I offended a co-worker this week.
We were in our weekly development staff meeting (which only happens about one week in three, and is not to be mistaken with staff development meeting, which would be for our betterment – this is in fact, development, that is, fundraising, staff, sitting around yakking about what we need to be working on).
After some interesting conversation about [trade secrets] and a few quick reviews of [confidential] we were kind of just wrapping up, and someone commented wouldn’t it be great if our boss brought his new baby in for an afternoon to liven up the office. We joked about the playpen in the hallway and where to stash mommy in case biological needs reared (ha, get it) their head. I added, “Plus we could have a baby crying in the background on donor calls. We could say, Do you hear that? That baby’s crying because of cancer.” Laughs were had by all. Except by one coworker who said under the laughter, “That’s over the line.” Someone, not me, waved a hand at her and she said quite forcefully, “No, it’s not ok. That was over the line and I am offended by that kind of talk.”
I apologized, but come on. Babies crying at cancer. Fundraising gold.
sheesh. that seems a bit much. i think you were being funny…
but you know, sometimes a comment can just rub the wrong way. when our office flooded a few weeks back, and we were caught sharing a conference room with some (unknown) fellow employees – a guy made a comment about us being ‘flood refugees’ and how the conference room was the Superdome. I almost cried. But he had no idea why what he said was hurtful.
*shrug* it happens.
that was soo not Gary… he was logged in on my machine 😉
I would have laughed, K. First I thought I read, “That baby is crying because he has cancer” and I cringed a little. But no, what you said was just funny. You can borrow either of my children if you ever need someone to cry because of cancer!
I think she did take it as “this baby is crying because it has cancer” which is a little more callous than just, cancer makes babies cry… but both, frankly, are bad and there’s just this sad fact: I happen to think inappropriate things are funny. And Tara, I still think my strategy would work: Donor, please give now and that kid will stop crying!