re: Harmless joke at Christmas party or distasteful?

quote:

---

My cousin went to his company's christmas party last weekend and made a "joke" that got him scolded by HR.

The situation was he was at the drink table and his female coworker came up and asked him if the punch was spiked. He said, yes and that punch over there (pointing to different bowl) has alcohol in it.


She apparently took offense to that. Was that joke inappropriate for a company party in the day we are in?

---

I don't understand what about that offended her.

The big problem with many HR departments is they deal with "offense" issues like this based on who goes and whines first, more often than not (in my experience). Because of their mindset they would rather "warn" someone about something irrelevant than tell an overly-sensitive employee to "suck it up".

There really should be a "did you speak to them about this first" criteria for menial bullshite like this.