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!

If they are moving people to mix it up a bit and create a kind of hot desk situation then why the hell did they not move the one person who sounds like they need it. I can appreciate her point of view to a certain extent but there are ways of going about it - not laying down HER rules the minute someone else comes in.

YANBU- Egg sandwiches make me retch. Anyway you can stick a note on the sandwiches saying ‘these fuckin stink of old cunt’ on them?

i work in an emergency services control room where every other word is a swear word. she'd have the screaming abdabs if she worked in our environment.
The managers have tried ti moderate it, and failed. People deal with the very stressful environment by swearing.
anyway, it's apparently an indicator of intelligence www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/swearing-study-intelligent-intelligence-university-of-rochester-a7916516.html - so next time tell her that and tell her to fuck off while smiling sweetly

Egg sandwiches are far more offensive than a few instances of bloody or damn I couldn't work in a room that smelt of egg.

As another poster has said, it sounds like The Good Place with everyone primly spouting "what the fork?!"

Seriously, I'd check with HR and also point out that you've been moved around to stop exactly this kind of behaviour, and that if you are expected to tolerate the stink of her egg sandwiches every day then surely you can speak as you usually do without being nitpicked by someone the same paygrade as you

You need a mug with cutting coffee written on it.

Seriously the amount of people on this thread who say they couldn’t work without swearing. If I swore at my work I’d be pulled up on it, and given a warning probably. I swear all the time out side of work but I’m an adult and can refrain from it when I need to.

I don't swear in the office. I just find it unprofessional and unnecessary. I remember a new MD saying 'Bollocks' on his first day and I was shocked he hadn't got to know his audience before determining whether it was acceptable to swear.
I really couldn't work anywhere the 'c' word was used. I just can't bear it. I'd get another job and leave asap.

In my last office we were joined by a very religious lady who found our swearing difficult, she wasn't unpleasant about it so we worked on toning it down but we were starting from a pretty full on level.
We worked in child protection and some people just deserve to be sworn about.
Work on your language skills OP.

I used to work with someone who literally used to swear every sentence. No exaggeration. She'd be walking down the fucking street, went into a fucking cafe and had her fucking dinner at this new fucking place.
I mean why? I'd be all for a ban. At the risk of sounding 95 it's not big and it's not clever

"these fuckin stink of old cunt’"

That made me lol.

I work with a lot of very Christiany Americans and they get pursy lips if I say God or damn. Those are my polite expressions for when I can't say fuck or shite.

It's really hard. I just end up saying nothing.

I recommend you order a work mug and pens from filthysentiments.com I'm protest. I've got a stack of the pens that the others love and two mugs at work, I am the resident potty mouth 😂. I'm lucky my work colleagues don't mind swearing or I'd never be aloud to speak.

Get yourself and the team a sweary cup for morning tea like of these ....

ohhh get some good words that you can substitute for fuck or cunt, i mean you can go literal with... ohhhh SEXUAL INTERCOURSE!!!!! or GRRRR VAGINA!!!! GREAT FLAMING BAG OF DOG EXCREMENT!!!!!!! or start using words like MOIST!!!!!! or as someone said above... GUSSET!!!!! or swear in other languages, none of those are cuss words so if she pulls you up on them, i would then tell her to fuck off that you were obeying her stupid Victorian rules and she should be fucken thanking you for your restraint in not saying CUNT!!!!!

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

Oh I don't know. During a recent A&E visit a doc had finally written me up for morphine, but I'd asked a nurse where my fucking morphine was (excruciating pain). Nurse comes back, I've got your fucking morphine Steve.

I think context is everything really, IT was very sweary and my server-side code had a litany of swears. I can understand not wanting someone to be called a "fucking cunt" but general swears? Pfft.

If she disapproves of swearing then fine, she doesn't have to indulge in it. But policing other people's behaviour in this way - even to the point of constantly pulling them up on the use of the mild profanities you point out - is not reasonable. In fact, it's far from it.

I take the point about working an office where the fuck bombs were being dropped every other word and used as fillers in conversation; this would get on my nerves too. And I don't like 'cunt' at all except under very severe provocation. But there are contexts - albeit not everyday ones - in which strong profanities are entirely appropriate. There's occasional swearing, then there is foulmouthed. There's a difference.

My guess is that your po-faced, primly-behaved colleague has just entered into an exercise in futility, but it should be interesting to see how this transpires!

A PP asked: What type of places do those of you in sweary places work in out if interest??

Academia.

NB. rocking with laughter at the 'gusset!' and 'moist' euphemisms! This could catch on ....

coarse language is coarse, and lazy. Your boss is raising all your standards. You should be very grateful. Send her a thank-you card for
making you realise this. Make note of how much coarse language you hear around you, at home.

I have no doubt if you deliberately flout the request/order, you ought to start looking for another placement. It's especially demeaning for women to swear like troopers. I am an old man, so you know where I am coming from.

I hate it when people use it on the street, in public. I hate it in movies.
I hate it when I see the C word on mumsnet. (and other words, but not so much). I don't understand how adults can bring themselves to write it. I hate BBC broadcasters using the word fart. They do it almost without thinking, and they should not use it.

(I think I have used the F word once on MN, and I thought long and hard before doing so - I didn't have to, and maybe shouldn't have)

The last 10 or so posts have a few F and C's. Unnecessary.

eg -- I bet a lot of people are put off potty mouth Maura on Love Island.

When it comes to language, you need to learn from the masters ...

If just ignore her and carry on. Then again I’ve sworn when my kids are in earshot so another adult couldn’t police me. If she tells you off for a word I’d simply ask, what exactly is she going to do about it? Her answer will be nothing and so I’d carry on. If she became ridiculous about I’d suggest banning her sandwich because you don’t like the smell and really make it known how horrible it is. Play her at her own silly game.

Why do people feel such a need to be able to swear? Especially when the swearing is usually to just draw attention on what someone is trying to convey?

You see it almost every day here, even messages with swear words in the title? I'm so f* pissed off at my neighbour because I'm angry at my neighbour seems to to convey the intensity of that anger ( when most of the time, the intensity doesn't seem justified in the first place).

I find people who swear regularly attentiin seekers and I'm less likely to pay attention to them than those who can express themselves without having recourse to swear words.

I'd make a point of using words Very close to the swear words - even making them up to sound offensive and then use them repeatedly!!! Like saying "oh FUP" or " that was really shik" ... close enough to make her ears prick up but not on her banned list - whats she going to do- ban everything !?!?!?!

I find "FUTTOCKS!" useful as a substitute swearword. Probably because I am very old and used to listen to Round the Horne as a child which featured Kenneth Williams as J Peasemold Gruntfuttock.

Futtocks are middle timbers of a ship's frame.

I meant to add that I could sometimes be heard quietly muttering 'kin 'ell! (i.e. short for fucking hell) at particularly trying times at work. Would she hear/object to that?