
This Generation Is Most Likely to Swear at Work - BWStearns
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-10/eff-millennials-this-generation-is-most-likely-to-swear-at-work
======
lightbyte
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.

~~~
mc32
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.

~~~
roflc0ptic
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.

~~~
mc32
I suppose. I do see the difference, but go into a sales meeting after the
client leaves and tell me how they speak about the client. The expletives are
directed at both animate and inanimate entities.

~~~
icebraining
You can insult and belittle people without swearwords, the two are just
commonly used together, not necessarily related.

------
minimaxir
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."

------
STRiDEX
Replacing millennials with snake people is especially funny in this article.

I wonder if millennials are more likely to replace words with other words
using browser plugins.

~~~
serge2k
> especially funny in this article.

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.

~~~
STRiDEX
> marginally funny

Yeah, my bar is pretty low for this.

------
vmarsy
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.

~~~
mamon
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).

------
some-guy
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.

------
Clubber
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."

~~~
stinkytaco
I learned about "get your poop in a group" from a coworker who works with
children.

~~~
Clubber
That's a good one, I'll have to remember to add it to my repertoire.

------
imgabe
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.

~~~
dredmorbius
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.

------
askafriend
Fuck everyone, I just want to ship product.

~~~
buckbova
Then get back to work and stop dicking around on HN.

~~~
askafriend
That is a good fucking point, thank you for the reminder :)

------
noonespecial
_“Don 't use words too big for the subject. Don't say infinitely when you mean
very; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something
really infinite.”_ ― C.S. Lewis

If you swear infrequently (and get a reputation as such), you'll have
something to say on those occasions where you _really_ need everyone to stop
and listen to you.

------
Avshalom
Has it ever been otherwise? I am sure when snake people have kids _they 'll_
be the most likely to swear and so on.

------
gh1
There might be correlation between workplace stress and the amount of
swearing. Health care coming out on top at 64 % closely followed by finance at
62 % suggests this pattern to me.

This article doesn't make sense at times. It says young women are more likely
to swear in the workplace and follows this up by saying millennial men are
more comfortable with workplace swearing compared to millennial women
(hypocrisy alert). They follow this up with a histogram that shows that men
are more uncomfortable with workplace swearing. Huh?

------
AcerbicZero
I went from my second deployment, straight into the work world, and I brought
along the vocabulary to prove it. To be fair I don't swear "at" people, only
at technology, but I'm sure in some environments I'd need to clean it up a
little.

------
josephv
Click bait I'm not clicking on. Advice from an almost-millennial (born 1981)
and someone that's hired and fired countless programmers: don't swear at work,
it makes you sound stupid. Some days you will swear more than others because
some days and situations fucking suck.

Don't call people names regardless of your stance on swearing.

Know the audience, all communication should be tailored to who is listening,
you should know if the person(s) you are talking to will tolerate swearing or
not.

Swearing and using bad grammar or spelling are probably equal in many regards.
Sometimes you can get away with it, but know who you are talking or typing to.

~~~
freshflowers
I agree with the "know the audience" part.

As in: much of your audience here isn't American, and you obviously are.

~~~
josephv
Well, I guess that's true. Given the site is an aggregator for a SF-based
incubator I figured a reasonable enough number of people would be a American.

I'm also not sure why my comments have anything to do with being an American.
I think not swearing at work would be universally good advice. I guess if
swearing at work is integral to your identity you may be offended by someone
declaring that you shouldn't swear at work. But it's generally not a good idea
if you're wanting to optimize your career progression.

------
optforfon
At least when it comes to startups this makes total sense. Work is
increasingly both your work and your life. Your friends are increasingly your
colleagues.

Traditionally you don't cuss in the work place b/c you have to stay
professional - ie. you have to not be emotional about your work. Cussing is a
form of injecting emotion into your speech. If you are at the office 12 hours
a day with your friends, then the lines get blurred.

Personally I don't like the trend, but to each his own. There are pluses and
minuses to each type of workplace

------
A3mercury
I don't find value in cussing in any setting personally. I don't mind when
others cuss, but I just don't really feel it necessarily when I speak. I find
it ironic at my place of work.. we're told not to wear headphones working long
term at a clients office, but my CEO has no problem cussing in a pitch meeting
with a new client.

------
rhapsodic
Years ago, I stopped using profanity at work, unless it's in private
conversations with people I really trust and/or consider close personal
friends.

It's partly out of simple respect for my coworkers, but a big motivation is
the personal risk involved. These days, there are more than a few people who
will complain to HR about anything and everything that might offend them. And
I simply don't want to be on the receiving end of any of those complaints.

And what's ironic, is the people I'm referring to, at least in my company, are
by and large millennials, who, according to the article, are big users of
profanity in the workplace. I've had complaints lodged against me for simply
speaking bluntly, well within my authority, and not using the "praise
sandwich" when correcting someone who had totally screwed something up. Both
times I was fully exonerated, I'm happy to say. But it might have gone a
different way had I laced my blunt statements with profanity.

------
santaclaus
I dunno, the old French guy at our office swears like a sailor, most of the
younger peeps are quite tame in comparison.

~~~
logfromblammo
In the grandest tradition of Anglophones, I have at times borrowed words like
"merde", "schiesse", and "cào nǐ mā" (with atonal pronunciation) from other
languages, whenever I'd like to express something in colorful metaphors
without other people necessarily understanding it to be vulgar.

So if I were you, I'd probably take notes.

This might one day get me into trouble while traveling outside the US, which
generally only knows English and Spanish.

~~~
icebraining
I hate to tell you, but Spanish speakers can probably understand "merde". It's
fairly similar to their counterpart.

------
strictnein
Pretty sure my productivity level is measured in MCPM: Muttered Curses Per
Minute.

High productivity : low MCPM

------
oldmanjay
They also seem mostly likely to complain about politics in a loud voice, using
phrasing and concepts that indicate they have a surface understanding of the
system at best. Also they think they invented the blowjob.

------
otterley
Moderators: can you please update click bait title?

------
roryrjb
No shit.

