AIBU: swearing ban at work

[JammieJones]

We’ve all recently been moved around offices and I’ve ended up in an office which has a swearing ban. I’d been there 2 hours when I was told by member of staff that she doesn’t like swearing and doesn’t want it in her office. I hadn’t sworn she was just letting me know.

We are the same level at work and after asking other members of staff who’ve worked with her for a long time she really really hates swearing and pulls people up on it.

Fair enough she doesn’t want people screaming fucking cuntbadger across the office but crap, damn and bloody are also on the banned list.

I realise I’ve come into “her” office but AIBU to think she can’t police other adults language (especially as we are all the same grade). I don’t particularly like the egg sandwiches she eats every day but I’m not going to ban them!

As I said before - my old boss (a vicar) used to swear. His junior (rather positive faced and hell n damnation) didn’t.

I also think it is unprofessional to swear at work beyond the occasional bloody hell.

@Redglitter Oh ffs quite honestly thatd just make me more inclined to swear more - because I AM that childish

Are you me????

I swear an awful lot. Normal language just doesn't seem to get the true / valid point across a lot of the time....

'hello mrs smith ive come with your cunting tablets, fucking take them '..no dont think it will work in hospitals lol

@OhDearGodLookAtThisMess
My colleagues and I swear like sailors. We're in a school office. I've taking to finding swear words in french now because we've worn all the English ones out. I also throw 'nmfp' (not my fucking problem) in on an increasingly regular basis.
I don't think we'd last 30 minutes if we had a ban imposed on us.

My boss is one of the worst offenders when it comes to swearing in the office. He walks in and instead of saying good morning or hello to me he just turns to me and says fuck off cstaff.

At a night out we were slagging each other and he pipes up with I am the most PC boss you've ever had to which I replied Yeah you're a right poxy cunt. So as you can guess we get away with quite a bit having him to contend with .

I don't swear at work but you'd better believe I swear all the rest of the bloody time.

I don't consider 'bloody' a swear word though ;-)

I wouldn't have been able to help myself, I'd have said "Oh I'm so glad you brought it up, I also have a list of words I don't permit others to say."

I think my banned list would include:

niggle
gusset (obvs)
blue sky thinking
ventilator
luncheon
and the name Martha.

I've worked in many sweary offices, and people have been disciplined about swearing at people. So, ffs, printer is broken, totally fine, you're an f-ing f-er, disciplinary action.

So yes, if she could construe you swearing at her, could cause trouble.

Personally think she has an unnecessary stick up her butt, I'm not a fan of swearing all the time, but have never stopped anyone else from expressing themselves.

Where exactly is it that all of you work that you swear all day? And why so much encouragement for the OP to swear
Likewise, I've worked in offices over 30 years and nowhere have I found a culture of swearing. Maybe a very occasional curse if something has gone badly wrong, but definitely not the norm. I swear like a trooper within my own 4 walls.

Are you in Theresa may’s office?

I no longer work in the UK, but at the time I was leaving (8 years ago) I was getting the impression swearing in the work place was getting less acceptable.

I remember someone (also female) telling me something was fucking ridiculous, and then emailing me 20 minutes later to apologise.

Maybe I am wrong but I think what is acceptable in UK office's may be changing.

Well, Shit is old English/Saxon, Fuck is of unknown origin though probably pre-dating the Saxons...

So you say shit, she says language, you can say Old English/Saxon.
Word entomology can be fun

Word entomology can be fun

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entomology

Please go and buy yourself a mug for the office from holy flaps/filthy sentiments. They have some awesome sweary stuff. And technically you're not saying the words so she can't really tell you off... would love to see her face as you casually swig your coffee from a mug that says "I do not spit profanities. I enunciate them clearly...Like a fucking lady"

If she said "Language" to me I would just explain to her that I was simply speaking good old Anglo Saxon, and that it was one of my native languages.

I might even tell her I had a degree in it.

The entomology of Fuck might not be clear but the German verb for it is ficken. German for fucker is also Ficker. Could it be teutonic?

I too would struggle with this - I love swearing, don’t actually swear that much at work (depending who I am around - it’s a school, anyway, so a lot of the time obviously one CAN’T swear), but if somebody actively told me not to swear, and this wasn’t in a client-facing context (for want of a better term) I would be furious!

Having said that, I automatically don’t swear in direct conversation with colleagues who don’t swear themselves, and who I sense don’t like it/ know don’t like it on faith grounds/whatever. I think that is reasonable, normal manners - not essential, but polite. They might possibly overhear me swearing to others, though, and I wouldn’t feel bad about that.

When speaking with clients on the phone there is nothing worse than hearing swearing going on in the background, hardly professional, I never hear the bin men swearing so are they more professional than you.

A colleague of mine got a job managing a highways depot, all hairy-arsed lorry and digger drivers who'd never had a female boss.

On her first day, one jack-the-lad type said "I suppose we'll have to stop swearing now we've got a woman in charge". She replied "Don't be a cunt, now fuck off and get that fucking wagon out of this shithole".

She got cheers from the rest of them, and they called her "bosscunt" thereafter. She took it as a compliment.

We're very sweary. We like to say "cunting" at least once a day in memory of a much missed colleague who was the champion foulmouth.

What's this pillock's job title? Head of Profanity?

What's this pillock's job title? Head of Profanity?

Head of the Morality Police, I suspect. Bugger having one's language policed by some pearl-clutching hysteric. There's only one thing for it OP, you're going to have to go full flooding on this. Every other word needs to be a bastarding fucking cunting swear word until she's so used to it she doesn't notice it any more.

Until then, she can fuck right off.

I tbink swearing is a bit *$#t to be honest. There are better ways to communicate

"Don't be a cunt, now fuck off and get that fucking wagon out of this shithole".

she sounds like a petulant child.

I must admit i would find it odd being in an environment that is very sweary at the higher end of swearing. I like a well timed f bomb as much as the rest, but saying someone needs a 'cunting coffee' on a regular basis at work sounds awful to me (yes that's my issue), and I'm not entirely convinced it's workplace language. Swearing to let of steam in a private conversation is fair enough, but I don't really get workplaces where every other word is a swear word.

However, this colleague sounds stupid to me. She doesn't have the right to dictate that bloody is a swear word and to tell other adults to mind their language in a patronising fashion.

The best I’ve seen is proto-Germanic root for fuck, so came before the Saxons through the proto-Germanic parts of Celtic language.

mentalfloss.com/article/61819/42-old-english-insults
I like these. Call her a gobermouch!