I'm going to try not to swear when you're around. Is this a good apology to a coworker?

Dunno. I'd expect grown ass adults to be able to put their personal feelings aside for the sake of professional obligations. If your coworker is gonna get upset at everything, he's not in for a very good time.

I agree with the sentiment, but if we're going to make that argument based around professionalism, I would also have to argue that it's not very professional to use that kind of language in a work setting.

So maybe this is a situation where both sides can grow.
- it’s not very professional to use that kind of language in a work setting.
  
  That depends massively on the profession, setting, and context.
  
  Restaurant kitchen where something gets spilled, a trade where something unexpectedly breaks, a couple lawyers without anyone else around finding out their client is on camera admitting to the crime, etc. are all fine to say a calm 'oh fuck' as a reaction. Someone in an open office who yelled it because their code didn't compile would not be acting very professional.
- Than replacement words shouldn’t be acceptable either, you can either express your frustration or you can’t. A choose of word shouldn’t make a difference, it should be unprofessional to make an outburst at all if that’s the case.
- It doesn't seem to me that OP's coworker had an issue with professionalism. Rather, they seem to have been triggered by the use of the word
OP came to share a thing they're doing and you built this story as a extremely sensitive coworker?
- Getting offended by "fuck" is very sensitive behaviour

I work in a very large tech company. I curse like a fucking sailor around some people and use my church voice around others. Expletives lose their punch when used too often.

I wouldn't apologize or bring it up further. The time for an apology about language spoken in the heat of the moment is as soon after as possible.

The best apology is a change in behavior.

Good luck navigating this, you can see how contentious a topic it is by the comments in this thread. But it boils down to know your audience, and believe people when they tell you they have a problem.

I remember working in the London UK office and we curse non-stop over there it's great. Whenever our colleagues from SF would visit they would always be surprised how much we swear. I'd see them do the turnaround like, 'what just happened?'.

I hate your coworker

is it an office. if so the apology should be more about your behavior in a professional setting not just around one person. If its blue collar it might apply if members of the public are around.

This is a solid point.

In a polite environment like an office, if one person was offended enough to call it out, there's a huge chance others feel the same way.

I mean there will always be Karen's who flip out that you're just eating chips loudly.

But It's up to the company culture to decide how to approach it as a whole, rather than address it with a single person.
- Somewhat. the office environment is the employers and generally follows a civil discourse type of rule. Again in blue collar if your on a site and everyone there is just a worker then usually swearing is commonplace but if your doing a job at a home and the homeowners are around its generally frowned upon. Public businesses usually do not allow it but will let it slip if its not confrontational or often. So basically the apology is more about the owner of the space I would say and whats appropriate.

You don't have to say anything, just change the behavior around them. If you're required to apologize, "I'm sorry. I'll work on that." should suffice

Not everything is about what we're "required" to do. If op wants to apologize, why try and talk them out of it?

*Edit to add this clip since it's been echoing in my head for weeks now and it's relevant: https://files.catbox.moe/ozpjht.mp4
- It also sounds like based on the preceding post that they really are going to have to do this as the initial reaction to offending their coworker seems not to have gone down well with them and their colleagues at all. It looks like they're kind of having to do this to prevent things escalating any further which might be why their apology has needed to be workshopped and people are finding flaws in it. They're probably having to work through a fair bit of resentment before they can find an authentic apology in themselves. Good for them though, that can take a bit of reflection and the initial instinct can be to try and issue a non-apology apology but instead they're working through it to get it right.
- I agree. Id prefer to just address it openly and directly.

I would censor the work f--k because it might come off like you're being passive aggressive and aren't really trying. Reminds of the time the actor that played Burke on Grey's Anatomy called the actor that played George a fa---t, then made a public apology saying he's sorry he called him a fa---t and that he wont say fa---t again, except he said the word. People got even more pissed, and I think he was fired from the show. 🤦

I previously made a comment on how I've learned to apologize if you're interested.

I would censor the work f--k

Instance checks out

Comes across as a snide non-apology to me. Regardless of whether an apology or whatever is warranted, the phrasing here sounds nothing like an apology if that's what you’re going for

I wouldn't wory too much about that coworker, if they can't handle something as banal as fuck, it's their problem, not yours

Until it's escalated, and then it's definitely OPs problem. Most jobs have something about professionalism written is their handbook. The coworker will win that fight with hr every time.
- Than they can fight that any outburst is unprofessional and they are being harassed for what other coworkers are doing.
  
  Fuck Shit Damn Shoot Darn
  
  No difference, zero, but personal offense for arbitrary reasons.
Lol, you're funny.

Go say "fuck" while standing in front of a judge. It's banal, so it's his problem, right?

Until he fines you for contempt of court. Or jails you for continuing to say fuck after being warned.

