After a workplace discussion of the movie Kill Bill, and the restful effects of over the top gore and mayhem, I said:
I have often thought that having the top of my head lopped off with a sword with snow falling on my exposed brain like O-ren would be very soothing for a bad migraine. And also visually interesting. It’s a lot more difficult than you might think to talk somebody into lopping the top of your head off, though.
Then I said “and I mean that in a totally work appropriate and professional way!” As we all know, that makes anything you say perfectly acceptable.
I have had some pretty staggeringly inappropriate exchanges with people at work. It’s funny to remember that at one point the State Department seemed like it might be a good fit for someone with my language skills.
Once when I thought my boss was handling a personnel issue badly, I stomped into his office, slammed the door and told him my opinion adding that “It’s really not that fucking hard. He’s being a fucking moron.”
Would I be a better spy or diplomat, do you think?
Thinking about workplace shenanigans and bad language got me thinking of my friend Art. He was far, far worse than I am. Not a day went by without him saying something that would cause an HR employee to explode. He was eternally on HR improvement plans for his various comments.
One day we were yelling profanities at each other from our offices, like you do when your offices are in an area only accessible with a keypad lock. I was relatively new to a certain job function, and he was getting tired of my questions.
I said “you have to answer my questions, motherfucker, you’re the senior tech here” and then got up and stood in the doorway of my office so he could see me, and flipped him off.
He yelled back “shut your piehole, you stupid cunt!” and just behind me, I heard a gasp. Art and I both turned white, and I turned around to see one of the other IT guys standing behind me with his eyes huge. I decided to reassure him:
“Oh, don’t worry Charles, it’s OK. This is how we always talk to each other. It’s part of the Culture of Caring in our company.”
So he laughed and it was OK.
It’s been more of a challenge in the years I have been working at the corporate office. For the first few years, I was in a locked office, so my penchant for foul language couldn’t get me in too much trouble, but a few years ago they remodeled us into a huge cube farm. I have to try not to swear too much or too loudly.
It had taught me to say the most foul things in the softest, most pleasant tone you can imagine.
What I find sort of interesting is how hard it is to offend me in the usual ways. One of the directors once gave me a donut with a Dirty Sanchez face on it. I raised an eyebrow at him and pointed out that in a corporate environment most people would be offended by that, and he might want to reconsider bringing that kind of pastry to work. Not that I was offended, but most of the sane people would be. That kind of thing just makes me shrug. Having someone tell me I have an attractively colored bosom didn’t bother me. It is attractively colored.
What did offend me? Introducing myself on a phone conference as the person in charge of the networking and firewall work on a project and then having someone ask when the “real firewall guy” would be joining the meeting.
Question my competence? We will not be workplace buddies.
Find a copy of Hustler in the bathroom? Yes, it really happened. I leafed through it, shrugged and left it there.
I never did find out who it belonged to…which is a very good thing. There are a few things you do not want to ever know about a co-worker:
–that they don’t wash their hands after they pee.
–that they are so stupid they surf porn on the company internet.
Stupidity?
I find it very offensive.