A Penchant for Profanity?

 An acquaintance who reads this blog and I were talking the other day, and the subject of this blog came up. He remarked that he was surprised that this blog did not come with a warning label.  I pointed out that one post a few months ago was actually flagged by Blogger for content. I have read that post at least fifty times and I still can't find anything worth a warning. But that's just me.

He pointed out that I often interject profanity into an otherwise mundane post. I pointed out that he obviously remembered that detail. The object of writing is to get others to gain an awareness of the author's point of view. It is also to write something that they will remember. I explained that it had obviously worked. 

Do I think that this discussion is really worth writing about? Obviously, if you are reading this, it is worth the time. As Ricky Ricardo would have said, "Let me 'splain this."

I have spent my working life in the restaurant business and my retired life selling "stuff" at flea markets, car shows and antiques shows.  Actually, I did the selling thing for several years before retiring.

In the restaurant business or the food service industry, you pick, profanity is the language of communication in kitchens. Restaurant kitchens are usually a hot, stress filled environment. When you are working in a factory, your customers are hundreds of miles away. In restaurants, they are just a few feet way. You don't have to wait for feedback to show up on a survey. I guess that psychologically, it's more of an "immediate gratification situation". That means when people are unhappy or satisfied, you will soon know it. The waitstaff and the managers are just couriers for these messages.

To be successful in the kitchen, you need to be a good communicator. You have to be able to communicate the need for accuracy and speed in production.  I am widely considered to be one of the better communicators.

If this were a twelve-step program, this is where I would say, "I use profanity." I had an employee tell me that he had never heard anyone take Winnie the Pooh's name in vain before working for me. I had told a cook, "You don't have the brains that God gave Winnie the f###ing Pooh!" The subject of that shout came back years later after graduating from college and told me that he always remembered that insult. I guess that was one of those Kodak moments.

I hired the son of a friend for a bus boy job years ago. It was his first job. A couple of days after starting, he was mopping the floor at closing time. First, there is a correct way to mop a floor. If you do it wrong, the floor won't be clean, and it won't look good after it dries. If by now, the term "obsessive" has crossed your mind, I am okay with that. Anyway, I watched him mop for about a minute and told him, "You mop like a broad!" He just looked at me with a confused look on his face. First, I had to explain what a "broad" was to a sixteen-year-old. I may have added a few other profane observations about his mopping technique. Then I spent about ten minutes demonstrating the proper method for mopping a floor and observing him as he put it into practice. By the next day, most of the staff had heard the story. 

Americans think that can say about anything when they are the customer. If I had a dollar for every idiot who has told me "The customer is always right", I would be on the beach in Nassau studying topless European women. I have told many people at flea markets that "customer" means that there is some kind of financial relationship and that they haven't spent anything yet. I may have thrown in a few other words. That usually gets them to the next space pretty quickly. 

At a church that I attended many years ago, we had a new pastor. In a meeting in his office, he asked "Is there anything that I need to know about you to help me in communicating with you?"  I told him about my penchant for profanity. He simply said, "We all have to be good at something." 

General George Patton was once asked about his use of profanity. He said that he wanted to make sure that he had the attention of those he led, and he wanted them to remember what he said. 

Of course, it's not for everyone. One day, a customer was complaining to me about something, and he started using what I considered some kind of Girl Scout leader profanity, and I just told him, "If you want to get into a cussing competition with me, you are going to lose!" He calmed down.

The moral of the story is that I write this more for my benefit than yours. However, if you are a reader, I appreciate you taking the time to read this swill.