I Said The F Word On Twitter and Was Kicked Out

Yesterday I was pretty sure a sign similar to the one above would be slapped down in front of me, a finger wagging in my face, and a stern face telling me, “No F words on Twitter!”.

The story begins as I crossed the finish line of my first ever 5K race yesterday morning. I was on cloud 9, on that “high” that racers feel. Even though I walked it, I was pumped! If I was physically able, I just might have done cartwheels! After I grabbed a bottle of water, I pulled out my BlackBerry, got on Twitter, and tweeted out for the world:

Fuck yea! Might have been at the end, almost last but I finished my first 5k!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you know me on Twitter, you know that I’m not a sailor. I don’t cuss every other word, but I have occasionally said something worthy of the title “Potty Mouth”. I’m an adult, so I know when my word choices can be appropriate and not in a PROFESSIONAL arena. However, when it comes to my personal life, my family and friends know that I will swear/cuss, sometimes out of excitement, sometimes out of anger.

What surprised me after I sent that tweet out was an e-mail that I received from an organization that I played a very small, unpaid, VOLUNTEER part in. The e-mail went something like this:

Mandi, This is ____ from _____. We recently saw on Twitter that you used the F word. Because of the demographics of our organization, we are removing you from our ambassador list.

I kid you not.

I VOLUNTEERED to be an ambassador, and quite honestly, since I took on said role, I didn’t even do anything for the organization! Was my role in the organization so significant that they noticed that tweet, out of almost 10,000 tweets, they noticed that one?

While I am not at a loss, since this was unpaid, the organization is. My personal life and my professional life cross all the time, they UFC cage fight all the time, but they are still separate. Me completing my first ever 5K was not a reflection of my professional life, it was not a reflection of or a sponsored tweet for this organization. It was me, being me.

Had this situation been different, and I had been taking part in a paid ambassadorship or partnership with this organization, and been told the “rules” or etiquette while working with them, perhaps I would have taken more caution when tweeting. The thing is, this was said on my own time, not company time. This was at 9 something in the morning, on a Saturday, when the rest of the world was sleeping or making breakfast.

So, so what, I said “The F Word”. Was it REALLY THAT BAD?

Edited to add some information:

Thanks to a commenter, I went and checked out CurseBird… real time swear words on Twitter. Here is a screen shot of the results it pulled up for me:

Three times… and the first two times I apologized! One was after the 2010 Olympics hockey game, the other during the 2010 Grey’s Anatomy season finale (just three days ago), and then yesterday’s post-5K tweet. And since the organization didn’t clarify, they could be referring to the Grey’s-related tweet, or the post-race tweet. Either way, does either reflect on them? Was either sponsored?