Usually it’s pretty quiet at work. You or course have the usual office noises. The constant typing, phones ringing, the water fountain going on, the occasional hallway conversation.

Something really stuck out today though. Just down the hall from my desk a lady started venting about this and that. She was upset about certain changes being made and whatnot (I didn’t exactly catch everything being said).

what got my attention was the sudden and constant barrage of profanity. It sounded like we were in the middle of a bar fight. I can’t imagine that the parties involved thought they were actually having a private conversation. Even as people were passing by this lady didn’t let up.

I wouldn’t say I’m sheltered by any means, but it just struck me as so out of place and uncalled for.

In my opinion, when you adopt this crass behaviour in business and the workplace, you lose a certain amount of professional credibility. There are fewer individuals that will be willing to work with you and for you.

I understand that there are different personality types and that people have different ways of expressing themselves. There are also those who get ahead and those who don’t. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if there’s a correlation or not.

As for me and as much as I may want to, I’ll probably never go off on someone in the hallway. It did, however, add an interesting spark to the day and give me something to write about.

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