Dear Prudence,
I started a new job about six months ago and struck up a friendly relationship with my two other team members. We get lunch together most days. Mostly this is great, but on occasion we’ll pass by a homeless person and one or the other of them will make a snide comment about "crackheads" or mock the way they ask for money. This really gets me upset! If I say something fairly mild like, "There but the grace of good luck go any of us,” I get accused of being too nice, like I’m ruining their fun. Really I want to go off on a long rant about mental health and addiction and support systems, but I can’t imagine that going over particularly well or changing anyone’s opinions. So what should I do? If I suddenly stop joining in on the team lunches it will look very odd and would negatively impact my job and leave me pretty isolated in my office. Am I being too much of a bleeding heart? Should I just shrug it off and ignore their inhumane comments?