The F Word Means Youíre Fired!

As the economy continues to sour, curse words have become standard parts of speech in many offices across the country. But beware, cussing at work could cost you your career. A new survey out today from TheLadders.com, the worldís leading online marketplace for $100k jobs, reveals that 36% of US bosses have issued a formal warning, and 6% have fired an employee for swearing, deeming a foul mouth the most punishable of all workplace faux pas.

The poll of more than two thousand executives conducted by TheLadders.com also finds that 81.2% of senior execs find a foul mouthed colleague unacceptable to work alongside in the office.

In the current ìFî Word Culture, TheLadders.com report looked at how seriously senior managers viewed manners and office etiquette. They found that 98.7% of survey respondents believed that the idea of office etiquette does exist and the majority (69.7%) said that they would fire an employee for bad office manners. The bulk of respondents (82.4%) have given an official warning for etiquette offences such as personal calls, loud talking or revealing clothing.

Of managers who have terminated employees for office etiquette offenses, the top 5 most common causes were the following:

Bad language (38.4%)
Excessive workplace gossip (36.5%)
Drinking on the job (35.2%)
Leaving the office without telling anyone (33.6%)
Too many personal calls (28%)

When it comes to dealing with bad behavior in the cubicle next-door, co-workers had a slightly higher threshold for bad language. While 81.2% said they deem swearing in the workplace unacceptable, the absolute most offensive thing an office worker can do to his or her colleagues is steal their food from the office refrigerator. A full 97.8% of respondents rated fridge raiders the worst possible offenders of workplace etiquette. When asked to rate the worst affronts to office etiquette, survey respondents selected the following most frequently:

Eating someone elseís food from the fridge (97.8%)
Bad hygiene (95.6%)
Bad habits (88.2%)
Drinking on the job (85.7%)
Wastefulness with paper (82%)

Other common office annoyances showing up in the survey ñ which were deemed unacceptable ñ were cooking smelly food in the office microwave (74.1%) and sneaking peaks at the BlackBerry in meetings (63.5%).

Marc Cenedella, CEO and founder of TheLadders.com, says: ìSome argue that in the 21st century employers should move with the times and accept a more casual work environment. But employees beware, in every office there exists an invisible line between professional and unprofessional and it is very clear from our survey results that some common behaviors definitely cross the line.î