
Ask HN: Formal HR warning for swearing in a casual chat room – is this normal? - mrmondo
So, I was in the wrong and had built up a lot of steam one day around some ongoing problems that an organisation had failed to address many times over and I stupidly said something along the lines of &#x27;I&#x27;m so sick of all the issues for project X always being last minute, unplanned and untested... I&#x27;m really sick of this shit!&#x27;<p>Obviously I shouldn&#x27;t have sworn and I should have been more professional (despite raising the issues formally on many occasions previously over several years).<p>So while I know I was in the wrong and said something stupid, I was wondering if this is common place for petty sentences like this to be sort of &#x27;bureaucratised&#x27; by HR?<p>Even the team in question said any formal warning was totally over the top and not at all what they wanted to occur but it seemed HR had made their mind up already.<p>So, I&#x27;m not trying to expose or have a go at any organisation here, I&#x27;m genuinely interested to hear if anyone else has a similar experience, especially anyone who&#x27;s not in the US where I believe it&#x27;s very easy to fire people etc... which is (I can assure you) not what they&#x27;re trying to do with me.
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mattbillenstein
That seems extreme -- they could be in CYA mode to document reasons to fire
you.

I've worked at places like this -- they didn't have the balls to fire anyone
for worry that they'd get sued for wrongful termination; so to get rid of a
problem employee, they'd spend 6-12 months building up evidence or working on
a "performance improvement plan" or whatever.

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mrmondo
I know exactly what you mean and I've seen it happen at other places but I can
assure you this is not the case here, I won't go into detail but you'll just
have to take my word for it, but thank you for the warning just incase.

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FLGMwt
I'm curious, what language did HR use?

I'm surprised by that response to what seems legitimate expression of
frustration, but not aghast.

In all likelihood, it was someone on your team who was discomforted by the
chat and mentioned it to hr. At that point, they don't have much of an option
but to discuss it with you, especially if there is no explicit policy for
swearing.

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mrmondo
No it was someone working on one of the project parts but they didn't complain
to HR they mentioned it to their manager who then brought it up but didn't
lodge a complaint for a warning.

That same manager then apologised and said that he didn't intend / want it to
be something formal like that at all but it seemed too late.

~~~
meric
I suggest just taking it at face value - it's a warning. Don't swear again.
Make it clear you regret swearing and being unprofessional in that instance
and it won't happen again. I think that's the best way to go whether they're
"building a case" or only wanted to issue you a warning.

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borplk
I don't really know. I'd guess it depends on the type of organisation. In a
casual startup I would hear coworkers saying fuck a good 20 times a day and no
one cared.

