I work as a service advisor for a large garage in my Atlantic Canadian city.
I am openly gay and am lucky enough that everyone here not only accepts me but is comfortable enough to joke around with me.
I make gay jokes about myself all the time.
I’ve worked here for two years.
We have a sales manager here we will call M. He is a great guy he cracks jokes with us when none of the other sales people do. Anyone who works o. A dealership knows the stark difference between sales and service. Last week M brought in a new Tesla to shoot a video of the cool features with the detail guys now they don’t really interact with us don’t know why.
And I can’t remember the context but I made a joke about I had sex with him and I liked it. It got a few chuckles from the group and things moved on. Pretty normal
Today I got called in by my GM and a woman being told she is from HR and asked questions about what I remember from that day. If I remember a joke who was there etc. etc. I tell the truth because I don’t know what else to do. She asks if these kinds of jokes are common and I say yes it’s a garage we’re pretty close together we spend all day. We all make sarcastic and inappropriate jokes and comments pretty much throughout the day it’s what keeps us sane. She asks if other people make these kind of jokes I say absolutely but I’m not going to throw anybody under the bus cause I don’t want anybody to get in trouble but once again, it’s a garage it’s filled with mechanics. The humour is not what you would call sophisticated Part of the reason we all love working here. She asks what my relationship is to M I say pretty friendly we don’t hang out after work because I don’t hang out with anybody after work because I have no life and I’m perfectly happy with that. I say we make jokes similar to this before and I gave her an example which might’ve been stupid, but I couldn’t think of what else to do. She kept going on about witnesses, and the fact that these kind of jokes or any sexual jokes can be construed as harassment or even assault. And it doesn’t matter if the person I made the joke to was offended if somebody overheard it and is offended, then it becomes an HR issue. She said she spoke with multiple witnesses and that she will conclude the investigation tomorrow, but not to talk about it with anybody at work, and now I’m terrified that I’m going to get fired. I’ve worked here for two years and I’ve never worked anywhere where I can be myself or I can make whatever silly stupid off hand comments, and have people chuckle about it let alone where I can crack gay jokes about myself And have the other guys laugh or even have them make a joke about me which is amazing considering that I’m the only gay person in the office no I don’t think that this is a gay response because if it was, it would’ve happened a long time ago I just don’t know what to do