New BF who is also "the boss" and an accidental FB slur

[HellyBelly38]

This question is for a friend of mine, she asked me to post a question for her as she knows I use MN to answer my own dilemmas.

She is 37, works for a company with offices all over the place and she was employed by a very old friend of hers who owns the whole company.

Hence she was friends with the big boss (let's call him Mr D) , as well as many of the smaller bosses long before she was an employee of the company and is also friends with them on FB.

She started work there about a year ago, and then a few months ago starting also (quite casually but also quite promisingly) dating Mr D, who she had always been great friends with.

She is quite a lippy girl who often makes sarcastic jokes and she made a quip on the FB page of one of her bosses, let's call him Mr Tubby (tee hee). She has been friends with Mr Tubby for a long time and the joke (admittedly a bit off regarding his weight) wasn't intended to offend as pretty much everyone on the thread was commenting on his weight in a similar way and it's a bit of a running joke.

For whatever reason, Mr Tubby, who is both a very old friend of hers, as well as a boss of the company she works at (several rungs above her though) got offended and un-friended her on Facebook and sent her a pretty horrible email (I saw it).

She responded very nicely with an email to apologise, to say she had not meant to offend and to say she hoped they could resume their friendship.

Mr Tubby responded with an absolutely vile email which said something on the lines of "I am no friend of yours, I am a friend of Mr D" etc.

My friend is due to go and stay with Mr Tubby on a vacation trip with Mr D as his girlfriend and she now (obviously) does not want to go.

She let Mr D know what had happened and he advised her to ring Mr Tubby and apologise again to smooth it over.

I personally thought Mr Tubby's emails to her were absolutely scathing and completely out of proportion with her jokey FB comment. I am also supervised Mr D is not defending her and seems to blame her entirely.

Can I get the advice from the MNers for her?

Is it best to wallow her pride and suck it up?
Should she still go on the trip to stay in the house of this man who has been so rude to her?
Should Mr D be standing up for her a bit more?

Thanks

and sarcastic?

Look, you may think she is all that, and maybe she is. But the point is that she has stepped out of line with a senior manager, in front of friends and colleagues on Facebook.

I dont like the way you sniggered about calling him mr Tubby, when you are telling a story of her ridiculing him about his size. It is juvenile.

She is soft hearted, kind to everyone, would give a beggar the shirt of her back, she worries about how people feel, she never does anything deliberately to hurt people, she's an amazing friend who is there day and night for people, she is loyal, dependable and honest. But she is quite sarcastic, funny and well known for her witty quips. Which apparently in this case went wrong.

Being lippy doesn't make you hard or unkind.

Sadwidow28

Honestly, no I don't thinkit does.
I think an apology should be a genuine expression of regret for what we did.
If we refuse to take responsibility and blame the offended person for not getting the joke then we arn't sorry for what we did.

Of course it's only my opinion. We are all only posting our own interpretation - surely?
Why are you saying that as if I am being outrageous?
I could try and post your interpretation but I think you are probably best placed to do that.

Sorry Mr R & D are the same

she worries about how people feel, she never does anything deliberately to hurt people

HellyBelly - then advise her to get on and make a heart-felt apology (in her own words). But also warn her that her telephone apology may be rejected in the same way that her email apology was rejected.

She has goofed big time! (This still does not excuse vile emails from MrT though.)

It is a bit sad that a woman in her late thirties still has not learnt not to joke about peoples weight, on social media for all to see.

Hopefully she will have learnt now, and be able to give a genuine apology?

Sorry Helly but your description of your friend does not sound at all like the same self-centred person who was so publically cruel to Mr T and is now bothered that she might not get to go on a freebie with her man.

She wasn't kind to him - she humiliated him.
She wasn't soft-hearted at all - she was cruel.
She wasn't worried about he felt because this was a long-standing "joke" that she took part in.
She wants a free holiday staying at Mr T's house.
She's lippy, sarcastic and makes "witty quips" - presumably about other people.

really, stand back from the situation and see how other people perceive this woman, judging her by her actions. And then ask yourself if she is really so wonderful. Sometimes it's difficult to see the wood for the trees.

We don't know what the emails said though, they could have just even an accurate character description in direct relation to her online insults.

As in nasty, thoughtless and just mean. Maybe she wasn't happy hearing that.

She's not remotely bothered about the "freebie". She's bothered about upsetting someone. Her BF owns the company and can well afford to go elsewhere with her. They have no need to scrounge for accommodation. This was due to be a trip with friends, and one of the friends has now cut her off due to a comment she made and has apologised for.

She really is absolutely wonderful.

Mr Tubby (tee hee) - Wasn't this the sort of thing bully children said in Primary school? You are just as bad as your friend.

Mr Tubby himself were making jokes about their own weight actually (they are both overweight and they frequently poke fun at themselves for it). - Ever thought that he takes the fun out of his own weight issues as a defence mechanism?

