The Wall Street Journal
George Carlin Never Would've Cut It at the New Goldman Sachs
Firm Bans Naughty Words in Emails; An 'Unlearnable Lesson' on Wall Street?
Firm Bans Naughty Words in Emails; An 'Unlearnable Lesson' on Wall Street?
There will never be another s— deal at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
The New York company is telling employees that they will no longer be able to get away with profanity in electronic messages. That means all 34,000 traders, investment bankers and other Goldman employees must restrain themselves from using a vast vocabulary of oft-used dirty words on Wall Street, including the six-letter expletive that came back to haunt the company at a Senate hearing in April.
"[B]oy, that timberwo[l]f was one s— deal," Thomas Montag, who helped run Goldman's securities business, wrote in a June 2007 email that was repeatedly referred to at the hearing.
Mr. Montag, who couldn't be reached for comment, wouldn't be allowed to send that email under Goldman's sanitized communications policy, which is being enforced by screening software. Even swear words spelled with asterisks are out.
A Goldman spokeswoman said: "Of course we have policies about the use of appropriate language and we are always looking for ways to ensure that they are enforced."
The new edict—delivered verbally, of course—has left some employees wondering if the rule also applies to shorthand for expletives such as "WTF" or legitimate terms that sound similar to curses.
In the spirit of the times, there is no written directive specifying which curses now are officially cursed. But screening tools being used by the firm would detect common swear words and acronyms.
Citigroup Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. have policies against using swear words in company email, according to the companies. Morgan Stanley tells employees that their email should be "professional, appropriate and courteous at all times," but doesn't specifically forbid naughty words.
NYSE Euronext Inc. "unofficially discourages" the use of profanity on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, according to a spokesman, and frequently issues memos reminding traders to exercise proper decorum. It began enforcing the policy more aggressively after TV networks started broadcasting live reports from the floor, traders say.
CME Group, which owns trading pits in Chicago and New York, says traders are expected to conduct themselves "with dignity and integrity." Its rulebook stipulates that the "use of profane, obscene or unbusinesslike language on the trading floor" could result in a fine. A first offense could be $1,000, while "an egregious violation" may result in a fine of up to $20,000.
The use of profanity on Wall Street came up at Morgan Stanley's annual meeting in May, where one shareholder asked Chairman John Mack about bad words attributed to bankers and policy makers in "Too Big to Fail," a book about the financial crisis. "The language was probably stronger than what was in the book," Mr. Mack responded, in a nod to the ingrained habit of swearing on Wall Street.
Goldman's employee emails have been a touchy subject ever since the Securities and Exchange Commission accused the firm in April of cheating clients by selling mortgage securities that were secretly designed by a hedge-fund firm to cash in on the housing market's collapse.
This month, Goldman agreed to pay $550 million to settle the civil charges, without admitting or denying the allegations.
In June, Citigroup told employees in a memo that "recent headlines involving inappropriate emails are an important reminder to 'think before writing, read before sending'."
The bank ordered employees to take within one month a 10-minute online course called "Improper Electronic Communications," which included a "briefing" on the "do's and don'ts of electronic communications."
Goldman's no-swearing dictate covers instant messages and texts from company-issued cellphones and emails. Verboten emails could get bounced to the compliance department. Others might be blocked completely, depending on the severity of the language.
There are no set disciplinary measures for offenders, but habitual profaners will be summoned by their managers to discuss cleaning up their language.
The late comedian George Carlin famously aired the issue of taboo lingo in his 1972 monologue, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." One firm with a big presence on trading floors has an even bigger list.
New York-based media company Bloomberg LP says it has monitored emails for more than 10 years, using an application that scans messages for 70 words and phrases—in English and several other languages— considered profane.
When caught, an offending Bloomberg employee gets a pop-up message warning him or her not to send the message, which highlights the naughty word. Depending on the severity of the word, some emails will be blocked altogether from being sent. (The same technology also is available for clients of Bloomberg's terminals.)
"There is case after case of email disaster that is reported in newspapers or media, and you would think that the last thing any rational person would do would be to speak carelessly or use profanity in email," says Kendall Coffey, a former federal prosecutor and now a partner at law firm Coffey Burlington in Miami. "But it seems to be an unlearnable lesson."
Among famous emails is one in which former Merrill Lynch & Co. stock analyst Henry Blodget used the acronym "POS" (a.k.a. "piece of s—") to refer to a tech stock he was touting to the public on behalf of the bank. In 2003, Mr. Blodget agreed to a lifetime ban from the securities industry after touting stocks that he disparaged in private emails. He couldn't be reached for comment.
But using software to screen for obscenities doesn't always work. Satellite-services provider Intelsat SA, of Luxembourg, a few years ago began screening email for profanities. But it found the level of emails that were wrongly captured was too high, and so it dropped the screening. It now relies on a policy of reminding employees of "appropriate language for external use," a spokeswoman said.
