Submitted by editor on Sat, 05/24/2008 - 1:43am.
Most employees know that it’s bad to swear at work. Not only is it unprofessional, but it reveals a certain baseness that should be reserved for the bottom of a tequila bottle the night you find out your wife ran off with your best friend or when the Yankees were swept 4-0 by the Red Sox after being up 3-0.
Swearing is inappropriate in many social circumstances, but it is absolutely inappropriate in the workplace. Not that it doesn’t happen— when I was working in New York I would usually hear as many f-words as were in Scorsese’s “Casino” in a matter of a few days. But whether it happens or not, lascivious lipped laborers everywhere should be on notice to wash their mouths out with soap, as swearing can also get you fired.
According to a survey of 2,520 executives by the TheLadders.com, foul language is the worst breach of all office manners. Nearly forty percent of the managers surveyed who have fired employees for violating office etiquette standards cited cursing as the reason for the termination.
When asked the reasons why executives fired employees, cursing at work scored higher than drinking at work (35 percent) and making too many personal calls (28 percent). But managers and executive are apparently much less forgiving than co-workers. When it comes to workplace offenses, even though 81 percent of co-workers dislike it when they hear swearing in the cubicle jungle, cussing is apparently not as bad as what 98 percent of respondents found to be the biggest offense: stealing food from the office refrigerator.
Oddly enough, the only time I was ever fired from a position (if you don’t count that 3 AM to 7 AM janitor job I had in college) was because I raised my voice at my boss and insisted that she refrain from using foul language when reprimanding me. Even though I didn’t use foul language in that heated discussion, thirty minutes later she tossed me out on my *!$@#!.
Though the majority of my beloved reading public has probably dropped the occasional curse word in a meeting at work, the fact that it might get you fired is reason enough to make sure it never happens again. Cursing, like other forms of slang or derogatory speech, can easily be misinterpreted by the person hearing it. While you may be angry with the fax machine when it keeps showing you the “PC Load Letter” error message, that f-bomb you drop to express your frustration may have been interpreted as having been hurled at an innocent passerby.
When cursing is misinterpreted in the workplace, things can get ugly rather quickly. Using curse words that have sexual undertones (the f-word) at work have sometimes lead to nasty sexual harassment suits— based solely on a misunderstanding. Yet another argument against cursing at work.
Cursing at work when you are involved in a direct confrontation with another employee gets uglier even faster. Rudy Sustaita, a lawyer with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Houston notes that when co-workers get into an angry swearing match at work, one or both usually ends up getting disciplined or terminated.
Sustaita says that cursing complicates things when an employee swears right before he is terminated, even if the employee believe that he was fired as the result of workplace discrimination. The reason is that swearing at the boss often overshadows the discrimination issue in the eyes of an agency investigating the allegation and does not evoke a great deal of sympathy from a judge or jury ruling on the claim.
Anyway you look at it, swearing at work is just a bad idea. Save the potty mouth for the pub, people.
login to post comments | email this page | del.icio.us | Digg this
