Before you decide to turn your office breakroom into your personal comedy cellar, here are my 3 rules for cursing in the office.
Whether you’re about to go nuts due to a stressful situation or just want to add a little extra color to a conversation, determining when and how to curse in the office is something to be handled very carefully.
Modern Manners Guy is hosted by Richie Frieman. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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Cursing can sometimes get a bad rap for being “improper,” mainly due to how it’s being used and by whom. However, I’d like to make the argument that cursing—when done with class—can in fact be a useful tool to have in your arsenal for giving a statement a little extra umph. For example, as a huge fan of comedy, whether with TV, movies, or standup, my range of taste in humor stretches longer than a free burrito line at a Chipotle on a college campus. Whether you’re for or against cursing, the real issue is how the curse words are being used and in which context. That is where the real difference between properly cursing and looking brash comes into play.
See, if you have to curse because it’s your last resort to prove a point, you probably haven’t mastered the art of laying a four-letter smackdown to a situation. Yet, when you are able to use cursing to add greater meaning to a topic in the correct manner, it can be the delicious cherry on top of a sweet scoop of “take that.” In the workplace, however, properly delivering a correctly timed curse, with the right tone to match, is something that needs to be addressed and assessed from a manners perspective. Lucky for you, I’m up for the task!
So, before you decide to turn your office breakroom into your personal comedy cellar, here are my 3 rules for cursing in the office.
In real estate, agents always talk about “location, location, location” to make a purchase and for comedy, it’s all about, “audience, audience, audience” to make a proper impact. I’ve mentioned the concept of “knowing your audience” in a previous episode and when it comes to using a curse word in a work setting—where not everyone may appreciate it—that concept is more important than ever.
Here’s a true story of a former colleague, Walter (name changed to protect the not-so-innocent), whose superpower was not being able to read a room. His other supernatural ability was to have zero concept for what is and is not considered in good taste. Case in point, during a happy hour to celebrate a coworker named Abby (not their real name) and their promotion to Vice President, all fifteen people in attendance took turns saying something sweet about Abby’s achievements. One person mentioned that Abby hired them and always had their back, another said Abby deserved it for being there so long, and so forth. Some comments even had a funny work-related story. Once Walter saw that humor had entered the party, he was well prepared when his chance came. And sure enough, he took the time to break out his desire for the big screen. You can tell where this is going. Walter decided it was this golden opportunity was meant to recite a movie scene that showcased a hard-working individual’s rise to the top. The movie he chose was a cinematic masterpiece that displayed an insane amount of greed and depravity—The Wolf of Wall Street. Already his choice was off because that movie does anything but promote positive career choices. Yet, Walter went one layer deeper by reciting the scene known as the “Rich Man Speech.” If you haven’t seen it, Google it. In short, the company’s fledgling leader, Jordan Belfort played by Leonardo DiCaprio, rallies his classless disciples with “words of wisdom” in a curse-filled tirade, about being able to wear “a $2,000 suit and a $40,000 gold f---in’ watch!” That’s just a small sample of Walter’s “funny” monologue.
Now, in Walter’s defense—and I’m not defending him at all—he was trying to say that his coworker was so successful that she could do all of those things because of her promotion. Not only was that scene nowhere close to a good example of Abby, but his tasteless use of cursing showed how deeply inept Walter was to be a professional.
Walter’s failed attempt at using curse-filled humor was one example of not understanding that this particular type of comedy was not welcomed at his office. Let’s be honest, it’s not welcomed at ANY office. Folks, I’m all about lacing a compliment with some humor to make something more playful or personal, however, choose wisely for the sake of the people around you. Cursing in the office is a touchy subject to begin with, yet time and time again, when someone who usually enjoys cursing gets too comfortable, they tend to let four-letter words fly the moment they see an opportunity to do so. However close-knit an office may be, don’t think just because you’re out of the office that it’s always a good time to let your guard down with your humor. Be it one on one, in the elevator, at a happy hour, or at the coffee machine, if your office is not a place that normally talks like a drunken sailor, don’t be the one to try and guide the ship off course.
When it comes to someone speaking their mind, there’s freedom of speech and well, simply just being a shmuck. To that point, when someone who is reprimanded for their tone or opinions utters the sad defense of, “I’m just me being me,” I want to find the quickest way to escape their ignorance forever. If someone resorts to the “me being me” defense, chances are their version of right and wrong is so incredibly distorted that any common sense has been thrown out the window. When someone says that statement they are using it to ignore the concept of having to change some flawed behavior they refuse to kick. Whether that behavior is minor or extreme, when you’re dealing with the “me being me” person in the office, it can be difficult to get your point through their thick heads. This goes for someone who is a chronic curser. You know this person: they curse around staff, clients, or in public and while you bury your head, they add, “Sorry… it’s just me being me.” The ugly cousin to “me being me” is usually when someone blames it on their cultural background or how they grew up. No excuse in the office, I’m sorry. So, when it comes to them cursing in the office as “their style” or “joking around” or “me being me,” you can’t tolerate them being themselves as a proper answer.
There’re two things that happen when a person refuses to alter their method of cursing in the office. First, when someone always overuses cursing, it loses the importance of the word and you can’t tell if they’re upset or trying to be funny. It’s like the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine’s love interest, Dr. Pfeffer, would overuse the word “breathtaking” to describe several opposing instances. He called her breathtaking, then also referred to a rather ugly baby as breathtaking as well, which threw Elaine in a tailspin of wondering on which level of breathtaking she stood. Same thing goes for cursing: if you overuse a word for emphasis, it takes away the true power and influence of the desired result. You just look like someone who needs to curse because they can’t articulate a proper statement without it. Secondly, it ruins the fun of cursing for the entire office. Sometimes, cursing is a welcomed relief, but not when it’s so played out.
The great, Muhammad Ali once said, “Don't count the days, make the days count,” which is a reminder that if you’re going to do something, do it right every time, every day. I look at that quote when thinking about moments in someone’s career when they must stand up for something they believe in. Yes, speaking up is tough, yet when it really matters—and when you make it count—people will always respect you in the end. I like this quote when trying to make my point about how to properly use cursing in the office: if you’re going to do it, make it count, my mannerly friends... tastefully, of course. Whether you’re for or against cursing in the office (or cursing in general), if you’ve reached the point of no return, in which cursing is the only feasible option, I highly recommend taking the time to craft your foul-mouthed message properly. After all, since cursing is a way to inflict more emotion (good or bad), add intensity (the stronger the better), and put a stamp on a statement (funny or frustrated), then make it count.
For example, have you ever been in a situation at work where someone who rarely curses decides to do so out of the blue? It’s shocking, right? Your eyes widen, your eyebrows rise, and you definitely perk up to hear what’s about to come next. The rarity of someone cursing out of the norm—whether it’s to make something funnier or make a statement bolder—always has more effect than using it on the hour. So, when I say to use cursing properly, make it worth your breath to turn heads. If you don’t choose wisely, then you can come across as crass, tacky, or worst of all, trying too hard to get your point across, which means it wasn’t that important in the first place.