To be this upset about minor racist joke

[Jetlaggedandangry]

I am on a business trip to my country of birth, where I secured a major win today for my British employer. I should be celebrating but instead I am so upset😠
A colleague who is travelling with me called the HQ and when he said "I am calling from jetlag's country" the response was "I am amazed they have mobile network there". They were both very chuffed at the joke.
This is a wealthy country with very developed infrastructure.
I am seething and not able to sleep. Please tell me the iabu and then we can be done with it.

I think there's a big difference between jokes about other places in the UK, where someone's clearly leg pulling TOO the friend from there, and joking about another country (and yep, I think it being non-white or non-western makes a difference) between two Brits, in the presence of someone from that country.

@Jetlaggedandangry - most people who will tell you this isn't racist are British and they see it from their position of privilege.
I may be white but people from the country I come from would always be immigrants, never "ex-pats" because we are not equal to the British. Also, we have no proper education, we can't speak proper English, we are only good as cleaners and sandwich makers but even there we need to be shouted at because we don't know the difference between cheddar and Swiss cheese. Also, our girls are cheap and are duly impressed by any drunk Brit with a beer belly from a stag party who shows any interest in them.
We also had no electricity and washing machines (not even talking about the TV) before civilisation started arriving at our shores some 15 years ago or less. We are rural and slightly primitive people who smile widely with a mouth full of bad teeth at the pinnacles of civilisation flying in from London to show us the world.
That's not the chip on my shoulder speaking, that's what I was told in different ways and forms by different people I encountered (some of them not even knowing I come from that corner of Europe due to my fluency in other European languages so they were free with the "compliments").

You should have replied 'No, you're receiving this message by advanced electronic carrier pigeon'.

I always hear a lot of banter about where I am from being backward etc. Sometimes it's banter, sometimes it's just ignorance.

it's the kind of workplace I hope I never end up in

Good, you won't fit in here. It's a very cheerful place to work.

I have a feeling I know someone at lifecraft workplace
my friend regularly visits Middlesbrough - his home while growing up - and has talked of a colleague who makes "jokes" about it.

That's incredibly insulting to the people of Middlesborough, you not even being able to spell the name of their city correctly. I suppose, because it's "only" Middlesborough, you don't think it matters. Typical non Middlesborough privilege. I bet you'd spell London correctly.

Shame on you.

(yes, and I know it was me that spelt it wrong!!) Before the joke gets missed.

Tbh, it’s the sort of comment that would make me roll my eyes at the ignorance, but I wouldn’t consider it particularly racist.

Could it be a running joke? The basis being that they know perfectly well that those countries (most/all) these days have cover?
Or they just wanted to tease you.

Could it be a running joke? The basis being that they know perfectly well that those countries (most/all) these days have cover?
Or they just wanted to tease you.

Of course it is. I can't imagine people think they were serious. It isn't ignorance or racist, it's a joke, that people are entitled to laugh at or not. I know people in Middlesbrough can buy yogurt, and he knows that just because I'm from London, I don't have jellied eels for every meal (or at all in fact)

But for the OP to be "seething and unable to sleep"....just ridiculous.

It's only funny if everyone is laughing. Quite often people feel pressured to appear to find constant, tedious, repetition of statements of low level bigotry and xenophobia (not to mention ignorance and smug parochial complacency) funny. Especially in the workplace.

I dont see it as offensive. Being Welsh and rural people are amazed i have great broadband. Being called a sheepshagger, etc . Ignore it.

Erm.. This just sounds like a common lame joke that's used about any place that isn't where the joker is from.

Similar to joking about cobbled streets in Yorkshire.

It's a lame joke to wind you up. Annoying but not really that big a deal.

can I just ask, those who think it's a lame "joke", how many times have you had that thing of someone starting with a "joke" and then going for a full racist rant at you?

@RosaWaiting - I don't think they realise that. It's very easy to be dismissive about things from the position of privilege of a western white person.

It's a lame joke to wind you up. Annoying but not really that big a deal.
*
Also used to put me in my place and not be too proud of what I do for the company

It's only funny if everyone is laughing

Errm, nope. That's the thing about humour, it's completely subjective. Just think about comedians, everyone's taste is different - that's why so many people are offending by the likes of Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle. They wouldn't have a platform to offend people though if they weren't popular and making people laugh.

*offended not offending

Fair point lifeonmars.

It's only funny if everyone is laughing

In which case Laurel & Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, Billy Connolly etc. were not funny. Because you can guarantee someone, somewhere, doesn't like them.

Honestly, there's some right old tosh posted on MN.

Crosspost with mbosnz coming to her senses.

Also used to put me in my place and not be too proud of what I do for the company

Based on what you've said they said, god knows how you've arrived at that conclusion.

I guess that's the reason why it's important in a work context to be aware that not everyone finds the same things funny, and some people find ignorant faux humorous putdowns of their country less than humorous. But then, you do get some unprofessional ignoramuses, don't you? Sometimes there's a bigger concentration, and toleration, of them in a company, than in others.

OP I think you've gone on a work trip with a poster here

let me guess - do the same company make sexist "jokes" to keep wimmin in their place?

Where people take offence to the extreme is when you literally can't open your mouth. I was at work one day, and having a pretty stressful day, with every enquiry requiring in-depth analysis to compile a response, and everyone wanting everything at the same time. There were a lot of muttered FFS's and fucks etc. being uttered from my corner of the office. This madam (!) which is the only way I can describe her, sidles up to my desk and says 'Could you please stop swearing as you're offending my religion'. The amount of Fucks that I was about to come out with with that particular piece of crap, took serious skillzzzzzzz to contain.

Said bitch is now running for local Counsellor with 'Social Inclusion' being one of her agendas.
She was in Ireland FFS!!! We swear! If you don't like it, fuck of to somewhere polite like England or something!
I ended up so stressed I ended up signed off work for months that I took voluntary redundancy. FFS. You can't even swear now? In Ireland???????????

Since then, myself and my last boss were both swearers. Me swearing about the f'n council and him swearing about f'n stupid architects. We got on like a house on fire