Instead, what you could do is think about how this is a completely arbitrary thing that the two cultures just do differently, and that maybe people shouldn't be offended by friendly banter that isn't meant to offend.
> everyone is picked on. If you don't get picked on that is reason for concern.
By quoting this, do I mean to encourage bullying? No, as the kid that wasn't included during my first years of school, NO.
But there is a difference between everyone calling each other names vs everyone calling someone names etc.
The line is mighty fine between bullying and good natured ribbing, and has a lot to do with group dynamics. Edgy banter can bring a group together, but bullying can do far more damage.
Being US military didn't make it right, we were effectively deciding who we would kill in an effort to make the team more cohesive. That never set right with me, and I still remember the joke (but maybe it's not a joke, joke) to this day.
Don't look to the military as a model of good teamwork. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. One cannot pretend it's the right model to follow.
Sadly, in our modern world people are not only looking for things to be offended about, but are looking to be offended on behalf of other people.
> only looking for things to be offended about, but are looking to be offended on behalf of other people.
It's one thing if you or someone else personally enjoys some recreational conversational sadomasochism with the right partner, likely you can even persuade people to accommodate you with talk like that.
But the idea that there can't be genuine offense, only motivated offense attributed to some handwavy goal is clearly more projective pretense than anything like actual insight.
They rarely know anything about what middle management is doing. After all, if you own any stocks, do you know anything about the middle managers in that corporation?
The thing is, we allow corporations to become (way) too fat. When a corporation grows too big, it grows uncontrollable as well - once the complexity of any corporation grows so large that there is no way for any single person to understand at least the basic scopes of everything the corporation's parts do at the same time, all kind of auditing and oversight becomes a sham, no matter if internal (boards) or external (consultancies, auditors, regulatory agencies).
> When a corporation grows too big, it grows uncontrollable as well
True, which is why corporations eventually fail.
BTW, governments also grow too big and become uncontrollable.
Just that it's "universal" doesn't mean it has to be that way. For fucks sake we all exchange 40 hours a week (or more) to our employers, on top of overtime and commute. There's no reason at all anyone should have to put up with unprofessional abusive/discriminatory bullshit from anyone, no matter if customers ("Karens") or coworkers.
At least the young generation got the message, this time they have the numbers advantage to actually demand meaningful change, and we're seeing the first effects of it - particularly in the trades, that fail to attract new trainees despite pretty competitive wages.
(The next thing I'd love to see on the chopping block is corporate politics, it's utterly amazing that everyone knows at least one horror story where endless amounts of money were wasted, sometimes entire companies sank because two middle manager paper pushers thought their fiefdom wars to be more important than the success of the company at large... but apparently investors/shareholders seem to not care even the tiniest bit)