Swearing at Work is Bleeping Good For You 421
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 ;)
Good for you? (Score:1, Interesting)
That is fucking bullshit.
They must be talking out of their ass!
Next they will be saying that Porn is good for productivity
Farscape and Galactica are great for this (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
My office neighbor... (Score:3, Interesting)
Call me sad but.. (Score:4, Interesting)
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:odd...I know people who got fired.. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Idiotic and out of touch with the real world (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not a prohibition on swearing that's keeping people from expressing themselves at work; it's restrictive environments created by management where one doesn't express oneself out of fear of retaliation.
I enjoy swearing when it's the right time, but work is not the place for it, and swearing is not a workplace communication enhancer; it's a tool of anger, frustration and an inability to express one's full feeling on a subject.
TFA misses the point. (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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:In other words... (Score:3, Interesting)
It sucks because it puts me in an awkward position of having to find racially diverse photos for every publication (since I oversee most publication design). Anyone with any experience with stock photos knows that blacks are not exactly well represented, since they're harder to light than whites and are a small minority in most states. And having to do our own photos is expensive and a huge lighting nightmare (If you don't believe it, try lighting a photo with guy whose skin is coal black standing next to a guy who looks like he just stepped off the boat from Ireland sometime). And God help me if I don't parse every sentence in every publication carefully. Someone slips in the word "Niggardly" without me catching it, and I'm out the door.
It's not about rewards. (Score:5, Interesting)
Profanity doesn't make for a bad environment; bad environments make for profanity. And a bad environment that stifles profanity is a terrible environment.
Re:It is called open communication (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm still considering if it is wise to see if slashdot has a swear word filter.
Depends on what part of the country. (Score:3, Interesting)
As opposed to the South. Now, don't get me wrong, there is a lot of racism in the South, but the thing is, the fact that we know it's there makes it possible to actually acknowledge it instead of just sitting around pretending there is no problem. There are things you can actually talk about without worrying that people are immediately going to be offended.
Just my opinion, but I've lived a decade in New York/New Jersey, and a decade in South Carolina/Georgia so I have a pretty deep perspective.
Re:It is called open communication (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It is called FUBAR (Score:4, Interesting)
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?!?"
Re:It is called open communication (Score:5, Interesting)
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 FUBAR (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It is called open communication (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, my dad taught me to swear during home renovations. "Fuckbuggerdamnpoo" was my favourite of all time. I'm looking forward to being able to pass it along to my kids.
As for "things your dad should have taught you", here's Beardo's advice, son: (I might have known your mother)
A) If you're worried about deleting two days of work, you should be using backups and source control.
B) Wear steel-toed boots when there's a chance that something will drop on your foot.
It's called prevention, and can be applied to almost all situations. You should try it sometime.
JWZ on "professionalism" in the corporate environm (Score:4, Interesting)
His response has remained with me all these years:
Re:As my pappy says... (Score:3, Interesting)
And it can also be misused and overused. Just think of the words "nine" and "eleven".
The difference is, 9/11 attaches an emotional impact to meaningless numbers, while overuse of the word "fuck" removes the emotional impact from a word.
But what does any of this have to do with it being antisocial or not? Seems to me, if it generally has a negative impact, and you reduce the emotional impact, that's a socially good thing to do...
Re:As my pappy says... (Score:2, Interesting)
Those fucking French cocksuckers!
Come over here cocky as fuck, shoot our good king Hal in the fucking eye with a fucking arrow, fachrissake - William the fucking bastard indeed!
Dominate good old Anglo-Saxon with their fancy Lingua Fucking Franca, demonise the use of good English swearing in favour of 'Baise mon cul, messieur, s'il vous plait'?
There - you've provoked an emotional response in me.
9/11 on the other hand does nothing - I can't think of any noteable event that happened on November the 9th, so I am unmoved.