I swear...this is stressing my life!

S Shanthi & Amrita Singh / TNN / Nov 6, 2005, 03:45 IST

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"What the f*** is this?" How often have you heard this from your boss or colleagues?

NEW DELHI: "What the f*** is this?" How often have you heard this from your boss or colleagues? Lost count? Such expletives are being used with reckless abandon, particularly among college kids and highly-stressful professionals such as call centre executives, creative heads of ad agencies and journalists.
But what's "cool" for some is increasingly becoming a cause of stress for others.Many MNCs have in fact started employing counsellors to deal with people who are stressed out due to prolonged verbal abuse from their colleagues and bosses.
Empower, a company that holds programmes to combat stress in the corporate sector, claims it gets atleast 10-15 employees every month who complain of depression due to this abuse.
Sanjay Salooja, CEO, Empower says, "More and more employees have started complaining of mental and emotional agony, which affects both their personal and professional lives." Some even contemplate resigning or changing their profession.

Archana Fernandez, a journalist, had to quit her job as she couldn't cope up with verbal abuse. "In my previous office, people thought it was mod to use sexually-explicit words. Interestingly, women used them more often than men. When I objected, they asked me to get over my suburban middle class mentality.
It caused me so much stress that I had to quit," she says. What makes it even tougher, say psychiatrists, is that many who work in an environment where swear words are common, may not speak up for fear of appearing soft. This only adds to their stress.

"Swear words have become acceptable and many people use it when they feel the need to assert themselves. And those who don't use such words feel offended," says Aruna Broota, psychology professor, Delhi University.
In fact, those in a highly-stressful work environment where they have to meet strict deadlines and work beyond normal working hours may be more prone to using abusive language, says Radha R Sharma, professor, organisational behaviour.
"However, call centre executives are also at times at the receiving end of abuse, especially those catering to US or UK-based clients who are particularly bitter about the loss of jobs to outsourcing."
Some Indian companies have laid down strict rules to check this free flow of slang. BPOs are among the first to lay guidelines in this regard as they may be the worst-affected by this trend.
Rajesh Magow, head, Technovate, says, "Our policy on the use of swear words is clearly mentioned on the intranet. Despite that, if somebody flouts the rule on more than two occasions, we take strict action against them."
Rahul M, a customer care executive with HCL says, "My company tolerates up to three such complaints against a person, after which he's chucked out."

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