No Stupid Questions

I once got fired for changing the title of my personal homepage of our ticketing software to "Fuck this fucking shithole". Bosses found out when they cloned my account for testing while I was on vacation.

In their defense, it was pretty stupid of me to do that. In my defense, fuck that fucking shithole.

If you've been told once and your job hangs in the balance, then perhaps that's a sign of needlessly strict management, but if I just got a stern "please don't swear in front of the public" I'd just stop swearing.

Learn to code switch better. Profanity is almost never useful in a professional environment.

I got fired from a print shop job for saying "fuck you" back to the boss after he screamed it at me (and a dozen other people). Fuck him, though. Shop was completely closed 3 months later due to boss man's ineptitude.

Otherwise, I swear like a fuckin' sailor and never even got chewed out.

"Fuck" isn't profane, it's vulgar. "Goddamn" is profane.

If someone doesn’t understand the difference between swearing at and swearing around, that’s a shitty environment. If I say, “that was a shitty fucking outage” I am using some filler for emphasis so my mouth can catch up to my brain. If I say “you’re a fucking asshole” or “don’t be such a bitch” or “that’s fucking sexy” I am not being professional and I deserve some training on how to not be an ignorant walnut. Even with swearing around, I do think it’s smart to limit yourself to damnation, defecation, and simple fornication rather than gendered swears. There are also some places it’s not wise to swear around, such as client-facing roles because many of the people you will see don’t understand that swearing around is not swearing at.

I once lost a job after the onsite interview. I wait to swear until I I hear them swear. Apparently my use of “fuck” meant I was going to blow up and be a terrible person to my peers. Two years later I started running a department doing the thing I was interviewing for and my staff tends to be fiercely loyal. I’d argue my swearing speaks for itself and have shaped my professional attitude toward swearing around around this experience.

I work in tech and I’m quick to police my language if necessary. I’m also concerned about relative comfort (eg I try really hard not to blaspheme around some Christian peers). I do not swear at people. I do not work in a super corporate environment. YMMV.

I like study (you can find the full article online) and I think there’s been more research down this path in the years since.

I might die if I couldn't cuss while working. I'd just fucking explode.

I cuss during job interviews, both as the interviewer and applicant.

My boss told me verbally “don’t call your colleague a fascist by email or anything else that leaves a record”, so that was nice of him.

The difference is between cursing and cursing AT someone.

"The garage door broke." "Ah, fuck." - Fine "You fuck." - Not acceptable

If you get a written warning, it's probably time to start looking for a new job regardless.

It's pretty common in Australia, so long as we're not swearing at people nobody gives a fuck. I'd say unless your manager has mentioned it to you, it's not a huge deal.

Work in software project management. People swear pretty regularly. The higher up in the hierarchy you go, the more they swear. If a job gave me a warning for that I might leave because they treat their employees like children.

I'm a professional and I conduct myself like one at work. Your coworkers have the right to work in a non-hostile environment, and believe it or not, some people consider profanity to be hostile. Plus, there are more effective ways to communicate your thoughts in a professional environment than through profanity. I'll occasionally swear with a coworker I'm close with if we're one-on-one, but never in a group setting. Cursing is expected - almost mandatory - in some careers such as a restaurant kitchen, or a construction site, but I don't work in that sort of environment anymore.

Work in Germany, both in some retail jobs as a student, as well as as a dev, sometimes in rather 'fancy' office environments. No one ever cared, though I only ever cursed about a situation, never a person.

I build fences. 3 out of 4 words is fuck.

I once described a rather sharp bit of cold weather to my boss by explaining that I was "shaking like a shitting dog". He merely agreed.

It was a fucker that day, mind you.

At my job? No. That would not happen.

And it's funny you ask about outside the US because the way I learned this was our head of finance in Germany was visiting and as I passed the office where he was I heard him talking and it was just fucking this, fucking that, fuck so many times just in the time it took me to pass the office.

Now should you be cussing out customers? No, of course not. But no one in my office bats an eye and we often hear "what the fuck, Microsoft?!" when something doesn't work.

