[CyberFonic]

I have been a project manager in many organisations and I have on occasion let loose swear words. It has never been a problem. Over the years I have noticed that there are two distinct possibilities:

1. You might be in a company where nobody swears. In that case, it might be the expected norm that you too speak diplomatically and politely.

2. You might have a precious snowflake on your team. These come in two varieties:

(a) persons who simply are simply more sensitive than the majority; and

(b) persons who are under-performing and are using the excuse of "hostile workplace" as a cover-up for their substandard productivity.

Perhaps, you are the first project manager that they have hired and the staff are not accustomed to being expected to deliver on schedule, etc. In a small company, it seems strange to me that you can't have a candid conversation with your manager / boss. Not being given the individual's name for "privacy reasons" seems suspiciously like somebody is playing politics.

[danielscrubs]

So true, I've met all of them during my decade of work! But I've had one instance when the project manager was the snowflake.

The manager needed constant validation, and when he didn't get it he became angry. Last time, half the team just left within a year. What I've gathered is that more often than not, they are micro managers with some kind of broken confidence (bad divorce, bad education or bad health can all take its toll on it). "If people just listened to me..." is their motto, no matter who they talk to or what subject. When other teams down-prioritised our team because they didn't want to work with him it was shit flinging time!

I'm starting to get better at sensing if people just want to win a discussion or want to learn & teach. But I wished I learnt it sooner.

[peterangular]

> I'm starting to get better at sensing if people just want to win a discussion or want to learn & teach. But I wished I learnt it sooner.

The older I get the more I see this as a _critical_ soft skill to have in the corporate world. I wish I could go back to myself in earlier engineering roles and say, "just stop talking - these people don't care, they're only here for the narrative."