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Going Over the Line
I was fired recently. The excuse was that I contributed to an uncomfortable work environment. My co-worker, who is Latino and who I know is a legal citizen, had left the store to go to the warehouse and returned in record time. I joked that he was so fast it was like ICE was after him. To me, it was a joke (whether in good taste or not is a different question). To him, it was a racist comment (which was certainly not the intention). I mean, it’s a joke you would hear on late-night TV any night of the week.
I said something that a co-worker found offensive, and the boss chose to dismiss me. I can’t find fault with that. I live in an at-will state, and he has the legal right to do so. As for somebody finding my comment offensive, what constitutes offensive is in the ears of the beholder, so I can’t find fault with my co-worker about that, either. If he was offended, then I take responsibility.
My issue was that I worked in an environment where there was no check on inappropriate speech among co-workers. I worked in a small retail store. My immediate boss made constant jokes that were racist, misogynist, homophobic, antisemitic. All the jokes were made in jest, and the staff, which consisted of African Americans, women, gays and Jews, found it all very funny and gave back as much as they got. Nothing was off limits, nobody was bothered and nobody reported anything to the owner. There is a handbook of what’s appropriate language in the office, but it was rarely applied and never cited.
The offended party also made inappropriate comments and played along … until I said something that he found particularly bothersome, which he immediately reported. How can I be held responsible for going over the line, when there is no line? I was playing by the rules (or lack of rules) that management created and then got penalized for doing so. Granted management was wrong all along, but it was my head on the chopping block. I know it’s legal, but is it fair?
— Anonymous
My first instinct here is to wonder if your description of the status quo in your workplace is accurate. If your manager was known to crack “constant” racist, misogynist, homophobic and antisemitic jokes, you and your co-workers might have felt pressure to accept and even return the banter even if they disliked it. And even if there was an acceptable level of offensive repartee, the “line” you describe as nonexistent may have been more plainly drawn for your co-workers. Perhaps it was something like: Broad stereotypes are tolerable, but specific mention of horrifying current events cuts too close to the bone, especially if interpretable as a threat.
Still, I can understand why you feel mistreated. You were frustrated by what legal philosophers would describe as the distinction between procedural fairness and substantive fairness. Was the procedure by which you were fired fair? As you acknowledge, it was: There was a handbook with clear instructions on allowable speech, you violated those instructions and you were fired in a manner compliant with state law. But was it substantively fair? Assuming your account of the situation is accurate, no: You were singled out and punished for behavior otherwise indistinguishable from that of your co-workers — or, tellingly about the distressing culture of your former workplace, from that of your immediate supervisor.
Unfortunately, you can’t pay your rent with qualified judgments of fairness from an advice columnist. Substantive fairness from an employer is a nice dream, but in many situations — especially absent a strong union with a good contract — you’re lucky to even get procedural fairness. You mention you live in an “at-will state,” where, with few exceptions, employers can legally fire employees at any time, for any, or no, reason at all: Well, that’s just telling me you live in a U.S. state that isn’t Montana.
At your next job, rather than assuming your employers will treat you fairly, you should think about how you are protecting yourself for the eventuality that they will not.
One place I’d start is the banter. There are many obvious moral and ethical reasons not to crack racist jokes, but your situation reminds us of an important practical one as well: You can’t tell ahead of time where anyone’s red line is. I am open to the possibility that everyone at your former workplace enjoyed the give-and-take and that the offensive humor served as a team-building or morale-boosting purpose, in the manner of violent motorcycle-gang initiation rituals. But no matter how loving or affectionate the intention, offensive repartee is effectively a game in pushing people’s buttons until they explode.
Unless you are a writer on a reboot of “All in the Family,” writing chauvinist one-liners is not actually part of your job description, and, at some point, the offense you cause will outweigh whatever ambiguous positive benefits might be attributed to your banter. If you really need to build camaraderie in the workplace, try trust falls.
Is the Adventure Worth It?
I’m a 29-year-old architectural designer in Milan who’s questioning whether my Italian dream is worth the sacrifice.
Three years ago, I moved here on a Fulbright grant to pursue my master’s in urban planning — a dream since starting architecture school. After graduating this spring, I accepted a six-month internship at a real estate development firm for 800 euros a month (standard here, apparently). Despite having three to four years of U.S. experience at architecture firms, I told myself this was my entry into the Italian job market. I survived on this salary by pinching pennies and burning through my savings accrued during the Covid-era work-from-home period.
