I
realized during my last blog, that I had never mentioned that profanity was not permitted on our
government contract. Profanity is not
usually encouraged in the private sector either, but they are not usually
strict about usage. On my first
government contract, we actually had a workshop on proper behavior in the
workplace, internet use and profanity.
These issues were mentioned in our hiring contract; however an incident
must have occurred because this topic was brought up again with policies that
were stricter than before. For example,
profanity on the work site including phone had always been grounds for
termination, but now you could be terminated if someone called or emailed you
at work and they used profanity on government property. We were told that if we had friends or family
that contacted us on the job site, we needed to notify them of this new rule.
Well,
obviously I didn't have to notify my mother.
Because, she is one of those people who believed and still believes that the
Government is always listening. However,
I did have to call my friend Jill, who swore liked a sailor and my brother the
truck driver, who swore like a truck driver.
So, I called them and I let them both know about the new policy. I thought that there would be no complaints. Also, I thought that I was dealing with
mature adults. I was wrong on both
points. My friend Jill and my brother
had the same argument; they thought that it wasn't fair that I could be fired
for something that someone else did. My
response was that life isn't fair and they were the customer and I was using
their equipment on their time. If my
friend or my brother wanted to use profanity, they could still call me on my
cell phone or email me on my personal email.
I didn't have an issue with that.
The real issue was convenience. It
was more convenient to call me or complain about their day while I was at
work. The other issue they had was the
fact that the conversations and emails were being monitored. Once again, it was the client’s equipment and
their time. Also, I didn't really care
about that because I had already spent a large part of my career being
monitored. When I was in college, I did
surveys for a marketing company. They
always monitored your calls. Shortly
after I graduated, I worked at TRW as a contractor, and monitoring calls was a
standard procedure there as well. So, I didn't really care.
I
had a main concern as well, but neither my friend nor my brother was able to recognize
it. I just didn't want to be fired
because of what someone else said to me over the phone. I mean, how do you explain that on a job
application? Please enter why you were
terminated: “Well, my girlfriend had a
bad day at work and she dropped the f*bomb while talking to me on the phone. “
or “Well someone cut my brother off while he was driving and talking to me and
a stream of profanities were yelled out.”
This was not going to be my story!! I was not going to lose my job
because they had no self control!! My
Mama did not raise a fool....
After
arguing with them about the new rule, I simply stated that if you call me and
you start swearing, I will hang up on you, immediately. Do not be surprised. Both Jill and my brother were able to hold it
together for about a month. Jill was
first…
Jill: “Hi Cara, how are you?”
Me:
“Fine, how’s it going?”
Jill: “Crazy, you won’t believe what this mother.”
(Click.) ”Hello..”
Jill
called me 2 minutes later.
Jill:
“Did you just hang up on me?”
Me: “Yep.
Jill: “You’re serious, no swearing. I am having a bad day.”
Me: “Serious as a heart attack. If you have to swear, it will have to wait
until I get home.”
Jill: “Well, I don’t think this new rule is fair.”
Me: “Don’t care.
It is what it is; I will talk to you later. Bye.”
The
phone conversation with my brother took a similar route. I don’t think he thought that I would hang up
on them that fast. For some reason they
both thought that I would either warn them or not say anything. Obviously they were mistaken.
#profanity
#lifeisnotfair