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 ;)

Comments

It is called open communication

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, people can communicate withought swearing. But this limits 'how' you communicate.

Limiting vocabulary impeads what you are really trying to say.

I can appreciate that some people are offended by some words. That doesn't always mean that the words are inappropriate.

Re:It is called open communication

[Valdrax]

Limiting vocabulary impeads what you are really trying to say.

That's "impedes," d---head.

Re:It is called open communication

[cloricus]

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.

I'm still considering if it is wise to see if slashdot has a swear word filter. :P

Re:It is called open communication

[Valdrax]

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.

Like I f---ing care what you think.

Re:It is called open communication

[Danny Rathjens]

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.

I don't get offended by people cursing in professional settings. It simply lowers my opinion of them. If you aren't adult enough to control yourself then perhaps *you* should go back to high school and finish maturing. ;)

As for cursing in the workplace, I think it hurts the atmosphere. It may make the guy who just got off the phone with a dumb customer feel better to vent, but the dozen people who had to listen to his vehemence have all just had their days worsened a bit and everyone is a bit more on edge. We're human; harsh words and conflict make us feel bad. It's a simple formula. There is not much we can do about that.

That being said, people experiencing bad things together often bond together. I think that is the effect the study is showing.
I prefer having nice quiet, productive days much more than having my annoying primate instincts triggered by making me feel bad so I'll bond with people that aren't my friends.

Re:It is called open communication

[Das Modell]

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?!

Re:It is called open communication

[h4rm0ny]

Like I f---ing care what you think.

I have tourettes, you fucking insensitive cunt!!!!

Re:It is called open communication

[Rallion]

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.

Re:It is called open communication

[h4rm0ny]

If I could say "fucking insensitive cunt" at school, I would be soooo happy...

I'll take a guess that you're american, seeing as at the schools here in the UK, it's only the word 'insensitive' that gets omitted. And as I understand it, the USA does not like the French due to opposition to the Iraq invasion, cheese-jealousy, etc. Hence 'freedom fries' and so forth. (Stick with me, I'm going somewhere with this). So if you wish to say fucking and cunt, you can justify it as resisting French oppression. You see both Fuck and Cunt are genuine English words with a long history and weren't always considered vulgar. This all changed with the Norman invasion of England, when the French speaking invaders turned everything upside down and the language of the court and nobility became French (the Lingua Franca, if you'll forgive me). Not only did the sycophantic nobility of England use French, but the aspiring well-to-do also put on airs and graces and adopted french. And the use of English words became looked down on and a sign that one was lower class. Indeed, the word vulgar is actually just Latin for common. The entire prejudice against these words is, essentially, a class thing.

As a country with a good solid founding in patriotism and Francophobia, I believe that you should embrace such words and I encourage you to boldy explain such to your tutors, denouncing them as French-loving sycophants if they disagree; and declare that all americans should be proud of their cunts and generous with their fucks. If you are criticised for use of either of these words, the correct response is not sorry, but "WHY DO YOU HATE CHAUCER?"

So good luck with the fucking and the cunt. I'm afraid I'm not much good on the insensitive, but I don't let that stop me.

Regards,
-H.

Re:It is called open communication

[kklein]

I agree wholeheartedly. Profanity is a way for the speaker to let off steam. There is no semantic content to "fuck" when used as an expletive; it is just emphatic.

I used to work in tech support (for Apple, during the switch to PPC--not a fun time for that company), and the rule was that if the customer swore, we were allowed to terminate the call. I always hated that, because most reps just used that as an excuse to get rid of annoying customer service problems. But the thing is that if you disconnect someone while they're venting, they are just going to get angrier and call back. It makes the problem worse.

After noticing this trend, I stopped disconnecting customers who were screaming. As long as they weren't personally abusive to me (they almost never were--they were angry at the computer, angry at the company, angry at themselves for not backing up, angry at life, angry at a really shitty day--almost never were they angry at the person on the other end of the line), I let them just go. Just let them get it all out. I took notes whenever something emerged that was actually useful information, but mostly they just wanted to vent. And who doesn't???

