It's almost hard to read the comments on here.<p>"It's a stressful environment---people have to blow off steam."<p>"Is X comment really that offensive?"<p>"Joking around is important to office culture."<p>"The real damage is punishing people who said the offensive thing when he/she didn't mean anything by it."<p>It's really not that complicated. Act professionally at work. Working at a job isn't easy, but part of the responsibility of work is to _act_ professionally, and delivering genius code doesn't give anyone a pass to act unprofessionally. When you feel an impulse to talk or joke about physical appearance, politics, religion, sex, gender, rape, racial issues, nationality/ethnicity, etc., just hold your tongue! Or write it in a little book and save it for when you're at the bar with friends. If you do say something, and inevitably get that little "I shouldn't have said that" prickle in the back of your brain---simply immediately apologize and move on! If you don't get that prickle, and a co-worker or manager says something, just take it at face value that what you said was not professional, because professional actions never raise the possibility of personal offense. That is the bare minimum you are required to do.<p>If you're a little more social justice oriented, you might even become aware of the ways women and minorities are treated unfairly, and take special actions to fix this. Take notice the next time you're in YAAMM -- "yet another all male meeting" -- and think about whether there are any women who could contribute but were not invited. If you hear a good idea, give credit to the originator when you repeat it. It's actually not that hard.