Agreeing with a remark made at someone else's expense?

You know that moment when the only time your a** hole boss is actually being nice is when he's making a nasty joke about someone else; and you laugh or agree with it?? Be honest, did something equivalent of this ever happen to you?

I'm only now just about able within myself to not agree with such a person when something like this happens. It's quite a bit harder than what you think when it actually happens... to be able to not agree and instead leave an awkward silence. In such a moment you can be fooled into thinking that your boss wouldn't say something 10 times worse about you to the very same person he's mocking.

I actually happened to remember a scene on TV recently which reminded me of this. For those of you who are familiar with 'Mad Men', it was when Don Draper found Roger's diary and started laughing at what he saw written to Peggy. But Peggy did not join in, and instead corrected him.

Of course it's not always going to be a boss who does this. But it's amazing the amount of people who are only too happy to sacrifice what they believe in and join in mocking another person, so that they can be down with the cool fella.

 

depends on who's or what's expense.
if they're narcissistic or wannabee fascists, they probably deserve it. not that even then it makes the world any better of a place, nor one's self a better person for doing so.
when i was young growing up, this sort of thing was something people expected of each other.
i thank whatever gods there are this is, or was for several happy decades, in the past.
really the self restraint to avoid doing so is what it means to be mature, to have grown up.
when i see politicians who call themselves conservative doing this, it makes me wonder how many of them even graduated kindergarten.
unfortunately it seems like the mid-evil as it should never have been hasn't yet entirely gone away.
(but its still a lot less then the horrors of the 1950s)

oh also the reaction to deadpan, which is generally the most appropriate, speaks louder then words.

 

You've lost me already. You seem like one of those guys who thinks that he'll sound intelligent if he makes references to history and politics in his answer.

 

is there some reason i should want to sound unintelligent?
or pretend history didn't happen, or why?

in case you hadn't noticed, the 1950s weren't history to me. they were my childhood.

 

yes, there are several of us on here. live long enough and get to have seen things. kennidy, man on moon, dr king, march and martyrdom, silent spring, dome book and whole earth catalogue, dreaming about computers before anyone could afford to have one of their own just to play with, y2k and then 9-11, all the u.s. presidents who came and went and what they took credit for and what they claimed they wanted to do before they got into office and the great mystery of why so many of them were as popular as they were to get elected, but more fun things to focus on, developments in technology and science and space. the first successful landings of robot explorers on mars. and how many were lost in space before any of them did. the international geophysical year(s) in the mid 50s, and then sputnik goes giggling thought the sky, red flags red faces, jump in the race as, the space age begins with a surprise, surprise, it made the generals frown, and put their money down, and meet that bet or know the reason why. then the personal things in my life, so many, and now i have half of what i've always wanted and will still never feel entirely secure about anything, but the things i don't have were the price of avoiding the things i didn't and i still feel worth it. never indentured myself to a house or a car. had cars back when an ordinary person could actually buy and pay cash for one, even if it was only an old one on its last legs. almost but not quite the kinds that i wanted. and all the years in between and like now, when i got along just fine, or mostly just fine, without one.

 

Depends on what it is. I'm known to be very stern when it comes to trash talking about someone else. Boss or not. Said person is not there to defend themselves so I'll nicely scold the trash talker. And yes it has happened. I have also confronted people for trash talking me. People talk and a good loyal person will let you know what's going on.

 

I love watching the fireworks. It's the best lol

 

Oh, I thought you were about to say that you were the gossiper!

So how come it was that only you could hear those jokes?

I've been known to do things like that but it's never because I can't control myself. It always takes courage, although it might look like I snap!