Is this unkind or offensive? (person, business, issues)
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I was at work and I had this great customer who happened to be gay BTW. In order to describe him I said to my coworker that I had an amazing gay guy that I loved! My manager who is gay and I am bi BTW told me he was very offended that I described the customer that way and I should have used the customers name. I didn't know the customers name and my manager would not have known it either. I didn't think gay was an offensive term and I certainly was not trying to be mean. When did gay become rude?
I was at work and I had this great customer who happened to be gay BTW. In order to describe him I said to my coworker that I had an amazing gay guy that I loved! My manager who is gay and I am bi BTW told me he was very offended that I described the customer that way and I should have used the customers name. I didn't know the customers name and my manager would not have known it either. I didn't think gay was an offensive term and I certainly was not trying to be mean. When did gay become rude?
It's not. Maybe he's acting professionally and was concerned about you using unnecessary titles...why describe him as gay, rather than just a customer? Do you think his being gay should be a notable characteristic in customers? Do you think you should treat customers differently because they're gay, etc?
Some customers might be picky about that sort of thing. What if you'd said, "I know this great, black customer," or "I know this great Jewish customer."
It makes sense in a professional enough environment.
There were a lot of ways you could describe a customer. You chose his sexual orientation as the way to define him as a person. I can sort of see why your manager might be irritated.
Does your mgr. know you're bi? If not, he may have seen you as a straight guy with some kind of issues re: gay ppl. Like, "oh there was this gay customer, and I really liked him!", as if you were surprised to find yourself liking him.
If he knew you're bi, he should have cautioned you about not flirting with the customers, lol!
The example given of someone commenting on a "Jewish" customer illustrates it best, I think. Someone might wonder if the speaker had some kind of issue with Jewish people. It's not something people usually remark on.
Or maybe the mgr. simply felt your speech was too casual for a business setting, and was using the incident to set an example for the staff. That seems to be the most likely scenario.
I think because he was a customer the gay part should have been left out. You could have just said this really neat guy came in today that you liked. I have nothing against anyone sexuality, I just think it is a matter of being very conservative when discussing customers at work.
Ya it probably wasn't the best choice to describe a customer. Unless that "term" is thrown a lot around your company, having a gay manager and you being bi, you could have used many other terms to describe him, then maybe thrown the "gay" thing in later
Consider this: Unless you would have described another customer as "this amazing straight guy that I loved", you probably shouldn't have said what you did.
There were a lot of ways you could describe a customer. You chose his sexual orientation as the way to define him as a person. I can sort of see why your manager might be irritated.
what cdnirene said.
I find it odd you don't know his name but you know he's gay.
Just weird to me that you would bring up a customer's sexual orientation to your boss.
"This customer that I like" would have been a better choice of words. There was no reason to add the "gay" to that.
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