Taking offense.

Kayteetay1

I completely agree and get tired of tiptoeing around people to avoid offence. However this afternoon I have been on the receiving end and deeply offended by a younger member of staff who didn’t bother to spare my feelings whilst suggesting that my work programme could be replaced with a few easy AI prompts. When I said that would leave me with very little work to do then her retort was “you can retire then”. I feel lost and surplus to requirements. AI is going to revolutionise the workplace and replace the skills I’ve gained over the last 40 years in a nano second.

I sympathise.

Is therfe any way you can be involved in
"ways to help the company with AI" type things?
I know someone who was able to work things to his advantage that way.
He was invited onto the scheme, and thought he had better find out more about it all and accept!

Doodledog

Galaxy

Just because you are offended doesn't mean you are right. I don't really worry if I offend someone, I worry if I hurt someone but I think that's different.

It is very different. I would also say that nobody can tell anyone else what they should be offended by, as we all have different tolerances and different experiences.

There is still no harm in considering whether some casual remark will cause others pain though. Choosing a different word is a small thing to anyone with a half decent vocabulary, and IMO it says a lot about someone if they can't make that tiny effort rather than risk upsetting someone else.

yes, but........... often the cause of offense/upset, is something where the interpretation is in the mind of the recipient not the person who made the remark. Someone has put given a meaning to a remark that would not have occurred to the person who said it in a month of Sundays.

Many people have layers of filters between their ears and their brain that can turn quite innocent remarks, into hurtful comments.

Kayteetay1

I completely agree and get tired of tiptoeing around people to avoid offence. However this afternoon I have been on the receiving end and deeply offended by a younger member of staff who didn’t bother to spare my feelings whilst suggesting that my work programme could be replaced with a few easy AI prompts. When I said that would leave me with very little work to do then her retort was “you can retire then”. I feel lost and surplus to requirements. AI is going to revolutionise the workplace and replace the skills I’ve gained over the last 40 years in a nano second.

Kayteetay1 what was set was deeply upsetting and I can understand that, but the person who said it was, as you say, a younger member of staff, unless there has been previous, which you would have seen no need to mention.

I notice you talk about this person 'not bothering to spare your feelings' and of her 'retort'. I know this is how they apperared to you, but you do not know that is how she was thinking,
Young people, the first digital generation, to whom technology AI and everything else is part of everyday life, never really think of how things were done before, or how the people who started work before technology had to work and learn to do something. They jsut see a process that could easily be done by AI and say so.

I suspect that the younger person, never even thought of the significance of the remark they made and would probably be deeply upset that what they said was interpreted in such a devastatingly personal manner by you.

The same with the comment about retirement. Older workers often talk about how they are looking forward to their retirement. Her retirement is so far in the future, she has never thought about it, and probably does'nt have a clue how old you are except 'old', possibly because you have grey hair, so the comment about retiring is one of those vague comments made probably to please you rather than insult you - you could now give up work and enjoy retirement.

I love that badge 🤩

Katteetay1
Perhaps you should suggest to your insensitive colleague that if AI can do your job it can also do hers and she will spend a lot more years retired than you will!

Neither do I. I like to be like Mrs. Do as you would be done by" int Charles Kingsley's book The water Babies

often the cause of offense/upset, is something where the interpretation is in the mind of the recipient not the person who made the remark.

You can say that again!

I see it happen in rl as well as on here.
Surprised how much it happens actually.

And the other person will be so adamant that person B is thinking such and such.
How on earth can they know? Or even make a guess sometimes!

I think there’s a difference between hurtful and offensive.

I’m not quite sure how to define it, but I know the difference when I see it.

Yes it is hard to explain, so I don't think I have ever been hurt by words in an online debate for example, you could call me all sorts and I wouldn't be hurt at all.

I saw a YouTube video a few weeks ago where a man on holiday in Mexico was wearing a sombrero and poncho, amongst other things. A young (American) girl stopped him and told him he was insulting their culture and got really quite angry about it. The rest of the video was him going around asking Mexicans whether they felt insulted and should he take them off. All the Mexicans took it in good part, laughing and adding things onto his Mexican look. One woman even invited him to eat with them and showed him how to wear his poncho properly. He took the girl around with him so she could see people's reactions but she remained determined to feel insulted on everyone else's behalf.

Yes. Quite.

That is how it goes nowadays.

And that girl would be taken very seriously in certain places,eg some work places.

M0nica I agree that a lot can be 'lost in translation' between a speaker and a receiver, but sometimes it goes beyond tactlessness or over-sensitivity. Some of the terms that were used for disabled people, for instance, showed a total lack of nuance of thought, and suggested that whole groups of people could be seen as a mass, which can lead to their being treated as a mass. Those terms have largely gone now, and are considered offensive. It may well be the case that people used them carelessly - some were used by medical professionals as well as being in general use - but on the whole, we all know better now, and use different words.

