inappropriate holiday greeting cards

snowball
Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:14:02 +0000

Sorry in advance if I give too much information or if I am vague about some of the details. My husband and his business partner joined together after each being in a solo business. They have been together for 10 years and during all but the last year, my husband was the managing partner. About 16 months ago his partner decided he wanted to take over the business portion of the group. There has been several issues that they have disagreed on and there has been much tension. Needless to say they are not getting along well and may separate.

Now come the greeting cards. I need some unbiased opinions as anyone in my family or my group of friends would agree with us; maybe we all have a sick sense of humor. My husband has always been the one to purchase the holiday cards for the staff as well as writing a personal note inside each one and signing the card from the business. This year his partner decided to look at each of the cards after my husband had prepared them. After reading the card, the partner sent an email to my husband saying some of the cards were offensive and inappropriate and he would not allow any of the employees to receive the cards this year. Now these cards were purchased from a local greeting card store, not the local XXX adult shop. All of the cards were the brand Shoebox which are just your typical funny greeting cards. Sure some of their cards mention pooping and peeing, but nothing that anyone I know would find horrible; my 85 year old MIL likes the cards we give her. He did not buy the boxed cards as he likes to hand select a greet card for each person, so each of them are different, although there may be a few duplicates. The only card that I saw that one might find offensive is one with a dog peeing on a snowman the the snowman is melting. I don’t remember what the inside said, but I think it was something about not buying a dog. We have a couple of dogs and I believe he only gave this card to dog lovers and people that would find it funny. Again he has been working with these people for 10 years and I think he would know if they found the card offensive. I believe the partner would have preferred a more religious or sappy card and that is just not my husbands style. The partners argument was that they are not friends with the staff, but their employer, therefore the cards were inappropriate.

I can see the partner’s point and maybe my husband should have chosen a different style of card, but was it really a horrible mistake. I think the tension between the two men has made it hard for either one of them to give the other a break. I would like to side with my husband here, but maybe the cards were a bit too much which is why I am asking here.

Not that is matters I don’t think, but we are Jewish and these were all Christmas card, not general holiday cards. Also all the staff is female which may make a difference to you.