For context I am 23M, and this is my first real job after college. I’ve been working here a little over a year, and I am the youngest person in my company.
I am in a Microsoft Teams Chat with about 13 other young people, aged within the ranges of 26-29, male and female. Occasionally people will ask work related questions, but for the most part the chat is pretty laid back. I typically will just make jokes here and there, but aside from that I don’t really interact with it much and the chat isn’t very active.
On Friday, I had just gotten back from a lunch with my dad, and someone made a comment about an hour prior answering a question saying, “somebody told me you have to reach out to the help desk”. I replied to the comment, “somebody told me you had a boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend”, quoting Somebody Told Me by The Killers, as it just came to my head. I thought this was just a silly comment, and the song was popular enough people would be familiar with it, maybe even finish the lyrics as we have done before. Boy was I wrong.
My comment was immediately met with,
“for the love of god eat a snickers or something”
“whats with the rude comments?”
“I think the eating disorder has gotten to your brain”
I tried to explain it was from a song but no one was hearing it.
I said, “maybe it’s just the generational gap”
To which, the same person who said I had an eating disorder replied, “yeah i def think maturity plays a big part of it. I’m glad you noticed”
then
“CONGRATULATIONS YOU’VE EARNED A TIMEOUT! PLEASE RE-EVALUATE YOUR LIFE DECISIONS IF YOU WISH TO BE CONSIDERED FOR RE-ENTRY!”
I tried to consider this from their perspective but I’m not sure if it’s just because I know the song but I don’t really see the issue.
TL;DR
Am I an asshole for quoting The Killers in a casual work group chat?