Hacker News Reader

Comment by blhack | Hacker News Reader

You know, I've been thinking...

It's also pretty unprofessional to wear jeans to work, and beer after 4:00pm on Friday is just a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Also the schedule that the developers keep is really unprofessional. If one of the accountants tried to show up at 11:00am, they'd be fired!

I also saw some pictures of one of our devs at Burning Man last year. He was wearing some sort of black, canvas skirt, and no shirt.

TOTALLY unprofessional.

Don't even get me started on the guy who tried to start a "nerf war" at work. A WAR! Excuse me, but people DIE in wars. How on earth did he think that was okay? It's like he was saying that he wanted to kill his co workers.

View on HN

What's professional is defined by the context. It would not be professional to wear developer clothes or keep developer times as a bank executive.

In neither context are sexual jokes considered professional. Actually, generally speaking you can be held personally liable for creating a hostile work environment if one of your colleagues if offended by your jokes and you keep making them (assuming you aren't fired for the behavior first). And in case you're hoping that eventually sexual jokes will be permitted, the arrow of history is pointing the opposite direction on that one. Workplace practices and laws used to be much more permissive of sexual conduct ("misconduct" as we would call it today) than they are now.

> What's professional is defined by the context.

What's professional is just meaningless uptightery. What actually matters is getting shit done, and treating others well.

Treating others well is typically thought of as a component of professionalism. How you "get shit done" is another component of it.

The way you speak and the way you dress are also considered part of "professionalism". Those are the parts that I take issue with.

I don't really get why you would bring your issues with that into a discussion about sexual jokes, but OK.

I don't really get why you'd draw this out all the way here, but OK.

So... what if the situation were just a tad different.. Let's say it was an Indian guy who is a tech evangelist for a successful startup and two guys behind him in a "private conversation in the middle of a crowded room" made jokes about how indian people speak or act.

Those are jokes, and totally unprofessional in a work environment where you are representing your company that is sponsoring the event, right?

But we should let that go because he was wearing shorts and t-shirt instead of a suit?

That's a very bad analogy though. Perhaps if it was an Indian who made a joke about how Indians talk/act, but even that's stretching it.

That doesn't make sense. It was a man making sexual jokes in front of a woman, not a woman making sexual jokes in front of a woman... and probably besides the point in any event.

You are implying that any joke that is sexual is also inherently sexist.

Actually, it was a man making a joke about a body part that women don't even possess.

It's not a sexual comment any more than a fart joke is a sexual comment.

That's a terrible analogy. But if we must stick with your analogy it's more akin to an indian guy making a private joke to another indian guy about how indian people speak or act, and a mexican person in the row in front taking offense and reporting them.

But even then that would be ignoring the fact that their joke was not targeted at any single person, or any group of people.

Starting a 'nerf war' at work is entirely unprofessional, and I hope to never work with someone who is so childish as to think that's reasonable workplace behavior.

A 'nerf war' might be something acceptable as long as:

1. the work environment allows it

2. the participants agree to it

3. it's done in at the appropiate time (during a break, for example)

Games and childish behaviour are different things and, according to one of my professors, not being able to distinguish between them is a sign of immaturity.

I would hate to work where you work. Workplace nerf fights are pretty fun, team bonding on the cheap you could say.

I feel you. I too hate fun.

He was in a public professional setting, representing the company with a badge that said Sponsor, which more than likely paid for his entire trip to go and represent that company there. He was on the clock.

Off-hours work friendships are not at all comparable.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com