Hopefully one lesson has been learnt from this - Don't ever comment, joke, remark on someone's weight. If you'd not appreciate it being said to you, do not say it to someone else.

Well, it's nice you think that. The guy she hurt obviously thinks differently. Maybe you know her so well that you see the person behind the first impression so you aren't seeing what someone who doesn't know her sees?

If she is that wonderful, when this guy gets to know her better and find out who she really is, he may forgive her. Or then again he might not. Sometimes we just have to accept that we messed up and learn the lesson so we don't do it again. Your friend might have to do that. She can't change what is done but she can look at this as a learning experience and think about how she can behave differently towards people so that she doesn't lose more friends.

Just because he himself comments on his own weight does not mean she she should agree with him and make comments about it too either to his face or on fb.
Plenty of my friends comment on their weight to me, I would not dream of making a derogatory comment back about it, to a man or woman.

Well then her BF might be best served taking her somewhere else.
Although he seems to be blaming her?

Perhaps you should take her. You seem most convinced of her general amazingness.

Wonderful my arse. And since you sound as bad as her, what would you know?

We still don't know what was so vile about his emails - are you not sharing for a reason?

Either way I can't imagine what she thought she was doing to publicly humiliate someone superior to her with such personal comments. It's not a nice thing to do to anyone but when he's in a senior position at work it's nasty & stupid. Perhaps he feels she's taking liberties due to her relationship with the boss?

I'm not keen on people who are sarcastic. It's tiring listening to them making cutting remarks about people, then pretending it was a joke.

She sounds like a princess and you sound like her lapdog to be honest , posting on her behalf , and being outraged for her. It's not funny to make cheap jokes about someone's weight , and you sound as bad with the tee hee thing.

OPs friend is reading this thread so she's hardly going to say she's a bit of a bitch really.

That's a fair point.

That would be quite funny though...

I've worked with men for nearly twenty years and have seen this happen every now and then where men completely, psychotically flip out at something that a woman believes to be rather insignificant. Woman apologizes, but it just makes things worse and (a guy who seemed quite reasonable and decent before) goes into a complete rage and won't back down. Secretly, she starts to think he is overreacting.

In all these situations, it was a public insult in front of a male audience where hierarchy is clearly established. From what I can gather, the guy takes it as a vicious public defamation that challenges his position in front of all the other guys.

I am a woman and I don't pretend to understand it. But after seeing it repeat a few times, I've come to think it is not necessarily sexist. There is something in their psyche that reacts explosively to this specific kind of situation (public humiliation by a woman regarding his 'manhood'). I don't think it is limited to sexist men, or men who can't take jokes either. I've known men who have done this and they were not exactly the a*hole sexist types.

I think she is sorry, but she doesn't quite seem understand why he is so angry nor how serious the situation is. She may think it is because she is dating his friend, or that he is a sexist pig. I don't think it is.

How to make it better? From what I have seen, lying very low without contact for sufficiently long period of time is the best option. Trying to apologize/explain/be friendly aggravates the situation usually (he probably feels that she's seriously fucking with him by insulting him and then suggesting friendship). She shouldn't expect support from her BF either (he probably knows better than to take her side.)

You have to be joking when you say she is wonderful. You've given concrete examples of how nasty, impervious and self centred she is but only vague generics of anything pleasant far less wonderful. More like a bitchy mean girl who takes advantage of the fact she's sleeping with the boss.
Actually you sound infatuated with her.aybe that's why you can't see her clearly. To a complete stranger she sounds awful. Doesn't it concern you that the sympathy here is for Mr T ? Do you work for the firm and need to keep on her good side?

She doesn't sound so wonderful to me either.

I think she has put her boyfriend in a difficult situation now as a senior member of staff has been bullied by his girlfriend. The other chap is in a difficult situation due to who she is.

Has she asked her bf if she should resign?

Why does your friend think she needs to swallow her pride and suck it up? If she thinks that then she's not genuinely sorry and doesn't really think she's got anything to be sorry for.

The problem is she thinks she didn't really do anything wrong because everyone else was doing it, and he makes comments about his own weight anyway and its his reaction which is wrong and he is bullying her. What you mean is why doesn't tubby just swallow his pride and suck it up.

Also need to add Mr D is not sticking up for her and blaming her entirely because she is entirely to blame.
So when she makes derogatory remarks on a public site about someone and that person gets angry does she expect her boyfriend to sack him?? In what way exactly do you both expect her boyfriend stick up for her?

He can joke about his weight like I can joke about my mad family but if anyone else insulted them I'd be hugely defensive of them. He's a senior manager and she's humiliated him. I would be sending a hand written apology. If your friend is so kind and didn't mean to cause offence then surely she'd be mortified that she upset someone so much and would be desperately trying to make things right?