Lately, I've been having a bit of a problem at work. Specifically, I've been having trouble keeping my language office-appropriate. This is particularly a problem because I work in a call-centre, and hence I'm supposed to be polite, friendly, and to generally not be my foul-mouthed self. The trouble isn't really just keeping it clean in a call: I mean, I pretty much bust out the old maxim that you shouldn't say anything you wouldn't say to your grandparents or your kids (although not having kids makes visualising the latter a little odd). Rather, the problem is that I have to watch what I say even when I'm not on a call in case one of my co-worker's mic happens to pick up my jackassery. So anyway, I have to watch what I say. It's kind of a pain in the ass.

In my continual effort to "keep it clean" around the office, I tend to over-compensate from time to time and start subbing out phrases I would normally say for folksy alternatives that I must have picked up from either listening to country music or hanging around with hillbillies back home last summer. In worst-case scenarios, my just-fell-off-the-turnip-truck, small-towny, old-timey phone friendliness results in me saying things like "Oh dear", "Oh my" or even the dreaded "Oh shucks" instead of the usual "Ah crap" or the ever-popular "Oh fuck". In a worst-case scenario, the folksiness takes over and I almost start to talk in some kind of funny accent (DEFINITELY pulled from country music), and callers start asking me where our centre is located because they think I sound American. I usually attribute that much to the fact that I spent a lot of time near the border when I was a kid, so picking up at least a bit of the accents (if not the mannerisms) of my neighbours to the south (or north, depending on which part of the city I happened to be in, but that's neither here nor there) was inevitable. I guess it really stings the ol' Canadian pride, is all.

One of the big problems with watching what I say at work is that most of my dirtier phrases are expressions of surprise or shock. This makes it a bit of a challenge to remind myself to watch my mouth when I get caught off-guard. If something comes up which I really didn't see coming, my natural response is along the lines of "Holy shit!" or "Jesus-fucking-Christ!, both of which would have me swimming in shit creek as far as management is concerned. Instead I end up spouting off random gibberish to the effect of "Well, cut off my legs and call me shorty!" (okay, to be honest I've never actually said that on the phone, but you get the idea). I also can't describe difficult situations using regular, rather mundane phrases like "pain in the ass", or personal favourite "crap-for-crap". Instead I end up calling things "pain in the neck" or some garbage like that. Honestly, until I started working here, I don't think I had used the phrase "pain in the neck" since I was like 9 years old. Seriously.

I also have to watch the kind of joke I'm making around the office. I not only have a dirty sense of humour, but I also tend to make a lot of jokes that are just plain offensive. To be perfectly honest, half the time the reason I like a given joke is that I'm more amused by the decidely-negative reaction I get from people. But anyway, jokes about things like AIDS, the Holocaust, Hitler, anal sex, murder and other such things are generally frowned upon.

I guess the worst part of censoring myself around the office is that I'm afraid of coming off as impersonal when I voluntarily shut off one of the most animated aspects of my personality. In an effort to come off as professional, I end up robotic. I actually had a customer today who thought I was a voice recording when I answered the phone today. That was kind of a blow to the ego.

At any rate, I suppose I'll just deal with it. Fuck it. I'll do it live.

-FF