I was flipping through an HR newsletter that our VP shares with the department, and one interesting piece caught my eye. The article talked about swearing at work, other “bad manners” offenses, and it cited a study by TheLadders.com.

The top five reasons for termination due to office etiquette offenses:

• Bad language (38%)
• Excessive workplace gossip (36%)
• Drinking on the job (35%)
• Leaving office without saying so (33%)
• Too many personal calls (28%)

Hold up a second… Am I the only one that sees #3 sticking out like a sore thumb? I think drinking on the job goes beyond bad manners and into “Hey, I’m an idiot. Please terminate me!” territory. The other items are (unfortunately) all too common for most of us. I’ve written before about office gossip, and I completely agree that it’s a toxic problem for most companies, but it really surprised me to see swearing at the top of this list.

Sometimes we can laugh, though

I wrote a funny top ten list of office etiquette violations a while back. Check it out and feel free to share it with your friends and coworkers. :-)

So, you’ve seen my thoughts (both serious and not). What’s your biggest problem with office etiquette?