I’m waiting for additional blowback to the incoming Biden staffer who said “fuck DeVos,” even though it’s what we all think.
Yeah, people are touchier these days than they used to be, that's for sure. Even back then sometimes when it got bucked upstairs it could get ridiculous. I had a friend once at a job once who was forced to sit down in a foursome with a colleague and his own boss, plus the boss of his colleague. My friend had said to his peer on the previous day during a meeting, "Don't be such an a^^hole." The purpose of the meeting was that an apology was to be issued, and witnessed by the two managers.
And yes, in the closed door meeting on this matter, my very ticked off colleague took a deep breath and actually said to the other guy "I'm sorry you're such an a^^hole, and furthermore, you should have explained more to your boss about why I had said what I said to you to begin with."
He got up, walked out, has no clue what then ensued, but he was not fired and the next day the guy came over and said offhandedly, "OK so I was an a^^hole in that other meeting, I'm sorry, I apologized to your boss and my boss too and so do you think we can just forget about this now while we both still get paychecks from these clowns? Because otherwise my boss says we have to go up to HR and do this whole thing again somehow."