Maybe it's just me, but I don't give two shits about swear words. They are the same as other words to me and have almost no negative connotation. I don't think twice about swearing at work, and neither do the other people my age (24) that I work with.
I'm in my mid 30's and generally agree with this attitude.
However, I have a couple of rules:
1) Avoid swearing with clients/customers/investors, at least wait until a relationship is established and they signal they're okay with it.
2) Avoid swearing in written communication, e.g., in emails or commit messages – don't even really like seeing it in team-wide slack channels, though I do it occasionally.
I don't mind swearing personally, but I do think it can be rude or unprofessional. Part of it is just signaling that you understand business etiquette and how to be polite in that setting – i.e., "professional."
For example, if I'm interviewing someone who immediately starts dropping tons of f-bombs, I'm going to judge that negatively – not as a deal breaker but as a warning flag.
I guess it would be similar to how I'd react if somebody immediately launched into a diatribe about religion or politics (regardless of whether I sympathized with their view). Like swearing, they're fine in a conversation between acquaintances, but they can easily veer into offensive territory if you don't know the other person. If you don't understand or don't care that you might be offending someone, I would be concerned about your ability to communicate effectively.
I know that in my environment swearing does have a tone to it, it isn't a taboo but it isn't something you throw in to every sentence either. It's useful to sound more aggressive/assertive/confident - but if you use it all the time it loses weight.
I'm 40, and I feel exactly the same, personally. However, I don't swear around others until it's been established that they're swearers too. That said, I don't think I've ever worked anywhere where people didn't swear pretty commonly. And when I was your age, the 40 year olds were swearing too.
I think it's about the attitude it fosters and enables. It enables and fosters 'bro' culture and 'bachellorette' culture. And that can lead to people thinking it's okay to refer to others as bitches and duchebags etc.
Careful with that slippery slope! I curse profusely and I think referring to people as bitches is 100% unacceptable. I think there's room for respectful swearing. Swear about ideas, don't swear about people.
I don't agree with this. We swear about situations, problems, issues and so on, but when you attack people, with any type of words, you've stepped over a line.
Misleading headline: the article reports only analyze the responses by millennials; it do not compare them to older demographics, or to changes over time. (Unsure if this is the case with the original survey, which Bloomberg does not link to.)
EDIT: The article seems to more accurately argue "This Generation Has A 50/50 Probability of Swearing at Work."
Comment about the form rather than the content: It's an interesting choices of colors for the chart. Women are in Blue on the left and Men in Pink on the right.
Because of stereotypes and the fact that I didn't pay attention to the legend, I read all the charts the wrong way the first time.
I can't recall where I read that but back in the days blue was considered girl's color (because it is the color of some delicate flowers, not to mention sky), and pink was considered boy's (because it's vauge resemblance of blood, preferably of his enemies slain in battle).
I'm also slightly confused by the first graph. If I'm reading it correctly (and I could be completely wrong, so somebody please correct me), it seems like both the men and women's percentage add up to over 100%. So unless some people gave multiple answers, there's something not quite right in the representation of the data.
I think it's important to also point out that this generation is also a little more sensitive about using derogatory / racist / sexist terms towards others that target specific groups and/or individuals. So you could say it's a wash -- some words (fuck, shit, etc) just don't have the same negative connotations anymore and are used very frequently even in professional settings, but other types of speech have become more taboo.
I'm late GenX. I used to swear like a sailor at work (and everywhere really) until I had a kid and I actively had to mitigate the use of my preferred expletives. A lot of fricks and dangs these days. My favorite? "Poop on a stick."
Whenever I see these "this generation does such-and-such" article, I have to wonder if it's really a generational thing or just an age thing. Do 20-something millenials really swear more than 20-something Gen-Xers or 20-something baby boomers did? I think probably not, but maybe people just tend to swear less as they get older.
A lot is age, though an underappreciated element I've noticed is economic climate.
Boomers, relative to other generations, had everything on a platter. GenX started relatively strong, but with some stumbles. Early millennials walked straight into the dot-com crash, then early 2000s boom.
Late millennials came into a complete shitshow, SV and finance being about the only real exceptions.
Having watched a bunch of early bloggers get really quiet, the FB generation oversharing strikes me as probably time-limited. About when the first wave of divorces starts, I figure.
Readit News
However, I have a couple of rules:
1) Avoid swearing with clients/customers/investors, at least wait until a relationship is established and they signal they're okay with it.
2) Avoid swearing in written communication, e.g., in emails or commit messages – don't even really like seeing it in team-wide slack channels, though I do it occasionally.
I don't mind swearing personally, but I do think it can be rude or unprofessional. Part of it is just signaling that you understand business etiquette and how to be polite in that setting – i.e., "professional."
For example, if I'm interviewing someone who immediately starts dropping tons of f-bombs, I'm going to judge that negatively – not as a deal breaker but as a warning flag.
I guess it would be similar to how I'd react if somebody immediately launched into a diatribe about religion or politics (regardless of whether I sympathized with their view). Like swearing, they're fine in a conversation between acquaintances, but they can easily veer into offensive territory if you don't know the other person. If you don't understand or don't care that you might be offending someone, I would be concerned about your ability to communicate effectively.
I am a sysadmin, I frequently swear in the most vulgar and crass way. However I do not and will not tolerate 'bro' culture.
If you are acting like a cunt to my fellow worker, I will make your work life a fuck sight more testing.
Do not pick on my fellow man/women, for I shall haunt you like a wet fart.
Dead Comment
Observe.
Swearing is lazy. It adds nothing to sentences. No value.
Which version was clearer?
Caveat: swearing used strategically can be fucking beautiful.
Something being 'fucking lazy' might not add more than something being 'lazy', but something being 'fucked' is an altogether different use.
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EDIT: The article seems to more accurately argue "This Generation Has A 50/50 Probability of Swearing at Work."
I wonder if millennials are more likely to replace words with other words using browser plugins.
So it's marginally funny at best?
on topic:
I swear occasionally, not that often, in conversations with people.
I mutter swear words under my breath at my computer in a constant stream some days.
Yeah, my bar is pretty low for this.
Because of stereotypes and the fact that I didn't pay attention to the legend, I read all the charts the wrong way the first time.
Boomers, relative to other generations, had everything on a platter. GenX started relatively strong, but with some stumbles. Early millennials walked straight into the dot-com crash, then early 2000s boom.
Late millennials came into a complete shitshow, SV and finance being about the only real exceptions.
Having watched a bunch of early bloggers get really quiet, the FB generation oversharing strikes me as probably time-limited. About when the first wave of divorces starts, I figure.