'Another day another dollar!': Employee gets called into meeting with HR over flippant remark

You know a joke is good when it's so good that HR wants to hear it…

It's healthy to have a little bit of humor in the workplace. Even those of us who like our jobs can't resist a little sardonic humor at our workplace's expense. 

Heck, Some of us just have had these remarks programmed into us through years of grinding out a day's work. It's not even necessarily passing comment about our specific workplace itself as much as it is about the fact that the entire culture of traditional employment creates a framework for our lives that necessitates us spending more time away from home working than the free time we get at home to enjoy what we're working for; spending five days a week doing monotonous repetitive tasks in a drab environment surrounded by strangers and reluctant acquaintances, when we could be spending time at home with our own families.

As long as comments aren't directly offensive or overly negative about the organization or workplace, why on earth does HR even need to get involved? Overreacting to a harmless comment like this and taking an offensive or defensive stance as a management team against the worker that made it is really just calling attention to the fact that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes—and that the workplace environment and culture you're creating leaves a lot to be desired. Perhaps instead that time and energy could be used for creating a better workplace.