Society as a whole is a judge. If you refuse to try to get along with the rest of society, it may decide to not get along with you.
- Vast majority of society does it, a small fraction make a big deal out of it, some do it behind closed doors, but to say society condemns it is just wrong, it’s only a small fraction of a over controlling corp jobs that disallow it. But what’s funny, those execs are all doing it themselves, maybe open the curtain and stop doing what a small portion of society has deemed “acceptable” for the rest of the world.
  
  Some judges won’t care, others would love to swing their power around, you seem to be wanting to be crushed am quieted by those above you for no reason other than their own enjoyment of theirs hypocrisy over you.
  
  Say darn, shoot, dick, dang to a judge and you can have similar results as fuck, so what’s your point here? What isn’t a cuss to you may be a cuss to someone else, yet you want a few people to be the judge of everything? Sure makes sense
  
  Also, 1/6 of the world speaks English, you could use that exasperation in over 80% of society and no one would even know what you said….. I wonder if you realize how many people cuss in their own language that you don’t even realize or know about…..

My neighbor passed away and a new family moved in. Talking with dad, I noticed he didn't swear much. I said a handful of curse words the first few times we talked. I noticed he was a little put off. So I just made a conscious effort to not curse around him. Never apologized, just tried not to. Pretty sure he's noticed and appreciates it.

"I'll try not to swear around you. I'm sorry. I will probably not be perfect, but I assure you I'm trying."

That's enough.

I assume you are genuinely sorry and have decided you want to behave differently around them.

So. Your co worker NEVER watches TV? You know? Where swearing is everywhere.

"I'll try and be more professional in the future."

This way you're not judging them or yourself, you're saying you understand that there's a code of behavior the bosses expect everyone to follow.

I worked with someone like that who got their jimmies tussled by cursing. I said sorry in the moment they voiced their feelings and avoided them after that. I didn’t change how I talk or come up with a huge apology.

Lmao, you forgot the apology part.

A quality apology consists of 3 things:

An explanation of what you did that was wrong, and why it was wrong
An explanation of what you're going to try and change about yourself, to avoid the same mistake
An expression of remose. I.E. the word "sorry" or "apologize".

Your proposed apology has all those elements, so you're already ahead of most folks. But there are a few suggestions for improvement in this thread that I think are also good.

"if you felt so, I apologize": I don't read this as you apologizing for how the other person feels, since you clarified that earlier. But I think it's fair that others might read it that way, so you're better off eliminating the ambiguity. You're apologizing for what you did, without considering that others might (validly) consider it inappropriate.

"I'll try to control myself around you": similar deal, it should be clear that this is about you, not them. And when it comes to swearing in a workplace, it's pretty-darn common to consider it inappropriate and unprofessional, no matter who you're around. Maybe part of your apology needs to focus on how the behavior is unprofessional, and you simply needed help recognizing that, as you're (possibly?) new to the professional working world.

Don't go could turkey, you'll fail. Lizard brain is gonna respond with or without monkey brains help.

As much as you can, start with replacing fuck with frack or fine or fudge, or just make it funny. Stopping the cadence is harder than changing the word.

No, but the swearing is immaterial. That apology isn't, so let's break down the likely interpretation a bit.

I didn't want to insult you and if you felt so, I apologize.

This is probably the most egregious part, since 'I'm sorry you felt offended' isn't actually an apology, it just sounds like one. You're not actually apologising for anything you did.

No matter what it is you might have wanted or intended, the fact of the matter is that you did offend your coworker with your swearing.

The word fuck is one I use very often, but I'll try to control myself around you'

This part is fine-ish? I'd leave off the "around you", since it's extraneous. They don't need to know that you're deliberately taking exception around them.

I apologize. The word fuck is one I'm used to using, but I'll try to avoid using it.

Seems a better way of putting it. You made the error, you apologised, clean and cut. No need for unnecessary explanation that could be taken as excuse, or unnecessary exceptions that may taint your intended message.

Maybe accompany it with an apology muffin or something.

I apologize. The word fuck is one I’m used to using, but I’ll try to avoid using it.

This sounds like "I'm sorry I fucking swore around you, I'll try to stop that shit."

Ugh, so one thing that's annoying about apologies is that if you use the word "if" people usually think it's a bad apology regardless of everything else you say. Try to say things like "I'm sorry that it upset you" instead of "I'm sorry if I've upset you."

You've got way more patience than me. Just yesterday my own grandma was offended by my use of fuck randomly and I ended up defending myself instead of apologizing (she likes Tim Walz so I said the guy called Musk a dipshit and somehow that got me out of hot water lol). I don't think I'd even have that much tact with a coworker.

Good enough for me.

He didn't realize it was an issue, he won't do it again.