Aah, Risk. Raise one and watch people flinch. Needle comes off the record. Talk about risk and people get squidgy or finger-pointy. Or both. 

The funny part is that RISK is not the word to fear. ISSUE is. By the time something graduates from risk to issue, the meeting where we could have done something about it was months ago. That smoke we saw earlier? It's become a fire. Fire is VERY easy to understand. The solution is clear. The problem with continuously allowing risks to become issues is that, you know. All your stuff burns down.

Risk is something that can still be acted on. It doesn't mean someone failed. It means something needs an owner, a deadline, and a decision. That's it.

Yeah, it's my job to be the wet blanket. But would you rather be on fire?

My best work is powered by sarcasm, jokes, and swearing. Not because I can't help it, but because it works for me. I have rules and ethics about when and how I dip in: My curses are always for the Universe. I never swear at people. I save it for circumstances and situations. To me, there's a very big distinction between using foul language as a weapon versus a tool. And yeah, I can rein it in and behave myself when the context requires, but it's not nearly as much fun. It's something I always raise up front.

I've been a professional (and have existed as a human woman) for long enough to know that the people who never curse aren't calmer than me. They're just performing calm in a different dialect. Or, they're performing respectability, which I find absolutely exhausting. That's a different post.

My energy is focused on getting shit done. Expletives are my love language. They are efficient; cursing compresses a lot of information into a very small package. It also serves as a blowoff valve, and helps to power me into the creativity zone. It's not for everyone, and that's OK. Despite the title of this page, I'll never ask anyone to pardon my French. I said what I said, in perfect fucking English.