To ask if my joke to new work colleague would have offended you?

[Abbeymum]

We are quite a small team and had a new staff member join this week. It’s a very friendly and jokey culture so we are always light heartedly ribbing each other.

Anyway - new colleague was eating a salad with two boiled eggs. We were chatting and she says that’s a usual weekday lunch for her. I replied that I bet she has stocked up on the air freshener for when she’s home.

Blank face…sense of humour failure on her part?

Bad taste.

The joke.

Not the lunch.

I think "too soon" might sum this up. If you're a jokey team, then your new person needs to get the feel of the place and would not have done so at that point, plus you also need to get the measure of them over time. Best to wait before dropping that type of personal joke.

Why do l have the feeling that it won’t be long before OP’s employers are dealing with a formal complaint 🤣

i eat egg sandwiches very regularly in the office, they are my go to

Just not very amusing.

I think they're trying to say that the upper classes smell bad. Hence the term 'stinking rich'.

Are you an 8 year old boy?

No, it is not okay to mock your colleagues, especially new people who don't know if you are joking or just a cow.

Why would it be a soh fail on her part rather than your attempt to embarrass her just wasn't funny?

I have visions of your cronies laughing uproariously & saying "ooh you are a one".

Inappropriate comment to a new work colleague. It's also not funny, and she might not have even understood the 'joke'. (I didn't know eggs had that reputation.)

The problem really is it just is not funny. Jokes need to be funny.

I think you need to get your digestion checked out

THIS lol. I eat eggs regularly and they dont give me gas or any digestive discomfort.

OP- maybe its not the eggs- maybe YOU are just a naturally very farty/smelly person so you assume its the eggs

Only mumsnetters and little kids find farts/fart jokes funny. Most of us would just have thought wtf?

I’d probably have laughed. Some people are too serious but equally I’d not have made that joke to somebody I didn’t know

It’s a good thing for most people that they d not work with you.

I'd've been surprised, but would've laughed.

I think she just had no idea what you were talking about.

It’s a big thing on MN to find eggs very smelly. Like you I’ve never noticed that eggs smell particularly bad. Different smells are stronger for some people, I can’t smell a particular amine which apparently reeks of rotten fish to everyone else and a colleague couldn’t smell hydrogen sulphide which is eggy and very unpleasant to most people. It’s probably sensitivity to hydrogen sulphide that makes eggs smell horrible to people.

Yes, possibly this. Not everyone finds ‘personal comments banter’ funny. Had a woman like this in my last job and thank god I didn’t work with her (although had the misfortune of sitting near her).

Be careful because you don’t know this person and it could be misconstrued as bullying if the comments go on.

I sense a lack of self reflection here, so I wonder why you've posted the question at all. You've obviously assumed there's nothing wrong with your office 'banter' despite all the comments to the contrary here.

8nwas just wondering that myself, never got the farts after eggs

I agree. You have to go gently with new people until they've settled in and feel accepted. I always remind the teens at the group I run that they need to rein in the friendly teasing when there's someone new - not just what's directed at the newbie, but with how they talk to each other.

Otherwise the new person may feel it isn't a welcoming place. They have to experience people being nice to each other first, so they understand that the teasing is in that context.

hopefully some of the 51 are your team members, the other 575 respondents to your poll, don't agree. (currently 626)

Food (boiled eggs) for thought @Abbeymum?

Offensive? No.

Embarrassingly unfunny for anyone who isn't a 10 year old boy? Yes.

And of course, not offensive. Just stupid and unfunny.