I found that if you let people do this for about 2 minutes, and let them know that you empathized, as a fellow human being, with what they were going through, they would calm down and just be the easiest people to deal with all day. They felt relaxed. They felt like someone who could help them actually listened to them. They were also incredibly polite after that because they knew that the person listening had done them the human kindness of listening, when most people would have just hung up, and that they could not really be angry at them.

Profanity is very rarely about the listener; it's about the speaker. Sure, we could all walk around quantifying and qualifying our exact feelings in measured, calculated, meaningful lexical choices, but when we want to use profanity is when the idea is not really worth encoding, but we feel a need to express the emotion nonetheless. This is profanity's role in the English language, and most other languages have analogues.

People who are offended by profanity are weak, small, scheming people, IMO. They don't want to be around anyone who expresses their feelings, because feelings and human interaction embarrass them. As a general rule, I don't trust people who do not swear. They are obviously controlling their output, hiding their feelings. What else are they hiding? When I think back on the people who have been loyal coworkers who treated people with respect and fairness, they are the swearers. I have never been backstabbed by a swearer. It's always, in my experience, the people who don't. Swearing in front of someone is saying "I consider you close enough to expose this part of me." Refraining from doing so says, "You and I are wholly unrelated. You will act upon the information I impart." Granted, it's not like non-swearers are bad people. It's just that I am much more careful in dealing with them.

(Full disclosure: I swear like a motherfucker, so I may be a bit biased.)

'bout ****ing time

[athdemo]

I mean, ****, why am I always being ****ing censored at work. We're all ****ing adults here, right? ****.

Re:Good for you?

[Applekid]

Next they will be saying that Porn is good for productivity It is, until a little while later when all I get is sleepy.

Re:Good for you?

[Bloke down the pub]

Next they will be saying that Porn is good for productivity

I work at a sperm bank, you insensitive clod!!!!

Actual news release

[peipas]

Here's the actual release from the source, rather than a Network World recap.

Farscape and Galactica are great for this

[CelticWhisper]

Now where the yotz did I put that frakking driver CD? I swear, if this FRELLING printer breaks down one more time, it's getting it right in the mivonks. Useless pile of dren, I knew we should have gone with the 4250.

Of course, it does have the downside of my coworkers looking at me like I'm insane, but then that really shouldn't come as news to anyone. If they haven't figured out that I'm magra-fahrbot by now, well, I can't be blamed.

Re:Good for you?

[Hoi Polloi]

Fuck ya! Does this research apply to jobs in daycare or elementary schools? "Ok you little shits, we're having a pop quiz."

Next they'll be saying that sex on your desk is good for productivity. And I'll keep on saying it...

Fuck yes

[slayermet420]

It's about motherfucking time the real world caught up with the fucking military.

Re:Fuck yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to go dumbass. Now we have to sleep in the office, and if they drill me one more time on workstation disassembly-reassembly, I swear I'm gonna bring down the entire network.

Call me sad but..

[clickclickdrone]

Whilst in the right circumstances I can swear as much as the next person, at work and out in public, I don't like hearing it especially when people use it in every sentence without it even needing to be there. I have always considered really strong language to be the 11 on the amp - it's for when you need to get over the fact that something is really extreme i.e. big, massive, humungous, **ing huge.
Personally I'd find it stress inducing if I was surrounded by people swearing non stop all day. It has it's place and I'm happy with that but I don't want to hear it non stop, it demeans the person talking like that.
That said, I was sort of impressed by the moron chav who lived in the flat below mine once who managed a 16 word sentence which was all f**k or varients apart from 4 words and it made sense.

Re:Call me sad but..

[Dexx]

The way I look at it is that if you swear all the time, what do you say in those situations where you really need to let loose?

Pah, noob

[mccalli]

Belgium, man. Just Belgium.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Pah, noob

[clickclickdrone]

:-) We got fed up with our 5yo going on about bottoms and farts all the time so we told him the one thing he must never say is the rudest word in the universe i.e. Belgium and now that's all he says.

