Goldman Sachs Bans Swearing; Economy Saved!

The Wall Street Journal reports today that destroyer of worlds Goldman Sachs has issued a new policy banning its employees from using profanity in all electronic messages.  Industry experts predict that the rule will result in a total communications blackout at the investment bank, with befuddled Goldman employees unable to communicate to anybody about anything without expressing their smoldering, disdainful rage.

The move comes in the wake of public Senate hearings in April, where a profane email caused major embarrassment for the bank.  In the email, Goldman employee Thomas Montag referred to a deal as “shitty;” only days later, Goldman was aggressively selling the “shitty deal” to its clients.  It was a PR disaster which obviously would have been nonexistent had Montag showed restraint and instead referred to the deal as “terrible,” “awful,” “disastrous,” “foolish,” “dreadful,” “ruinous,” or any other word that would urbanely describe the remarkably poor quality of the deal Goldman was preparing to foist upon its unsuspecting clients.

To avoid such gaffes in the future, the bank will be using profanity-filtering software to scan all employee messages for swears.  Other similar policies are being considered, including banning Big Johnson t-shirts, disallowing the use of headphones while on bank grounds, and conducting routine bag searches for PSPs, soda, permanent markers, and other contraband.

Most observers expect Goldman employees to be as respectful of this rule as they are of all other rules they encounter in their professional lives.

Goldman employees will still be allowed to lie, swindle and bully in their electronic messages, so long as they do so in a professional and courteous manner.

[WSJ]

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