Thursday, October 18, 2007

Profanity...fuck yeah!

From AFP:

Regular swearing at work can help boost team spirit among staff, allowing them to express better their feelings as well as develop social relationships, according to a study by researchers.

Yehuda Baruch, a professor of management at the University of East Anglia, and graduate Stuart Jenkins studied the use of profanity in the workplace and assessed its implications for managers.

They assessed that swearing would become more common as traditional taboos are broken down, but the key appeared to be knowing when such language was appropriate and when to turn to blind eye.

The pair said swearing in front of senior staff or customers should be seriously discouraged or banned, but in other circumstances it helped foster solidarity among employees and express frustration, stress or other feelings.

"Employees use swearing on a continuous basis, but not necessarily in a negative, abusive manner," said Baruch, who works in the university's business school in Norwich.

Banning swear words and reprimanding staff might represent strong leadership, but could remove key links between staff and impact on morale and motivation, he said.

"We hope that this study will serve not only to acknowledge the part that swearing plays in our work and our lives, but also to indicate that leaders sometimes need to 'think differently' and be open to intriguing ideas.

"Managers need to understand how their staff feel about swearing. The challenge is to master the 'art' of knowing when to turn a blind eye to communication that does not meet their own standards."

The study, "Swearing at work and permissive leadership culture: when anti-social becomes social and incivility is acceptable", is published in the latest issue of the Leadership and Organisational Development Journal.

I love using profanity. Let me further clarify that remark.

I motherfucking love swearing.

Get the point?

I have never really understood the taboo of using profane language. Why are certain words considered obscene? They are just words. It annoys the shit out of me like adults who can't say penis and vagina without cracking up. Seriously, if you have some insight please post it in the comments (and I saw the South Park episode about curse words; as entertaining as that episode was, I don't think that was legit).

I don't use profanity to be shocking or obscene, they are just handy-dandy words that help get my point across as accurately as possible. Here's a scenario: my flight tomorrow gets delayed 6 or so hours. Which do you think conveys my emotion better?

A. I'm really mad.

B. I'm fucking pissed.

See what I mean. I didn't use fuck like Larry Flynt would, I used it like Bono, so it's ok because he's practically the Irish Jesus.

Despite my love of using profanity, I know there is a time and place, as this article suggests. I don't swear in front of children, people I don't know, or people that I know will be offended. As much of an asshole I am on this blog, I am actually a very respectful person (except to old people, I wish they would all just die) (except old people who swear, they can hang with me any time they want). You could also argue that by swearing on this blog I am not being respectful of people I don't know. Well la-de-fucking-da. Swearing on the internet is a victimless crime, like punching someone in the dark.

And I can fully agree with this study as I actually manage people. I know, scary huh? Swearing makes it easier to relate to my underlings employees, as it lowers me to their level. I'm pretty intimidating with my high-powered position, $50 haircut, and shiny shoes, so when I speak to them like a sailor it gets them thinking "Wow, Jon called that woman a twat because she is acting like a twat. I can relate to him and will do whatever he asks without objection." Sweet deal.

Now I need to wrap this shit up before this building gets struck by lightning and my my ass bursts into flames.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Profanity is the effort of a weak mind to express force !

Jon said...

anon:

Thanks for your valuable input. It really cleared up my question. Now did you figure this one out by yourself or did your whole church group contribute?