By G. A. FINCH

Does boorish behavior matter? As part of our daily work routine, we all experience instances where co-workers, bosses, clients, customers, and vendors use profanity, recount indelicate stories, tell off-color jokes, or over share personal information. It seems that decorum and verbal restraint are neither required nor in vogue anymore. Verbal boundaries have all but disappeared.

Does anybody else miss polite conversation in the work world that used to be the norm? I am not a prude and have myself used profanity on occasion in work-related situations. I would like to think that the few times I use profanity, it is to emphasize a point or to provide colorful context to a story or an experience; maybe my perceived degree of use is a distinction without a difference and I am rationalizing my own verbal indiscretions no matter how limited they may be.
I know that I am turned off by an excessive use of profanity or habitual tellers of dirty or ethnic jokes. I also get uncomfortable when a work-related person over shares personal information or unusual circumstances, when it is clearly not appropriate to the circumstance or the relationship.  The initial entertainment value of an over sharing story begins to lose its appeal pretty quickly, especially from repeat offenders.  What may have seemed funny or salacious can then make us cringe.

Despite the increasing coarseness of our popular culture, I think there is something to be said for etiquette – it makes people more comfortable and it reduces the likelihood of offending people. I think those executives and professionals who use no or little profanity, who do not over share, and who resist off-color humor do set themselves apart in a positive way. Crude behavior does have consequences.