I would add that anyone who is planning on moving into management should also avoid joking like this. I once worked with an engineer who had a lead that would

I would add that anyone who is planning on moving into management should also avoid joking like this. I once worked with an engineer who had a lead that would joke all the time about firing him. As a lead he had no authority to fire anyone but it was well known that he wanted to transition into a management position. Within two weeks of the lead actually becoming a manager, the engineer left the company for another job. I remember speaking with the engineer about it after he left and he told me that he knew it was a joke but it still made him slightly uneasy. He wondered whether there was some grain of truth in the jokes. He wanted to make sure that he was leaving on his terms. The take away that I took from that was if you're going to go down the management path, consider everyone a potential direct report and communicate accordingly. The joke that you're making as peers can take on a different meaning the day you become their manager.