profane language is the word ‘fuck’.
this is not yelling ‘fuck’ at the top of your lungs, but more like ‘aah, fuck’, meaning why do things have to be this complicated? or, why didn’t coworker X did his job as he was supposed to? Why is this documentation not in order?
Have you ever been fired over this? reprimanded at work?
I use ‘fuck’ a lot, not to intimidate anyone, but each time something bothers me, I could as well use ‘come on!!’ but ‘fuck’ comes to me more naturally.
If I get a written warning, is this a reason good enough to start looking for employment elsewhere?
To those of you not in America. Is it different where you are?
I once got fired for changing the title of my personal homepage of our ticketing software to “Fuck this fucking shithole”. Bosses found out when they cloned my account for testing while I was on vacation.
In their defense, it was pretty stupid of me to do that. In my defense, fuck that fucking shithole.
If you’ve been told once and your job hangs in the balance, then perhaps that’s a sign of needlessly strict management, but if I just got a stern “please don’t swear in front of the public” I’d just stop swearing.
Fuck that, I’m finding another job.
A less-shitty one with fewer assholes.
You’re god damn right!
Learn to code switch better. Profanity is almost never useful in a professional environment.
Never hurts either
It absolutely can lead to people treating you poorly, so yes it can hurt you if you do it.
Not using profanity doesn’t tend to cause the same issue, even in workplaces where its common.
I got fired from a print shop job for saying “fuck you” back to the boss after he screamed it at me (and a dozen other people). Fuck him, though. Shop was completely closed 3 months later due to boss man’s ineptitude.
Otherwise, I swear like a fuckin’ sailor and never even got chewed out.
“Fuck you: A romantic love story”
It’s a story about power dynamic, and sexual tension in the workplace. When a boss gets frustrated and yells fuck you at a room of employees, one man has the balls to yell fuck you back at him! Then…they start to passionately kiss. Just two straight men, getting caught up in the heat of the moment in a print shop break room.
Suddenly 30 employees were making out with each other. Clothes were coming off, and the man that started it all was now taking his boss from behind and making him his bitch!
…what?
While working in fast food working as a manager I had a store manager that would cuss you out, but one thing I loved about her is I would cuss back and explain myself to which she’d be like “oh, that makes sense.”
“Fuck” isn’t profane, it’s vulgar. “Goddamn” is profane.
If someone doesn’t understand the difference between swearing at and swearing around, that’s a shitty environment. If I say, “that was a shitty fucking outage” I am using some filler for emphasis so my mouth can catch up to my brain. If I say “you’re a fucking asshole” or “don’t be such a bitch” or “that’s fucking sexy” I am not being professional and I deserve some training on how to not be an ignorant walnut. Even with swearing around, I do think it’s smart to limit yourself to damnation, defecation, and simple fornication rather than gendered swears. There are also some places it’s not wise to swear around, such as client-facing roles because many of the people you will see don’t understand that swearing around is not swearing at.
I once lost a job after the onsite interview. I wait to swear until I I hear them swear. Apparently my use of “fuck” meant I was going to blow up and be a terrible person to my peers. Two years later I started running a department doing the thing I was interviewing for and my staff tends to be fiercely loyal. I’d argue my swearing speaks for itself and have shaped my professional attitude toward swearing around around this experience.
I work in tech and I’m quick to police my language if necessary. I’m also concerned about relative comfort (eg I try really hard not to blaspheme around some Christian peers). I do not swear at people. I do not work in a super corporate environment. YMMV.
I like study (you can find the full article online) and I think there’s been more research down this path in the years since.
If someone doesn’t understand the difference between swearing at and swearing around, that’s a shitty environment.
In one of my better workplaces, the expression was “you can cuss the hardware, you can cuss the software, but don’t cuss your teammate.”
Can I cuss the software for being terrible and then
git blamein silence right after?As is tradition.
I might die if I couldn’t cuss while working. I’d just fucking explode.
I cuss during job interviews, both as the interviewer and applicant.
You got the job, you piece of shit good for nothing…
The difference is between cursing and cursing AT someone.
“The garage door broke.” “Ah, fuck.” - Fine “You fuck.” - Not acceptable
If you get a written warning, it’s probably time to start looking for a new job regardless.
My boss told me verbally “don’t call your colleague a fascist by email or anything else that leaves a record”, so that was nice of him.
What behaviour was this colleague exhibiting that made you forget to never put anything unofficial in writing?
It’s pretty common in Australia, so long as we’re not swearing at people nobody gives a fuck. I’d say unless your manager has mentioned it to you, it’s not a huge deal.
Work in software project management. People swear pretty regularly. The higher up in the hierarchy you go, the more they swear. If a job gave me a warning for that I might leave because they treat their employees like children.
Also work in software. Had people swear on 300+ person meetings, vendors meetings, etc. Nobody has ever been written up to my knowledge.
I build fences. 3 out of 4 words is fuck.
1 out of 4 is fence?
Fence, Fuck fuck FUCCCCK!!!
Work in Germany, both in some retail jobs as a student, as well as as a dev, sometimes in rather ‘fancy’ office environments. No one ever cared, though I only ever cursed about a situation, never a person.
I’m a professional and I conduct myself like one at work. Your coworkers have the right to work in a non-hostile environment, and believe it or not, some people consider profanity to be hostile. Plus, there are more effective ways to communicate your thoughts in a professional environment than through profanity. I’ll occasionally swear with a coworker I’m close with if we’re one-on-one, but never in a group setting. Cursing is expected - almost mandatory - in some careers such as a restaurant kitchen, or a construction site, but I don’t work in that sort of environment anymore.
At my job? No. That would not happen.
And it’s funny you ask about outside the US because the way I learned this was our head of finance in Germany was visiting and as I passed the office where he was I heard him talking and it was just fucking this, fucking that, fuck so many times just in the time it took me to pass the office.
Now should you be cussing out customers? No, of course not. But no one in my office bats an eye and we often hear “what the fuck, Microsoft?!” when something doesn’t work.