ITT: American HR vs the world.

I've had one boss comment on it, but that job was weird. They also only hired white people at that office and a secretary on another floor tried to get me fired because she thought I was gay.

Generally...keep it away from customers and don't be aggressive. Other than that it probably isn't a good habit, but I doubt anyone would normally care enough to say something about it.

At my company, they used to be a lot more tolerant of it, but we had exactly one person complain about excessive use of coarse language and then HR cracked the whip. They still don't really care that much about using swear words when just interacting in person with other people, as long as it's not bothering anybody else, but they heavily police our work chat to make sure that all of our messages are above the board in terms of professional conduct. Which makes sense, I can't really argue against the logic that the work chat should be a professional setting where you can communicate your thoughts and feelings without having to resort to using profanity. Sometimes people have to be reminded to not use profane language, but they never call anybody out specifically, they just send out "reminder" messages whenever they see it and usually the person who is responsible knows not to keep it up or else there will be a more direct reprimand.

It would be hard for me to not sometimes utter "fuck" under my breath while I'm at work, but if my bosses were concerned about it, I would just start channeling that into more work-appropriate language.

i called in when my truck broke down and said "its all fucked up....er messed up i mean"

my boss said everybody laughed at the call in 😂

I'm the Forman at my metal shop.. If you're not swearing in front of customers I don't give a fuck.

As long as you keep a cool head and pay attention to who's in the building, I'll let you get away with most things

First I was asked politely to not swear, even if I was not a customer facing employee.

Second time I was cautioned was because I'd switched to swearing in another language. Manager thought it was hilarious, but they still knew I was swearing.

I spent the next five years being increasingly creative with how I swore. A temporary (and loud) revert to English swearing when I was in a workplace accident was kindly ignored due to circumstance.

There was no third warning.

If I get a written warning, is this a reason good enough to start looking for employment elsewhere?

To those of you not in America. Is it different where you are?

Germany here. We have explicit laws protecting workers.

If the company wants to terminate your contract, then there are only a limited number of specific reasons that are allowed. And then they must observe a notice period usually (1-2 months). The worker can easily go to court against it (costs are moderate) to have it checked.

If they want to fire you immediately (all subsidiaries of foreign corporations usually want that, and most of the German big corpos too), they can suspend you from working, but you still get your pay until the end of the notice period, or you can make a termination agreement that ends the contract immediately and you get all that money (plus maybe a little more, negotiable) at once.

And there is another way: if you have severely violated your duties, then they can terminate you immediately, without paying any longer.

But it is only with very serious violations, where they can argue that it isn't tolerable for the company to have to endure you any longer. Many such events actually go to court afterwards, so they really have to be careful to do it right.

If the violation was not so severe, they can give you an official warning, usually in writing. You can also go to court against the warning, and the court can nullify it, if it was wrongful.

If you have received a warning and it was valid and afterwards you do the same violation again, then they can also terminate you immediately. And again, you can go to court to have it checked, like above.

-I got detention in high school after a teacher overheard a friend of mine asking me if we had homework and i said, "fuck if I know." Worth it, lol. -I got fussed at working in retail if they heard me swear but never officially written up

-at my first accounting job the controller screamed FUCK from inside her office once. Swearing was generally fine here

-current job i said "fuck yeah" in a meeting with no consequence. Swearing is generally fine so long as it's not within earshot of approximately 2 specific people.

I swear.. a lot. All the time. I do attempt, at least, to be mindful of the when and where, which is working out for me so far.

Edit: reading comprehension failure, I'm usa lol

If I'd be in trouble fr saying fuck or swearing in general, I'd be in trouble. I'm a software developer and I have to deal with shit like Microsoft products (any of them) and my own code as well. Good hing i speak enough languages to curse with variety and make it harder for people to know what I say

I've gotten a comment in my annual review, but I don't think it impacted by bottom line score. And tbf, I was swearing in front of clients, in an industry where a bit more professionalism is the norm.

I’ve always been fine as long as I follow it with, “Pardon my French.”

I have avoided that so far but I have had a few faa's and shii's and such where I stopped myself.