2) drew attention to a death in the film, and 3) made a joke about hoping your work colleague doesn't die that way. Without knowing if there was other context (were you already talking about films? or is it a film one of you saw recently or has recently been advertised? was your colleague complaining about things going wrong for them already this week, so the joke was about something else that could but hopefully won't "go wrong"?), it does sound like your colleague could have taken your remark as a non sequitur "joke" that didn't fall right (I can't see that any reasonable person would think you genuinely were wishing harm on them, just that you made a joke that didn't strike them as funny or they didn't understand).
I often think of comments I find funny, but having learned that others often don't find the same things funny that I do, I usually avoid saying it to people I don't know well enough to know if they'll laugh or tilt their heads in that "are you ok?" way. And I know that I have a slight reputation for making remarks like that, so if one slips, oh well. Weird Pam strikes again. I wonder if perhaps you may also occasionally make these kinds of remarks/jokes, so your colleague could just file away as "you being you" and - while not engaging with your remark - wouldn't find it particularly out of the ordinary.
If this person did go to your boss, I don't see it being anything you could get in trouble for. "I made a silly joke, and it was funnier in my head than it came out. Sorry," is all that I would think would be needed. But I honestly think that - unless the slant of your jokes are often related to violence/anger (and I don't get that sense from you) - this wouldn't be anything a boss would be interested in. If you do often make these kinds of jokes that relate back to dark themes, someone might be worried about you, but being worried about you doesn't correlate to getting you into trouble or firing you.
posted by pammeke at 7:49 AM on March 31, 2017 [5 favorites]
Without knowing the context of the rest of the conversation, this whole situation sounds very odd - like quite a big build up to a punch line that, in addition to not being at all funny, could be interpreted as menacing. I know you said you and have been insistent in your clarification that you were saying you didn't want it to happen to him but that doesn't mean it wasn't menacing.
Why would you say such a thing? The way you tell it, you went out if your way to bring up this film, coaxed your coworker into saying that the character died just so you could tell him not to let that happen to him?! Was there some similarity in something your coworker was going to do or talking about doing that put him into a similar situation to the character in the film?
I don't think any reasonable coworker would go to your boss over a single odd comment/failed joke nor would you get fired over it but there are lots of unreasonable people in the world and we don't know your status at work. As a single incident its not much of anything but if its a pattern then yes, its possible you could get fired - especially if you're "at will"
posted by missmagenta at 8:26 AM on March 31, 2017
Why would you say such a thing? The way you tell it, you went out if your way to bring up this film, coaxed your coworker into saying that the character died just so you could tell him not to let that happen to him?! Was there some similarity in something your coworker was going to do or talking about doing that put him into a similar situation to the character in the film?
I don't think any reasonable coworker would go to your boss over a single odd comment/failed joke nor would you get fired over it but there are lots of unreasonable people in the world and we don't know your status at work. As a single incident its not much of anything but if its a pattern then yes, its possible you could get fired - especially if you're "at will"
posted by missmagenta at 8:26 AM on March 31, 2017
You don't actually seem to know whether you offended him/he misinterpreted... or he just didn't think it was funny.
I think it's a stretch to say that it could be interpreted as wishing violence on this person, but I wasn't there. Still, I think you lose nothing by apologizing for missing the mark with your joke.
posted by sm1tten at 12:34 PM on March 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
I think it's a stretch to say that it could be interpreted as wishing violence on this person, but I wasn't there. Still, I think you lose nothing by apologizing for missing the mark with your joke.
posted by sm1tten at 12:34 PM on March 31, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'd be more concerned that he felt threatened than he felt offended. Either way, I would apologize and say you were badly trying to be funny.
posted by J. Wilson at 3:48 PM on April 2, 2017
posted by J. Wilson at 3:48 PM on April 2, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by bunderful at 7:33 PM on March 30, 2017 [3 favorites]