That's just the first half good advice. Don't be a jerk when you talk, don't be a jerk when you listen. Don't try to offend people unnecessarily, and don't be offended unnecessarily.
As soon as you decided that the only metric which matters is when someone is unnecessarily upset, offended, or whatever, everything was lost. In that case nobody can say anything.
That unfairly burdens the target of the joke. And if you take pains not to offend your work colleagues, then the "don't be offended unnecessarily" half is far less likely to be an issue.
> if you take pains not to offend your work colleagues, then the "don't be offended unnecessarily" half is far less likely to be an issue.
I sort of agree, but not to the point where I think you can disregard the second half of the advice. For every person in the wild who is acting in bad faith, trolling, trying to be offensive, there is someone else on a hair trigger who takes offense to everything, who reads into every statement an underlying insult.
That's just the first half good advice. Don't be a jerk when you talk, don't be a jerk when you listen. Don't try to offend people unnecessarily, and don't be offended unnecessarily.
As soon as you decided that the only metric which matters is when someone is unnecessarily upset, offended, or whatever, everything was lost. In that case nobody can say anything.