Seacoast 恍然大悟：原来讲粗话，骂人也是一种工作技能，显示在公司的地位等级高！？呜呼！我辈太要面子修养，被办公室酒鬼小姐的粗话骂死也不敢同流合污，给肥胖小姐吃醋捣鬼整死也没有骂过她。她俩赢了我输了。 都给传统淑女观害死了。象有个歌星唱道“我就是心太软，心太软”。 中国女同仁，以后在工作中不求被人喜，但求被人怕（尊重）！M....这才开始明白洪晃为何喜欢骂人。 That's passion ! That's rank! In the Workplace, Every Bleeping Word Can Show Your Rank Jared Sandberg. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Mar 21, 2006. pg. B.1 ANN GARCIA had to thread the needle. On the one hand, the No. 1 executive at her former company hated the use of profanity, seeing it as a sign of not having learned to communicate effectively. On the other hand, the No. 2 executive appreciated a potty mouth now and then because it indicated passion. He "felt that if you weren't swearing, you probably didn't care enough," says Ms. Garcia. As it happened, there weren't clashes over profanity so much as careful navigation of the office's language protocol. "When groups reported to the executive who was pro-profanity, it was acceptable," says Ms. Garcia. "With units who reported to the other one, things were very buttoned up." It's just that kind of divisive and shifting view of profanity that has spurred many corporations to memorialize policies against it, driven in large part by the fear of sexual harassment charges, which peaked in 2000 but still numbered nearly 13,000 in 2005, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Rand Corp., for example, which is against profanity for any reason, says, "Profanity will always offend someone, but the lack of profanity will never offend anyone." STILL, PROFANITY is a barometer of corporate culture because cussing up a blue streak may be taboo to some companies and expected in others. It's used as everything from a social bonding tool to a badge of status, from a weapon to a substitute for it. Not least, it's a stress reliever when a paper tray doesn't know it's already full, a voicemail system doesn't recognize a password, or when an automated restroom faucet splashes your pants, suggesting incontinence that is good for no one's career. "Uttering a profanity is almost like enjoying a breath of fresh air," concedes P.M. Forni, author of "Choosing Civility" and co- founder of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project. While he recognizes its usefulness, he hates it for the most part. "As a form of respect for the people around you whose sensitivities you cannot individually gauge, you should abstain from uttering profanities." In some workplaces, says Timothy Jay, a professor of psychology and author on cursing, "if you're the one who doesn't swear, you're the weirdo." He says "profane language can be very effective in gaining credibility," and has been a privilege of rank. Traditionally, "it works down the hierarchy, not up," he says. The difficulty in defining profanity -- one person's profanity is another's poetry -- is easy to see in action at the Federal Communications Commission, which last week affirmed that four-letter words aren't suitable for broadcasts except in rare cases when colorful expletives are "demonstrably essential to the nature of an artistic or educational work." That leaves room for the kind of differing of opinions that the FCC itself had when, in 2003, the singer Bono won a Golden Globe Award to which he replied, "this is really, really f -- ing brilliant!" At first, the FCC decided it was an innocuous adjective that was neither indecent nor obscene, not a profane noun. (Actually, it was an adverb, in this case.) Almost a year later, they reversed that and called the word "one of the most vulgar . . . explicit descriptions of sexual activity in the English language." CERTAIN WORKPLACES tend to lend themselves to swearing. Mike Dunton once worked for a bank where profanity was a mark of status. Traders on trading floors use foul language, he says, as a badge of accomplishment, sending a message that they swear because their value to the firm dictates they can. "You're not going to whack an earner over something verbal," he says. Similarly, Jay Sapovits, a sales executive who won't swear in certain environments, distrusts other salespeople who never find occasion to swear. "There's an inherent element of dishonesty with people who are in a situation where a swear is warranted and they don't swear," he says. "If a salesperson doesn't swear, they're either 1) not dialing the phone enough or 2) are not to be trusted." Not swearing was a career liability for Tim Orr. When he worked for an ad agency, the founder had one of the foulest mouths he had ever heard. It was contagious. "Over time, my mouth became pretty much just as foul as his," he says. "If you didn't give as good as you got, he would steamroller you." So they cursed like sailors, he says, " . . . sort of like comparing antler sizes." In almost any work environment, profanity can be a way to signal a level of intimacy among colleagues. As Amanda Jacobson Snyder, who works for a data publishing company, puts it, "It's sort of like a friendship's second base." But it can look "pathetic" when a boss does it, says Timothy Dougherty. When he worked for a media company, the president "made Chris Rock sound like Professor Higgins," he says. It rubbed off on people around him who were trying to be join his inner circle. "They were using it to ingratiate themselves." It worked on the president, Mr. Dougherty says: "He kept people around him who he thought were his kind of people." --- |