Re:Good for you?

[Bloke down the pub]

No. Like most things these days, it's all self service apart from the paperwork.

Yeah, well

[NickCatal]

Somehow I don't feel like this allows you to say 'This place is filled with fucking idiots' every 5 seconds

But at least I can think it

Re:odd...I know people who got fired..

[thegnu]

for use of vulgar language in meetings...
how can getting fired be healthy for you?

The point of the article is that being in an environment that allows greater freedom of expression is good for you. Not that swearing when it's inappropriate or against policy is good for you.

Though I've sworn at a client that was late in paying me $3000. But I was essentially in a situation where I had to demonstrate the fact that I owned (pwnd, rather) all their data before they paid me. So I felt rather justified.

maybe initially

[Floritard]

Wouldn't it lose it's luster if everyone were swearing all the time? I'm all for the unrestricted use of language everywhere, I think it's childish not to be, but wouldn't any positive side effects be related to the fact that being allowed to swear at work is unusual and kind of a privilege? Of course, once everyone got completely used to swearing, we'd all be better off anyway IMH fucking O.

super bowl

[Aeron65432]

Reminds me of my favorite superbowl commercial, I don't know how many times this got passed around the office.

Re:Well, duh.

[sacherjj]

Actually, I'm finally at a work place where the IT department isn't F this and GD that. Frankly, I like it. You emulate those that you are around the most. I actually enjoy an environment that doesn't reward those talking like a salty sailor.

Brits have known this for ages

[mihalis]

I grew up in Britain but now work in America. When I figure I can get away with it, and when the situation calls for it, I sometimes let loose with a well-timed swear word. I can sense that my fully american colleagues are always a little bit shocked, however I also feel it REALLY gets their attention, and thus can be a good thing.

For example, I told my (then current) boss that the interference from her (then) boss had gotten completely out of hand. The way I phrased it was "I have nearly gotten to the point of just telling him to fuck off". That would be such a flagrant breach of protocol that I'm glad I didn't, however just /mentioning/ the word made the situation crystal clear (mention as oppose to use - it was hypothetical swearing).

In fact, work is almost the last frontier where swearing is still effective, and so it's the only place where's really still worthwhile. I suppose if I swore at customer support from some vendor it would also have an effect, but I have too much sympathy for what those people put up with.

Out on the street, or on public transport, however, swearing is just like noise on the signal. Any ten-year old kid can be overheard using "fuck, shit, motherfucker". One of the few words that still has some kick to it, for some reason, is "cunt". I think the most memorable usage was still in the Bridget Jones movie...

TFA misses the point.

[SatanicPuppy]

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.

Working in the Navy

[Protonk]

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.

Re:Working in the Navy

[AsnFkr]

And this was on a submarine. No women. Limited cases of sexual harassment.

No women? Limited sexual harassment? As opposed to none? I suppose all the jokes about you Navy guys are true to some extent...

Re:Working in the Navy

[dr bacardi]

It's not gay if it's underway was the rule I heard ;)

It's not about rewards.

[SatanicPuppy]

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.

Another thing

[suv4x4]

I found that wrecking stuff is a very good way to relieve stress.

Furthermore, I always thought of punching a client in the face, or nuts, and I think being allowed to do that would definitely help my stress, and the solidarity among me and the rest of the employees.

Uh no.

[SatanicPuppy]

I'm sorry you got that from my comment.

My only problem with working with females is in this particular context; if I say something off the cuff, in frustration, they'll view it as more significant than a guy would.

This is because they are, in many ways, better at communication than a guy would be, and more sensitive to nuance.

So you've got to watch what you say, because they pay attention, and they'll think about it more. A guy just hears, "wawawawa" noises contexted with a tone of voice. A female will hear what you actually say, and then think about it, then try to reconcile it with your subsequent and prior actions.

This is just a generalization. Lots of guys behave in what I'm representing as the "female" mode, and there are a lot of women who pay as little or less attention to what you're saying as a guy would.