Is that being censored? Would people really rather go back to calling someone an imbecile, or a cripple, a mongol or a spastic? Isn't it better to use terms that put their humanity first, such as 'a person with cerebral palsy', or 'John, who has Downs Syndrome'?

I agree with the perceived lack of a sense of humour nowadays.. It's a shame really as they miss out on simple shared, experiences, connection and identification with people.

Also builds your Social Skills when being with people.

Long live the good old belly laugh.

😁😅🙏

Laugh Out Loud!

LovesBach

'Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been'.

Wise words from Marcus Aurelius; people either intend to be rude and offensive and if ignored they have not succeeded, or they don't mean to be and would be horrified to learn they have upset someone. Gransnet has had much on this subject over the years. People who post really sharp and nasty comments on other's posts must feel so frustrated when nobody responds. I agree Romilo - too much energy is expended by some in looking for offence where none is intended.

I'm sorry but I think those words are rubbish. If someone has said something hurtful, it hurts and just pressing it down and accepting it is not very good for emotional health. That's what women were expected to do for decades but it still didn't make it okay and it didn't make them happy.

I remember an ex colleague coming into my place of work and when I greeted her she said oh I didn’t recognise you because you have put on so much weight, I felt like saying and you are just as ugly as I remember you were, but I didn’t as I can’t be deliberately mean, that was about 15 years ago but I still remember how hurt I felt.

Following on from Lesley60 - I once asked a young bank teller, when her baby was due………… I didn’t return to that bank for months afterwards……

I remember just after I had had one of my children someone asked me when my baby was due. I was still carrying the weight around my stomach. I felt so upset at the time because it was the first time I had been to the shops after the birth. Not spiteful,though, just wellmeaning. I do agree that some people seem over sensitive these days and some seem to actually look to be offended. It must be a hard and stressful path to tread.

Oreo

Oh yes and the dreadful ‘be kind!’

Well said Oreo - I'm with you on the 'be kind' brigade.

Have just read about the teacher at Malborough college. He said as a joke 'No gum, no gays', referring to the law in the countries they were visiting.

He was sacked for saying this, which led to his suicide. An off joke, but did it really warrant the sack.

Bukkie

ROMILO - I agree with you to a certain extent. If you ever stumble across Mumsnet they take offense at everything on there. I don't however like humour making fun of someone.

I’m glad I’m not the only one, thank you.

Oh dear, no more laughing.

barmcake

Have just read about the teacher at Malborough college. He said as a joke 'No gum, no gays', referring to the law in the countries they were visiting.

He was sacked for saying this, which led to his suicide. An off joke, but did it really warrant the sack.

It is a very sad and shocking story but without knowing the full details it is hard to comment further.

When someone feels so desperate that they kill themselves it is, of course, a tragedy but the circumstances leading to this sad event are probably more complicated than the bare facts, as presented, would suggest.

Pondering this overnight -as I do- I arrived at the conclusion that it has something to do with power and status.

I’m still thinking about this if anyone wants to indulge me in discussion.

My example is from many years ago when I took part in a works sport event and my boss said to me “Oh I didn’t realise how fat your legs are.”

If a colleague had said that to me it would have been hurtful, but because my boss said it I had no right of reply and that was offensive of her to use her status in that way.

That is why the majority of hurtful personal comments on Gransnet are not really offensive- because they have no power behind them other than what the recipient chooses to give them.

Menopauselbitch

Oh dear, no more laughing.

I don't take that message from this debate at all. If people can only laugh at others' hurt, there is something wrong with them, IMO. Slapstick is not my cup of tea, but it is very different finding the classic 'slip on a banana skin' thing funny and laughing at someone's embarrassment at being called fat.

I agree with 2507C0 that calling people for objecting to cruel 'jokes' is a means of social control, and with Lathyrus that this is almost exclusively used against the weak. Yes, satire pokes fun at the powerful (eg Spitting Image) but on the whole the powerful can rise above it. Someone in a junior position in the workplace doesn't have that ability, and nor does someone outside of a social group when others are laughing at them.

Online, I am known to remark "would you speak like that if your grandma was listening" or "would you REALLY say that out loud to somebody".

It is not the offended ones I hate so much as the ones who offer gratuitous abuse by way of disagreement, so much like children's playground.
I once remarked that there was far too much swearing and casual blasphemy on fb after a response that was simply all that. His response was that I was "a stupid C*&%t that should take myself off and shoot myself" I did press the report button and that was one of the few that was taken down