It doesn’t matter. Arguably, the question whether it’s appropriate or not could be “for clarification” about why there’s a name crossed out on the schedule. Anyone can get in trouble for singling out another employee, regardless of situation, especially if op is supposed to be an example to the new guy and is answering questions, especially if op doesn’t have a title saying he can boss people around. The new guy can easily lie or rephrase how the situation went down to blame op. I’ve seen it happen where leads have almost lost jobs for “harassing” employees. Luckily my warehouse lead sent an email to my manager before he could, otherwise she would have been fired for trying to get the guy to do his job and not be on his phone. The best advice I can give is to just go to your manager with incidents like this and explain how the situation made you feel uncomfortable and you feel it’s inappropriate work topics. I’m speaking from experience here. Do not take matters into your own hands. Businesses are just trying to appease the lowest common denominator so they don’t get sued. They don’t care if they’re hurting good employees in the process.