Six months became 12, then a full-time offer: €35,000 on a one-year contract, which would also allow me to extend my residence permit another year. My Italian friends would kill for this job and salary, but I find it hard to be grateful. I spend hours at my desk with nothing to do, biking 30 minutes each way for the privilege. The work — internal rate-of-return calculations, project management timelines and contract reviews — is mind-numbing compared with actual design. And while I’m fluent in Italian, my limited vocabulary isolates me from my Italian colleagues, clients and contractors. As a result, I often find myself professionally sidelined.
I’ve applied to architecture and planning jobs across Europe for months and to remote positions in the U.S. Nothing. Staying in Milan as an architect or planner would mean even less money in one of Europe’s most expensive cities, so I’ve been applying to jobs in other countries. But without the right to work in the European Union, it’s difficult to find a position — especially during a stalling economy with trade war uncertainty.
Here’s the catch: I have an amazing Italian boyfriend (a medical resident working in Lugano, Switzerland, about an hour away) and incredible Italian friends who fill my life with joy. But is that enough to justify a soul-crushing job, very little human interaction and a salary I can barely survive on?
Do I stay for love and friendship, or leave for professional fulfillment and financial stability? Is there a middle ground?
— Anonymous, Milan
I suspect one reason you’re feeling such agony here is that it’s difficult to find anyone to sympathize with your plight. Do you stay in Italy, with “incredible Italian friends” who fill your life with joy, a job that asks very little of you and “an amazing Italian boyfriend” — who’s un dottore? Or, do you give up the job and salary your friends would kill for to seek a new one paying two or three times as much in the dynamic country of your birth? Do you order the juicy steak? Or the buttery lobster?
Personally, my main reaction to your letter was to wonder a bit what you expected out of an “Italian dream.” I suppose it means different things to different people, but to me, a low-stakes, low-paying, undemanding job actually seems constitutive of the dream rather than aberrant to it. In Italy, as I understand it, seeking career fulfillment and professional dynamism is like having a cappuccino after noon: a pretty normal thing for Americans that Italians find impolite at best and revolting at worst. Many of us would prefer that lifestyle!
Still, I can understand what it’s like to be 29 and feel financially stretched and professionally unfulfilled (albeit socially content). It can be very hard, especially if you’re ambitious and professionally trained, to let go of the sense that your schedule should be busier, your work should be harder, your wallet should be fatter and your career should move more quickly. Not even a dreamy Italian lifestyle, an hour on your bike every day and great friends can cure you of that sense of restlessness and frustration. (I am assuming that your sense of financial instability is somewhat exaggerated, given your friends’ jealousy at your salary, which seems to be around average for Milan.)
When I was around your age, my older boss gently chided me for being impatient about my career. I thought that was unfair at the time; I was ambitious and wanted more opportunities! But 10 years later, I see his point: For most people, careers stall and advance in periods of decades, not years. A few months is simply not enough time to tell if you have a future in the Italian urban planning sector.
For that matter, it’s not clear to me whether or not the United States would really offer the kind of fulfillment you’re seeking. Assuming you could find a job, you would most likely make more money, but your cost of living would go up concurrently. And I know from talking to architects that there is plenty of mind-numbing, soul-crushing labor to go around here. (I texted your question to a friend who trained as an architect and left a private firm to work in New York City’s Department of Buildings, and he replied: “I’m not gonna read this. The advice should be ‘run away from architecture.’”) The main benefit, it seems, is not having to regularly reapply for a work permit.
But the work permit trouble suggests you may not have much of a choice here either way. Your one-year contract will be up next year; what’s wrong with sticking to that as a natural deadline? You can continue to apply for jobs. If you get one, I think you should stay: You need to give yourself more than a year of working in Italy to really be able to judge whether it’s a bad fit. (If nothing else, your vocabulary will improve.) If you don’t, and the permit runs out, you can come back with your head held high and the knowledge that you’ll make more money — if you can get a job. And while we may not have Lago di Lugano and Monte San Giorgio, we do have plenty of hot doctors here, too.
The post I Made an Offensive Joke. But So Did Everyone Else! Why Did I Get Fired? appeared first on New York Times.
