Pexels

When you graduate school and college and eventually find yourself as a professional in a workplace, you generally have to accept that there will be certain expectations when it comes to your behaviour. And it’s very straightforward, stuff that generally most folk will accept and understand. Don’t be rude to customers. Turn up on time and don’t leave early. Be a positive and proactive member of the team. Actually do your job.

And importantly – something that should not have to be said, but the guy in this story doesn’t seem to grasp – absolutely don’t harass your co-workers. It’s not just treating them in the way you’d want to be treated, it’s treat them as other human beings that are deserving of respect. Because that little bit of respect doesn’t cost a lot, but it may, as this guy found out, cost you a lot more if you don’t give it.

Read on to find out why.

AITA for using a song as a joke at work?

So six months ago, a new colleague called Scott joined our team.

As someone who grew up around the time of the movie Eurotrip, I automatically thought of ‘Scotty Doesn’t Know’.

I made the reference jokingly a couple of times to him. And he seemed to laugh it off without really saying much.

Everyone in our team thought it was funny, and everyone would join in and say things like ‘Ohhhh don’t tell Scotty!’ whenever he mentioned his girlfriend, which he seemed to take in good enough humour.

But then this colleague decided to take things further.

So eventually I thought it would be funny to set the song ‘Scotty Doesn’t Know’ as my ringtone on my work phone for every time he called.

Again, everyone seemed to think this was acceptable and funny – it always got laughs every time he rang.

Anyway, somehow it got back to him, and he decided to take it really personally and went to HR.

He didn’t even say to all of us that he didn’t find it funny.

Let’s see how HR responded to this.

Unfortunately, they have done an investigation and decided I am the sole perpetrator.

They’ve taken a very harsh line and have let me go for gross misconduct, accusing me of targeted sexual harassment, which I think is ridiculously unfair.

I don’t get it, it’s just a fun reference to a stupid movie…

AITA?

Yikes. This guy really doesn’t get it.

He’s been let go because of harassment and he’s still trying to defend himself?

Talk about clueless.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

This person said what everyone was thinking.

While others explained exactly how bad this ‘joke’ was.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a delivery driver who tried warning his boss the truck needed new brakes and tires, only to find his truck sidelined during their busiest season.

Meanwhile, this Redditor thought HR had no choice but to fire him.

Sometimes you make a joke at work. That’s par for the course for plenty of workplaces. But there’s a big difference between making a joke once and the relentless harassment that this guy decided to basically ruin his new colleague’s working life with. This is something you’d maybe expect to see from middle school bullies, not a grown man in a professional setting. And the connotations of the song, alongside the relentlessness of it all? It’s clear why this really started to get to Scott. Not only were his co-workers bullying him, it must’ve been a real struggle to actually do his job with all this going on around him too.

But the worst part is the fact that the perpetrator refused to actually accept that he’d done anything wrong. Because of course he had. And even if he thinks that he would’ve taken the ‘joke’ much better, he needs to accept that some things bother other people – and even something that might not have bothered someone on the first instance could really start to get them down when it’s a constant, day after day thing. And the fact that he won’t see that – the fact that he can’t be bothered to find even an ounce of empathy – really shows this guy for the person he is.