Does swearing in the workplace benefit morale?

Recently there was a survey completed by the Norwich Business School that suggests that, “Allowing staff to swear at work can benefit them and their employers,” and that, “regular use of profanity… (would) reinforce solidarity among staff, enabling them to express their feelings, such as frustration, and develop social relationships.”

I used to take pride in my extensive knowledge and creative use of swear words. I have since cleaned up my mouth because I believe God is pleased by it. After all, The bible says that we have to give an account for every idle word that we speak on the day of judgement (Matt 12:36).

However, from my early day of swearing I can understand what the study is referring to when it mentions “solidarity.” I used to feel bonded to others who swore a lot. It was, at the time, a means of determining whether or not I wanted to hang out with the person. People who didn’t swear seemed to be a bit lame and less interesting to me.

Growing out of that phase of my life, I realized that most often my expletives came as a result of having little self-control. It wasn’t necessarily that I wanted to use them as often as I did, but I did not have much self-control.

I ate whenever I wanted, spent whatever I wanted, said whatever I felt, and basically did whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. Many people living this like of little or no self control argue that they are “free” to do whatever they want. The irony is that while I thought I was “free”, I was really bound to all these things I didn’t want to do. Because of my lack of self control, I was a slave to whatever my body felt like doing at the time.

I remember being seconds away from getting into a fistfight (in front of customers) with a co-worker at work. It was a small issue that had escalated into a bigger one, but anyone in their rational mind would say that it is not worth losing your job over. I knew that I would likely get fired if I took a swing at him, but it didn’t seem to matter. Although I thought I was free to do whatever I wanted, I really wasn’t very “free”, since I could barely control myself from doing something completely foolish. It took every ounce of strength I had to walk away.

Like a city that is broken into and without walls Is a man who has no control over his spirit. Proverbs 25:28

Reading what I just wrote, it seems I have gone off on a bit of a tangent, but hey, it’s a blog, why not?

Getting back to swearing at the workplace – I also found it interesting that, “Most of the cases were reported by employees at the lower levels of the organisational hierarchies and it was clear that executives use swearing language less frequently.”

Even within this study, it seems to suggest that if you want to get promoted, you need to cut back on swearing. Could it be that there is a correlation to the amount of self-control one has and his or her likelihood of being promoted? 

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