Washington, DC, tops list of cities where people curse at work

Eric Pfeiffer
·Reporter

A new survey finds that employees who swear frequently on the job are less likely to get a promotion. And the worst offenders are workers in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C.

The CareerBuilder study found some interesting and often conflicting results in their survey of 2,298 hiring managers and 3,892 nongovernment employees.

For example, 81 percent of respondents said cursing in the workplace brings an employee's professionalism into question. And 64 percent of employees said they'd think less of a co-worker who swears regularly while on the job. In addition, 57 percent of managers said they're less likely to promote someone who swears. Majorities also said that swearing makes a co-worker appear less in control (71 percent), less mature (68 percent) and even less intelligent (54 percent)

Nonetheless, 51 percent of the same respondents admitted to swearing in the office, with a full 95 percent of those who curse saying they do so in front of their co-workers. The same 51 percent said they use profanity in front of their bosses. And 25 percent of the hiring managers confessed to swearing at their employees.

Men are marginally more likely to swear than women in the workplace, 54 percent to 47 percent, respectively.

So which cities are most fond of those seven dirty words George Carlin once famously said you can't say on television?

Although Washington, D.C., tops the list at 62 percent, it is closely followed by Denver (60 percent) and Chicago (58 percent). The first major city on the list to fall under 50 percent is Phoenix (47 percent). And perhaps in a surprising result, New York is only the ninth most swear-friendly city in America, with 46 percent of workers in the Big Apple disregarding the personal language censor in the office.

And in another potentially surprising result, the country's youngest workers are also the least likely to swear. Only 42 percent of employees aged 18 to 24 said they swear in the office. And 44 percent of workers aged 55 years and older said they curse at work. Perhaps it's those middle-aged years that provide the biggest verbal challenges, as a full 58 percent of workers aged 35 to 44 said they use profanity at the office, topping the list.