followed with ‘I wasn’t aware is so important to you. I didn’t want to insult you and if you felt so, I apologize. The word fuck is one I use very often, but I’ll try to control myself around you’
Note I didn’t insult the coworker (no fuck you or fuck off), but simply said ‘fuck’ out loud due to a job error.
True in theory, but in practice, those are pretty much universally accepted curse words. I personally swear all of the time when I know the audience I’m around, and hear people swearing from across my office, so culturally it’s not a thing where I work or especially my previous manufacturing job. In places that have outside customers or patients, the expectation is generally different and varying levels of masking those outbursts is required, sometimes even saying things like "crap"is too much.
It’s part of my religion, are you trying to suppress my religious rights?
Or something like that, there’s always an angle to play if someone wants to be petty or want to exert their “power” over their coworkers.