Words Offend

Late Thursday evening, I received a message from one of my night receptionists. She is an older woman and this is a part time job after she retired as a school secretary. She said she was giving two weeks notice and that the job was not good for her anymore. Her husband has been sick lately, so I understood why she was leaving. It turns out that her sick husband was not the reason. Early Friday morning, my daytime receptionist called me, quite upset. It seems there had been an argument the evening before and that is why the other woman quit. This is what took place. Wednesday afternoon, my boss was looking for an important file. No one knew where it was. She called the doctor whose patient it was and the doctor said she handed the file to the night receptionists. They said they had no idea where it was. The doctor was very angry. The next morning, she called my day receptionist and told her the chart was missing. She looked through every file and found it. It was filed in someone else's slot. When the two night receptionist came in Thursday evening, the day receptionist said, "Who am I going to beat up? The chart was filed in the wrong slot and it took me an hour to find it". The younger receptionist laughed, as she knew the day receptionist was kidding. The older woman took offense and said she would not be spoken to in that manner. The day receptionist said she was only kidding, but these errors happen frequently and they become her problem to fix. Words went back and forth and later that evening I received the message of resignation. My day receptionist felt so bad and must have called me ten times on Friday. I explained to her that what one person thinks is a joke, another person doesn't. I always use the saying, "It is only a joke if both people laugh".