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2 Tammuz 5760 - July 5, 2000 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Opinion & Comment
Speech in the Workplace

To The Editor:

When the company that I work for was first established, the founder expressed the wish that the employees avoid speaking loshon hora. He realized the detrimental effects that loshon hora could cause in the work environment. Good communication and an unstrained work atmosphere are important for the efficiency of the company.

Now, after davening mincha each day at work, people take turns reading sections from Rav Pliskin's book entitled Guard Your Tongue. The book is written in a way that allows easy reading and contains anecdotes to illustrate the points. In addition, daily e-mails containing that day's material are sent out (with the author's permission).

Anyone who has had loshon hora spoken about himself, knows how much pain it caused him. The emotions are independent of the person's particular religious orientation. This provides for a larger audience with a common goal.

The work environment is where communication and teamwork play a vital role. New ideas have to be expressed and the merits and demerits of opposing views have to be analyzed. This format requires a constant awareness of and careful approach to interpersonal interactions. On the one hand, certain demands need to be made on the members to ensure constant motivation and efficiency but on the other hand, care must be taken to achieve these goals without speaking derogatorily about anyone. This continuous trial affords the worker opportunity for reward as expressed by the Vilna Gaon - "For every second that one remains silent he will merit reward of a magnitude that is beyond the comprehension of even mal'ochim." (Igeres HaGra).

One of the participants of the program looked favorably at the book and recalled how it had been his introduction to Orthodoxy. He remembered thinking to himself "Ah -- is this what Orthodoxy has to say?"

The benefit of the program was shown clearly by the following incident. Somebody erroneously caused a corruption of data. When reporting this information to the appropriate party who could fix it, the supervisor was careful not to mention the name of the guilty party. After being asked the obvious question of who caused the damage, the supervisor refused to reveal the identity of the party since no benefit would be gained by this information. This behavior prevented any ill- feeling that might have been caused amongst the employees.

A friend related to me how he used to combat the use of unclean language in his workplace. The employees agreed to be fined according to the severity of the offense and the proceeds were then given to an unaffiliated charity. It is said that the Chofetz Chaim celebrated birthday parties annually during his later years, to demonstrate publicly that those who guard their tongue are rewarded with long life.

May we all merit to use speech correctly in and out of the workplace and thereby partake of the rewards reserved for those who do so.

(Name Withheld by Request)


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