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Swearing at Work is Bleeping Good For You
coondoggie writes "This is the kind of news that your HR folks don't want to hear, but researchers today said letting workers swear at will in the workplace can benefit employees and employers.
The study found regular use of profanity to express and reinforce solidarity among staff, enabling them to express their feelings, such as frustration, and develop social relationships, according to researchers at the University of East Anglia (UES). Researchers said their aim was to challenge leadership styles and suggest ideas for best practice. "Employees use swearing on a continuous basis, but not necessarily in a negative, abusive manner. Swearing was as a social phenomenon to reflect solidarity and enhance group cohesiveness, or as a psychological phenomenon to release stress, " the study stated." I'm sure the discussion and tags on this story will be completely G Rated ;)
It's not about the profanity, it's about the freedom to express your opinion without a ton of self-censoring. If you're working in a situation where you're going to get fired for swearing in a meeting, regardless of how frustrated you are, that's going to affect your performance and it's going to add a lot of stress, because you're going to be forever worrying about what you say to whom.
I used to have a mostly-female chain of command, and it was more difficult. Had a boss who decided I was a morale problem because I was willing to say what the whole department was thinking. Got called into the HR director's office once because I snapped at a co-worker in her earshot; no profanity mind you, just frustration. Not to say that there's anything wrong with women, but you can't cut loose on a female in a corporate environment without repercussions.
In contrast I absolutely lost my shit in front of my current boss (who is a corporate VP) over a complete snafu that I'd seen coming, and warned all the responsible people about and planned against, and goddamn it if they didn't do the ONE THING, THE ONE GODDAMN THING I TOLD THEM TO NEVER DO, and he let me run down, slapped me on the back, and said, "Done is done, let's get it fixed" and we went on from there.
Just nice to be in a situation where you can express your feelings, and sometimes there is a lot of profanity-inducing anger there, and not have to worry about your job. I'm pretty low key; I can keep it bottled up if I have to, but it makes for a less pleasant environment.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
One of the best parts of being a sailor was, well...swearing like a sailor. But in the time that I was in, the powers that be decided that it wasn't in the best interest of the navy to have sailors acting like...well, sailors. So no carousing, smoking, swearing, etc. Swearing "wasn't professional" and it didn't reflect the best interests of the Navy. I've even seen a swear jar implemented. No joke.
And this was on a submarine. No women. Limited cases of sexual harassment.
Fuck that. You could always tell the fools in the Chief's quarters (think mid level management) by how well they hewed to these rules. If they smoked, drank and swore, they were usually good guys. If they were teetotaling pricks, then they were not to be trusted. This, more than almost any other metric, helped to determine good bosses from bad for us.
It's about the office environment. If everyone is happy, and the bosses aren't sadists, then you don't get as much swearing. I swear when I get angry or frustrated, not when I'm hopping around, having a good day, feeling good about myself, etc.
Profanity doesn't make for a bad environment; bad environments make for profanity. And a bad environment that stifles profanity is a terrible environment.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
One thing that I really cannot stand is people who self censor or are scared to swear when it is socially acceptable (they deleted two days of work, or dropped a log on their foot). If you are going to swear do it, don't cross out letters, don't imply that is what would be there (for example the way they are editing it out of songs now your brain fills it in anyway). If you are not adult enough to brush off those who are so immature that they get offended you need to go back to high school and toughen up a bit.
:P
I'm still considering if it is wise to see if slashdot has a swear word filter.
I ate your fish.
What pisses the shit out of me is that telling someone to fuck off is considered rude and unacceptable, but offending someone without the use of swear words is totally a-ok. Someone once gravely insulted me without uttering one swear word, and in response I said "fuck you." Then she acted like I was completely out of line whereas she had done nothing wrong. WHAT THE FUCK?!
I agree, the taboo on certain words is ridiculous. Once, during a short stint in a retail position, I had a customer go off on me. Crazy. Huge rant, including phrases like, "you probably can't read," "mental defective," and many others. (In case you're wondering, it ultimately turned out that she had misread a price label.) The crazy (well, craziest) thing is this: as I stood there, somewhat stunned and very much unsure of how to react, a coworker came up and said something like, "Hey, don't you think that was pretty disrespectful and rude?" She responded, "No! I kept my language clean!" I laughed a little.
Some people say that using 'bad' language is some kind of crutch. As I watch people, I see that it's more common for people use the avoidance of certain words as a justification for (sometimes intense) rudeness.