Or I need to stop saying it that way myself.
MMMV?
One thing I noticed is that I’d probably feel off calling a group of female coworkers gals, so I tend to refer to them as women I work with.
Conversely though, I rarely refer to group of male coworkers as men I work with and would probably say “a couple of guys at work” or something.
Language is funny like that, and intent, tone, familiarity, and cultural background matter a lot too.
For instance I’d never call anyone honey at work, but when an older black woman would say something like “oh honey, we can’t do this like that” it was totally fine because it was quite clear that was just her lexicon and it wasn’t uncomfortable for anyone at all.
Life is full of ambiguities, generally if you have to ask “might this make someone uncomfortable?”, I generally just avoid it.
Which can be a bit tough for me sometimes, I definitely grew up and would pepper my speech with curse words as in “oh shit!” Or “holy fuck really?”, but I’ve learned to limit that a bit over time.
There are two kinds of ICs that I like to call capability guys and capacity guys. Capability guys can bring new skills into the organisation, and capacity guys can do the bread-and-butter work that actually pays the bills. You need to balance the two. Make sure the capacity guys benefit from learning the new skills and make sure the capability guys don’t go off on a tangent, and it can be a very enriching experience for everyone.