“Such jokes are a betrayal of trust.”
And, I believe, the subsequent comment was usually “Screw’em if they can’t take a joke.”
As Battalion S-4, I used the "bucket of steam" as a judge of character. If the young soldier laughed it off, I knew he'd be a good soldier. If one showed a pi$$ed off attitude, the soldier was likely to be substandard.
On a limited sample size of about 10, it was a pretty accurate test.