That depends on which part of the world you’re in. I’m not going to tell you that you need good work-place manners to develop social capital. You already know that manners are important. That said, I did find this article by Miral Fahmy to be a pretty interesting look at how perceptions of manners are different across the globe. Here’s what she says are the top five most offensive behaviors at the office.
The survey, by Australian-based international office space provider Servcorp, listed the top five most offensive workplace behaviors as not saying hello or good morning, not offering office guests a beverage, speaking loudly across the room, using swear words and taking calls on mobile phones.
Here’s just one example showing how different it can be depending on which country you’re working in.
Almost 25 percent of Australians, however, thought it was perfectly acceptable to swear — something the majority of Japanese and Middle Easterners found deeply offensive.
This topic is nothing new, of course, to anyone who’s doing business with international counterparts. Stay tuned and we’ll be covering this topic again.
January 20th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
I work as a hands-on mechanical engineer, sometimes designing mechanical assemblies, other times machining and welding. There are certainly times that swearing in the workplace can be inappropriate. However, it can really #%$%ing help to build rapport and trust with fellow co-workers. It is especially effective in breaking down real or perceived class barriers between workers, such as can happen in workplaces where there are both engineers and fabricators.
January 24th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
It’s good to know those five most offensive behaviors. I’ve been guilty of a few of them. I’m going to keep a better watch on myself.
January 26th, 2009 at 1:24 am
I had force my self to stop swearing a few years ago by using a “swearing jar”, put I got to take money OUT of the jar if I could compose a very colorful and creative insult without using the regular curse words.
February 13th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
I would say being loud and not greeting others are the top two rudest office behaviors. At our office space, we had to institute phone manners - as most of our members use mobile phones for business we ask them to leave the common area for longer calls and use our conference rooms or lounge.
But I don’t know about swearing - I think it can sometimes be used effectively to break down barriers. Of course, I have to say that I never swear in my native language, Russian, but find it much easier to swear in English. And in Italian, my 3rd language, I really just talk like a sailor. My theory is that with non-native languages, words don’t have the same deep meaning - they’re just words.