It depends entirely on the context. If swears are being used in a way that even remotely touches on other employees or the company's products, then it's a huge morale drag.

Yelling out "Fuck!" because you just stubbed your toe on your desk, or because you've been stuck on a frustrating problem for awhile that you just can't solve, is fine. Saying "Why does team X's product suck so fucking much?" or "Why do you keep making this same fucking mistake?" is a huge problem.

It's not exactly about the swears per se, but about being overly negative / anti-collaborative. The OP post gives off the vibe of someone who prides themselves on being "brutally honest" in their feedback but which in fact really just comes off as being an asshole to most people.

My view on swearing in the workplace is that you can only do it if everyone who hears it is one of your immediate peers. Swearing down rank is an abuse of power (lower ranks are expected to be polite). Swearing up is a sign of immaturity (can’t contain emotions, etc).

Also swearing should only be used verbally and only in humorous ways: “this code I wrote is fubar” is ok, “Johnson is an asshole” is not.

In the article he says that whatever language he was using, HR was involved over it.

> I began racking up my HR complaints. I used a four letter word, my analogy was not PC, my language was not PG

He's not just swearing. He's an asshole. But he wants to blame the "PC brigade" for not letting him be an asshole, which he was used to when he had power over everyone else, including HR.

You don't "rack up HR complaints" for swearing at Google. You definitely have to be an asshole for that to happen. One HR complaint? Maybe it could have been unreasonable. But multiple HR complaints? The probability of him not being an asshole seriously diminishes.

Source: I work at Google

Swearing just changes the dynamic when used in a professional setting (in the US). It is casual, widely interpretable use, generally negative language.

At worst, if targeted to a person, project, or role it immediately heightens the tension in the relationship.

At best, it is used to emphatically describe something ("this code is a bit shitty") but again because of swear words generally inflammatory nature it can be interpreted poorly.

Swearing culture is definitely very different in the US compared to Scotland. I've noticed that people from the US have a tendency to say things like "heck" or "frick" because saying "hell" or "fuck" is seen as something that one ought to do. That's definitely not a thing in Scotland, where in my experience you're likely to hear far "worse" even in formal or professional contexts.

- An Englishman (England is culturally somewhere between the US and Scotland on this I think).

I'm sure it depends on the industry and the circumstances. Way back when, I worked in the US oil industry as an engineer and I remember one rig superintendent in particular who basically couldn't get out a sentence that wasn't punctuated with some cuss word or other. But even in the 90s in tech, some level of cussery was pretty normal. It's definitely true, at least at large companies (and events) these days, anything other than the very occasional f-bomb, especially in public is definitely frowned upon.

I swear, a lot. I work in London finance. It very much depends on the company. I used to work for a clandestine hedge fund with a pretty crazy culture, and swearing was the way to communicate efficiently. I loved it, it fit my personality.

Now I get a letter from HR if I type "shit" on the team's slack channel. I also notice that people are "selectively offended"; they'll use profanity when it suits them, but if something genuinely ticks you off, and you happen to swear (not AT a person, but at things/concepts/in general) they try to use it as a bazooka against you. Try to make you lose all credibility because you said "it's fucked".

To me, as a non-british person (well, I'm British now, I guess, got my citizenship pre-brexit..) it's a super strange and touchy subject. However, I try to power through, being the "rude foreign guy" (rude as in rude language, not rude as in mean or vindictive), and that sort of works. Almost all of my colleagues just know that's what and who I am, I don't mean any offence, and really, nobody gets offended (unless it suits their strategic purposes). We all use a shitload of profanity in our day to day language anyway, so why the fuck would it be different in the office?

No idea about US (I'd guess - yeah), but it's certainly a big deal here in continental Europe. I've also not seen anyone casually swear in London either. It's considered quite unprofessional and aggressive.

Really? I've went to London office a couple of times and have had many colleagues there and they didn't seem notable different to Scots in terms of swearing.

In the US it’s not uncommon to hear f** or sh*. I don’t personally like it when people do it but it’s not uncommon.

Really depends on the sub-industry. In big pharma "That's not a good idea -- it's not going to work b/c blah blah blah" is a scathing rebuke. In games / media "What the fuck is going on with this server?" is background noise. I should say was the kids seem different to me -- maybe I'm out of touch.

If it is naturally how you talk most people tend not to notice.

US is a far more religious society. At least my religion expressly forbids cursing and swearing. I still kind of have a visible reaction when people curse, but I think it makes people regard me poorly, so I am trying to correct it.