[reymus]

> In a place I worked, if someone left at 5:30 pm, the CTO used to joke "half day today?", even though the person came in at 9 am.

In both the places I've worked, it's a common joke anyone says when somebody leaves. everybody laughs and nobody gets offended. It doesn't mean anything.

[EnFinlay]

As far as I can tell, jokes are an important method of communication. There are times where they are light-hearted, or just part of the culture, but there are other times (where there is, say, one person in a position of authority, making the same joke repeatedly) where it is meant to call out a behaviour and implicitly shame it.

It's like if you're on the bus and someone's sitting really close. Some people would say "Excuse me, you're too close", but others would jokingly say "Little close, aren't you?", but the meaning is the same - Move.

[jdreyfuss]

Joking that a reasonable leaving hour == too early isn't a good joke. It plants the idea that the reasonable hour maybe isn't reasonable in other peoples' minds.

That kind of thing only works as a joke when it's about an obviously late hour (i.e. well past the norms of the company). If someone stays until 9pm to put out some fire and then people joke about working a half day, its obvious that there's no underlying meaning to that, since the leaving hour is well past the established norms

[GuiA]

That’s a very toxic attitude to have, especially as a manager. You don’t know that “nobody gets offended”. All you know is that “no one chose to express their discomfort”, a very different thing.

[rubber_duck]

It's pretty easy to make sure nobody gets offended - you communicate (in a serious setting) that you value results over hours worked and you demonstrate this in practice. At that point irony and sarcasm is safe territory (appropriate or tasteful is another matter). Being afraid to joke about this because it could be missunderstood tells me you are failing at that which is far more important than worrying about what are potential interpretations of your jokes.

I would say this applies to any value.

[GuiA]

It’s not being afraid to joke, it’s making sure that employees do not feel like they are receiving mixed signals (“he says results are what matters but he’s always joking about me leaving early when I’m leaving at a reasonable hour and getting my work done?”). This is particularly important when considering employees who might not have English as their first language, or come from a culture where joking is perceived differently.

[ACow_Adonis]

interesting, in that from my perspective it's a joke that only works if you're reinforcing a cultural attitude that they're breaking a norm. I.e. it wouldn't exist or even thought to be said unless there was an inherent expectation/value in working long hours.

Also, I'd probably worry that such frequent jokes walk a very fine line towards passive aggressive behavior (again, such jokes just won't exist where there is no expectation).

obviously I don't know your workplace, so there's a good possibility no one gets offended, but just pointing out there's different interpretations of such actions, and just because no one's saying anything doesn't mean it's not happening...

(

[scotu]

it is toxic though, repear a (lie) joke enough time and becomes the truth