As my pappy says...

[mollog]

As my pappy says,

Profanity is the linguistic crutch of a fucking ignoramus.

Damn right!

Re:As my pappy says...

[paeanblack]

Profanity is the linguistic crutch of a fucking ignoramus.

Profanity is simply a communications tool used to convey emotion directly instead of relying upon the receiver to interpret the words in the appropriate context. They are analogous to smileys used in email and chat; they're an extra communications channel.

Profanity is not antisocial. The overuse of profanity is antisocial. One can use the word "fifteen" as many times as necessary without diminishing its utility. Fifteen will still equal 15, no matter how many times you say it. On the other hand, the value of the word "fuck" lies in its emotional content. Every time that word is used, that content gets diluted for both the sender and receiver. When overused, the word becomes meaningless.

Profanity is simply another linguistic tool, and not using all the tools at one's disposal to communicate concisely and precisely is foolish. However, some tools dull faster than others, and the waste of perfectly good profanity through overuse and misuse is naturally offensive.

Bud Light figured this out long ago

[dubbayu_d_40]

youtube.com/watch?v=EJJL5dxgVaM

Re:odd...I know people who got fired..

[Chrisje]

In Soviet Russia, vulgarities fire you!

Seriously, how is this news? I work for HP, and I've done nothing but swear with colleagues for the last 12 years. Not necessarily inside meetings, but sometimes definitely with customers on projects and whatnot.

I mean when you're in a data center and someone overwrites a production LUN to an Oracle Server because he took the wrong hardware path for his ignite restore, the customer won't say "Oh golly, that was rather unlucky, mate!" Shit no, we' be Fuck this and Fuck that. Or in sweden Jävla Faaaan! Hörrudu va'görru nu din dumma skit!. This is a completely normal thing if the shit hits the fan and the relationship is solid.

Most companies know this. Unless you're caught in an eternal re-run of Office Space.

It depends on HOW they use profanity...

[javabandit]

I know people who got fired for profanity, as well. In fact, I fired one myself. But the context of the profanity was the problem and not the profanity.

In the case of the guy I fired, it was during a post-mortem review for a project. Probably 15 people in the room. He said, "I'd rather lick a dirty asshole than have to look at code." Five minutes after the meeting, the guy was fired. Although, I'd have fired him if he said, "I'd rather lick a dirty anus..."

When people create a hostile work environment through their words, they should be axed. But I don't think profanity itself is the issue.

The issue is that *a lot of times* profanity is used in conjunction with verbally creating a hostile work environment.

Actually ...

[PPH]

... before I started working here, I used to drink, smoke and swear for no reason at all. Now, thanks to this job, I have a reason.

Re:My favorite General Patton Quote

[vertinox]

When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty. It may not sound nice to some bunch of little old ladies at an afternoon tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember. You can't run an army without profanity; and it has to be eloquent profanity. An army without profanity couldn't fight its way out of a piss-soaked paper bag. ... As for the types of comments I make, sometimes I just, By God, get carried away with my own eloquence. -General George Smith Patton, Jr.

Re:It is called FUBAR

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

You forgot:
BOHICA

Bend Over Here It Comes Again

Re:It is called FUBAR

[UncleTogie]

Agreed, with one modification...

My grandfather served in the army, and relayed those same phrases to us, with "fouled" in place of "fucked". Kept everyone out of trouble if the CO's wife was around. His is actually my preferred version, as I can repeat it in polite company..

....but there are times where nothing fits but "WTF?!?"

JWZ on "professionalism" in the corporate environm

[coaxial]

On Februrary 26, 2000, on a slashnet IRC interview, JWZ was asked about how swearing and flaming (specifically with respect to Netscape's Bad Attitude newsgroup and Really Bad Attitude mailing list) fit within a corporate environment.

His response has remained with me all these years:

if you have a "corporate environment", then you've already lost the battle. likewise, if anyone ever refers to you or anyone you work with as "professional", then the coolness has left the building.