It seems the Best Week Ever blog editors are the ones watching The View so we don’t have to. This morning, the motliest crew around discussed profanity in the workplace. Here’s a clip of the ladies trying to out-”f—" each other on national TV:
I like how Joy Behar thinks it’s okay to drop the f-bomb in the office if unexpected things occur like "you bang your hand." It’s true, "f—" is a lot of people’s default outburst for that type of s—. Sometimes I say it when I haven’t uttered anything in a few hours, just to sound disgruntled and possibly busy. Which is way inapprope, I know. I will argue strongly, however, for deliberate office cursing when it’s in the interest of making a work-related point ("I f—ing hate Private Practice.") And some workplaces almost require profanity. Like, at our news meetings, it’s not like I can sit there and say "D hyphen hyphen hyphen in a box" and be taken seriously. And I need to be taken seriously at all times.
F—, now I’m interested in the level of raunch at your offices. Rank your office’s curse quotient on a scale of 1 ("Hello.") to 100 ("What’s for f—ing lunch?"), below. And do you have a f—ing problem with it or what?
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Well…I work with a Richard Pryer impersonator troup so “Muthafucka…What’s included in my muthafuckin 401-Fuckin-K plan?” ain’t all that frowned upon.
Si’d say it’s a decent 92, but if you work in a more buttoned up setting…I undastand.
http://www.maximonline.com/girls_of_maxim/pictures_and_bio/1262/F–ckDaEaglesHeather.girl?src=tst129
Speaking of F***!
Remember that girl on national TV…It’s become mainstream.
Our office is definitely at 100. My boss (a 46 yr old woman who is super competent and smart) has such a potty mouth. She actually says ‘c&*(*&sucker’ at a meeting and nobody bats an eyelash. It was shocking at first but now the f* word is used as an adjective and thrown around like nobody’s business.
Very little if at all, all the fun people have left. So I’d say about a 5, but it isn’t actually stated you can’t say it.
I work at an elementary school, so our curse quotient is quite low…I’ll give it a 5, and that’s mainly because I say “cr@p” all the time. However, our curse quotient soars if you factor in the students, then it’s a 48 (but if you count the words “dangit” and “fricken” then it’s a 77).
My boss literally drops an f-bomb every other word. The rest of us know that it’s best to curse for emphasis. So I’d say my boss is about a 99 and the rest of the office is about a 40 (normally it would be lower but we all hate our jobs right now).
We’re at about a 6 or 7, I would say. There are only 6 people in our office, though, 5 women and 1 man of various ages, so we’re pretty close.
Mine is at about a 2, and that’s mostly me. My coworkers are mostly female and from other countries, so if they are cursing, it isn’t in English.
(Speaking of swearing (and pop culture), here’s my WTF moment, as provided by a coworker on our way to lunch: “There are kids who cut themselves on purpose. They’re called emo.”)
Further example: I spent most of a lunch hour trying to convince a (different) coworker that “sucker” is not a swear word.
Best. Word. Ever. I’m a litigator, my colleagues and I couldn’t possibly express ourselves without it. I’ll put it at 60, however, since we do have some control.
My office is horrible. Swearing nonstop. I’ve even used “fatherf-cker” while talking to my boss. If everyone swears, it lightens the mood.
We sound like a group of longshoremen with tourettes.
Some days it’s near 95 – but I’m self-employed and it’s not nearly as fun to say it when no one’s around! In my old corporate accounting job my boss once called a meeting specifically to tell us that we were to no longer use a “certain” word in the workplace…..Wait for it…..ANAL! LMAO – we were a bunch of effing CPAs! Hence the self-employment now.
I work with the older kids. If you count me (under my breath, of course), it’s 30. Factor the kids, it’s 62. Factor in other teachers and management, then dammit, you really shouldn’t bring your kids where I work. We’re rated R.
mine is definitely a 1 or lower. If anyone said the F word where I work they’d most likely be hauled off by security & never set foot on property again. My friend & I will whisper about “those Fs” & even that way it has to be super secretive.
I’d rate my at about 60-65. There’s quite a bit of swearing. Of course, we’re professional on the phone with clients, but amongst ourselves there’s a lot of angry and joking swearing.
We do try to tone it down when the nice old mega-Christian lady is around, though.
We’re about 80 if the boss isn’t around. The average age of my “pod” is 24, and the only one around us who isn’t under 30 only speaks Spanish. You definitely hear the s-word from each of us at least once an hour, and the f-word at least once a day. We just come across a lot of frustrating situations and stupid customers.
How many words are there in the English language? If memory serves, there are more words in the English language than any other language, so why should anyone have to use the F- word? I have no problem with the word (I certainly love Tarantino films), but it is inappropriate in the workplace.
I used to swear alot. It’s a hard habit to break. Now, I’m less shocking and very seldom cuss. I hate when people use the F word in a public setting in every sentence they use. Very rude!
Yeah, I work at an middle school, so my curse level at work is a -5. The kids curse level is pretty high, but I slipped and said “pissed” once and it was going around that I had a foul mouth.
I continue to work hard at learning to say a full sentence without swearing, with good success. However, my attempts fail miserably everytime I watch The View and see that this b..ch Elizabeth whateverherlastnameis is still there. When is this f****ing woman going to get off the show?
90!
I find that swearing actually makes people take you less seriously. Much more effective to speak quietly, with a slight squint, like Clint Eastwood. When I was younger, I didn’t understand that and I cursed like a sailor. Now I have kids. Cursing goes waaaay down once that happens, and I’ve learned that it’s scarier to NOT curse, if you want to really make an impression.
You got it right.
Haha! We just got a memo from the boss on Wednesday about inappropriate language and cursing because two of my coworkers had a screaming match Tuesday that made use of the F word and the boss heard it. If it hadn’t been part of a fight, I think he would have let it slide but it was a nasty battle. Sometimes I think it is all in the context.
I think it’s far more irritating to hear my co-workers who DON’T swear. I have one who actually calls people doo-doo head and says things like caca poopoo. I’d much rather hear the F word amongst adults any day.
We’re all civilized people here, aren’t we? Why do we have to use ’sentence enhancers’ to get our point across? Look at all the great speeches and oratories over the past centuries. No cussing. Imagine that! It’s totally unnecessary. I couldn’t imagine, say, Shakespeare or Forrest Gump saying f@#$. It would be downright unconstitutional!
Clean it up comrades.
The “Eff” word… best word ever invented. I don’t know about everyone else’s offices, but I work with a bunch of retired Army guys, and I tend to hear the word very often. Eff yeah!
The lawyers in my office average about an 85, but the non-lawyer staff (more women) are only at maybe a 30. A female lawyer myself, I hold it down at about an 80. I honestly think my bosses find it cute when their little girl lawyer busts out with a c*cksucker now and again.
My boss says it all the time–that’s when you know not to go into his office. Everyone else has a clean mouth. But I don’t mind the swearing. It’s kind of funny.