>In a blue collar work place welders are dumb, electricians are gay, jokes about wives and girlfriends are fair game and a suction cup didlo is a tool of endless comedic potential, not a HR disaster waiting to happen.

Dunno what kind of lousy shops you worked at but nobody ever did anything like that at the granite shop I worked at for 5 years, nobody did that kind of stuff in the landscaping crews I worked on.

I hate to say it, but he does have a point. Anecdata: I was a mechanic quite a while, and while my coworkers were decent, I know that there were enough other shitty people in the trade that none of the parts stores in town could keep a female delivery driver on staff. I never knew of a female delivery driver that lasted over 2 months; and I had 2 black drivers comment along the lines of "those jackasses as shop X called me a n* b/c we didn't have something in stock". Delivery drivers weren't especially high-turnover positions, normally drivers lasted long enough I would end up knowing them by name.

And even though I felt my coworkers were somewhat OK, they would still make remarks (especially homophobic & racist ones) that would be at least grounds for disciplinary action in most white collar fields.

That (along with RSI and the pay) was one of the reasons I left the trade. I enjoyed the job, it is really satisfying to have that sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, but I was frankly tired of having to be around/associated with crappy people.

no snark intended...you should try roof repair/construction for a while

you're right. i did it for a summer.

those guys smoke, sit in the sun all day, work with all kinds of toxic shit, can fall, and don't have huge career growth potential.

they have nothing to lose and the humor shows it

I used to believe this, too, and participated in this type of humor... I thought it was ok, because no one took it seriously.

I realized later I was just not seeing the people who felt excluded by this type of humor.

At an old job of mine, we'd all often work at golf courses, in a fenced area, thus we had a mountain of golf balls everywhere in the shop.

We'd always play a game where you'd throw a golf ball at the shop floor, trying to bounce it into the nuts of your coworker. I'd never even think of playing something like that in an office.

Condom/balloon/zip-lock full of acetylene is a classic. Probably don't do it in any workplace large enough to employ anybody with "safety" in their job title though.

My office mates run around with nerf guns like children. It’s not much of a difference tbh. Both are completely inappropriate.

Playing with nerf guns in the office isn’t much different than playing with your colleagues testicles? Huh?

I've been shot in the eye by Nerf darts at my desk, while trying to do work. I don't think that's much different than being hit in the pants by a golf ball thrown by hand.

You should probably get your testicles checked out by a professional if you find these experiences roughly equivalent in nature.

> You should probably get your testicles checked out by a professional if you find these experiences roughly equivalent in nature.

You're missing the point. I'd rather not be shot or hit by my coworkers at all, anywhere.

They're both examples of inappropriate workplace behavior.

I worked blue collar jobs for a long time and I was always offended by the kind of speech you mention. I just didn’t say anything because I needed the work and didn’t want to become a target.

Reading Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain really opened my eyes up to how different the work place is at different class levels in modern society.

Kitchens are a notoriously cruder and harsher working environment than most. My wife went to culinary school to be a chef. While she stuck with it and graduated, she is totally against ever working in a kitchen. Instead, she's a daycare worker. That was the less stressful and more respected position for her.

It seems like, if all restaurant workers put up with the culture, it might be because those who won't never joined in the first place.

That book is significantly exaggerated and decades out of date. Kitchens remain horrible workplaces but not really in the ways depicted in that book.

It changed, not as much as it should have, but it changed in the right way.

There is a massive spectrum of juvenile behavior out there in workplaces. I've worked in a place where overt, graphic (often disgusting) harassment happened regularly, and I've also worked in a place where even making what you thought was an innocuous wisecrack would probably get you fired. Obviously the former is totally unacceptable and probably illegal, and the latter is stifling and feels oppressive. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and where it gets drawn is not necessarily the same at every place you can possibly work. There is not one line that fits all companies. Where the line gets drawn can and does depend on the existing workplace culture, the industry, the job function, the country, and the law. There is a legal/illegal point on the spectrum that the company definitely doesn't want to go near. There's a "reputational disaster" point that most companies also don't want to go near. On the other side of the line, there's the "exceedingly woke" point that you won't see outside of multi-national corporations and silicon valley. Most office workplaces draw the line somewhere in the middle, where you basically are expected to treat people thoughtfully and pleasantly, with dignity, respect, assume good intentions, behave like an adult, etc. You know, the "no assholes" rule.

Eh, it can be but often times there's people in the wings cringing.

Unless you’re a woman.

...

Women are most often also involved there. They don't treat them worse, they just aren't that fragile. A.frwshmen could actually learn something about interpersonal relationships working such a job. My impression is that it is needed.

It is not applicable here though.

> These people aren't any more racist or sexist or whatever than anyone else. They're just willing to crack jokes about a hell of a lot of stuff that would make most white collar employees cringe.

I wouldn't cringe if I heard off-color jokes at an auto repair garage.

I think I'd call the police if I saw a bunch of dipshits sitting around a workstation, targeting random women from the other room with facial recognition software to share degrading posts about them being receptacles for their own sexual gratification.

Aside from TV sitcoms and online forum caricatures, I haven't a clue what that kind of sociopathy has to do with blue collar workers.

Then you need to have a speak with someone in HR. (ed: to understand the impact) Attorneys on the other side of the courtroom dream of the payouts such a "comedic" situation would provide.

Or you could learn to take yourself less serious, most women would probably appreciate that.