And last year, J.P. Morgan had to briefly override its automated profanity detectors so it could write a press release that mentioned a charity called Feel Your Boobies Foundation. That is the name of a Pennsylvania breast-cancer prevention group, which got a grant from the bank.
The New York company is telling employees that they will no longer be able to get away with profanity in electronic messages. That means all 34,000 traders, investment bankers and other Goldman employees must restrain themselves from using a vast vocabulary of oft-used dirty words on Wall Street, including the six-letter expletive that came back to haunt the company at a Senate hearing in April.
"[B]oy, that timberwo[l]f was one s— deal," Thomas Montag, who helped run Goldman's securities business, wrote in a June 2007 email that was repeatedly referred to at the hearing.
Mr. Montag, who couldn't be reached for comment, wouldn't be allowed to send that email under Goldman's sanitized communications policy, which is being enforced by screening software. Even swear words spelled with asterisks are out.
A Goldman spokeswoman said: "Of course we have policies about the use of appropriate language and we are always looking for ways to ensure that they are enforced."
The new edict—delivered verbally, of course—has left some employees wondering if the rule also applies to shorthand for expletives such as "WTF" or legitimate terms that sound similar to curses.
In the spirit of the times, there is no written directive specifying which curses now are officially cursed. But screening tools being used by the firm would detect common swear words and acronyms.
Citigroup Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. have policies against using swear words in company email, according to the companies. Morgan Stanley tells employees that their email should be "professional, appropriate and courteous at all times," but doesn't specifically forbid naughty words.
NYSE Euronext Inc. "unofficially discourages" the use of profanity on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, according to a spokesman, and frequently issues memos reminding traders to exercise proper decorum. It began enforcing the policy more aggressively after TV networks started broadcasting live reports from the floor, traders say.
CME Group, which owns trading pits in Chicago and New York, says traders are expected to conduct themselves "with dignity and integrity." Its rulebook stipulates that the "use of profane, obscene or unbusinesslike language on the trading floor" could result in a fine. A first offense could be $1,000, while "an egregious violation" may result in a fine of up to $20,000.
The use of profanity on Wall Street came up at Morgan Stanley's annual meeting in May, where one shareholder asked Chairman John Mack about bad words attributed to bankers and policy makers in "Too Big to Fail," a book about the financial crisis. "The language was probably stronger than what was in the book," Mr. Mack responded, in a nod to the ingrained habit of swearing on Wall Street.
Goldman's employee emails have been a touchy subject ever since the Securities and Exchange Commission accused the firm in April of cheating clients by selling mortgage securities that were secretly designed by a hedge-fund firm to cash in on the housing market's collapse.
This month, Goldman agreed to pay $550 million to settle the civil charges, without admitting or denying the allegations.
In June, Citigroup told employees in a memo that "recent headlines involving inappropriate emails are an important reminder to 'think before writing, read before sending'."
The bank ordered employees to take within one month a 10-minute online course called "Improper Electronic Communications," which included a "briefing" on the "do's and don'ts of electronic communications."
Goldman's no-swearing dictate covers instant messages and texts from company-issued cellphones and emails. Verboten emails could get bounced to the compliance department. Others might be blocked completely, depending on the severity of the language.
There are no set disciplinary measures for offenders, but habitual profaners will be summoned by their managers to discuss cleaning up their language.
The late comedian George Carlin famously aired the issue of taboo lingo in his 1972 monologue, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." One firm with a big presence on trading floors has an even bigger list.
New York-based media company Bloomberg LP says it has monitored emails for more than 10 years, using an application that scans messages for 70 words and phrases—in English and several other languages— considered profane.
When caught, an offending Bloomberg employee gets a pop-up message warning him or her not to send the message, which highlights the naughty word. Depending on the severity of the word, some emails will be blocked altogether from being sent. (The same technology also is available for clients of Bloomberg's terminals.)
"There is case after case of email disaster that is reported in newspapers or media, and you would think that the last thing any rational person would do would be to speak carelessly or use profanity in email," says Kendall Coffey, a former federal prosecutor and now a partner at law firm Coffey Burlington in Miami. "But it seems to be an unlearnable lesson."
Among famous emails is one in which former Merrill Lynch & Co. stock analyst Henry Blodget used the acronym "POS" (a.k.a. "piece of s—") to refer to a tech stock he was touting to the public on behalf of the bank. In 2003, Mr. Blodget agreed to a lifetime ban from the securities industry after touting stocks that he disparaged in private emails. He couldn't be reached for comment.
But using software to screen for obscenities doesn't always work. Satellite-services provider Intelsat SA, of Luxembourg, a few years ago began screening email for profanities. But it found the level of emails that were wrongly captured was too high, and so it dropped the screening. It now relies on a policy of reminding employees of "appropriate language for external use," a spokeswoman said.
And last year, J.P. Morgan had to briefly override its automated profanity detectors so it could write a press release that mentioned a charity called Feel Your Boobies Foundation. That is the name of a Pennsylvania breast-cancer prevention group, which got a grant from the bank.
