Some things are not safer for work than others:
The term “not safe for work,” is relative. I mean, “not safe for work” to a stripper could be something about creating a union. And “not safe for work” to a stay-at-home mom (it’s a full-time job) could be something about unionized strippers.
Different jobs call for different levels of safety. Some restaurants don’t allow their waiters to be on the phone, so any message coming in, even if it’s from their dying cat who just learned how to type in Spanish and Google Translate it to English to say a final goodbye, is considered not safe for work because it could cost the waiter his job.
To an unemployee, getting an email with the “NSFW” warning is the same as getting an email that says, “Hey, man, it’s cool. You can open this email up whenever you want, wherever you want. You can even open it up butt-naked on the couch because fuck it, you’re unemployed and your roommate’s at work. What are you going to get fired from? Sitting butt-naked on your roommate’s couch? Fuck that guy.” It’s one of the few benefits the unemployed get to rub in the working man’s face to feel better about their situation. Along with being able to use the restroom for ten minutes without being questioned whether or not they’re taking a shit.
There are some industries where the term NSFW is meaningingless, too. These people get the same peace-of-mind and can open any email they want at work. For instance, there’s probably hardly anything that’s off-limits for a clown.
Boss Clown could walk in on Bonkers watching the filthiest video involving honey bees on HoneyBDSM.com and say, “Whoops! Sorry, Bonkers! Carry on.” They’re clowns. Sure they take their job seriously, but come on. They’re clowns.
Priests, however, are a different story. There is so much on the internet that can get them in trouble. The internet was probably designed by Second Circle Engineers to tempt everyone on Earth. And it worked. Have you ever tried google imaging “drill tip”? You get suggestive scenes from Nelly’s “Tip Drill” music video. And that’s with safesearch on strict. God might have etched the Ten Commandments on two stone tablets but it only takes one tablet PC to make someone forget about all of that.
Teachers get a little more leniency. Not by much, but at least they don’t have an omniscient, omnipresent boss, so they can view almost whatever they want in an incognito window in the teacher’s lounge. Homeschool teachers don’t really have a teacher’s lounge, though, so any piece of information can be dangerous to the homeschooled child, whether it’s communist propaganda or a coupon to the water park.
For people out at sea, messages can be laced with curse words and that would be fine. After all, they curse like sailors because they are sailors. But if the cuss-ridden letter has an underlying message about mutiny, make sure it’s properly labeled “NSFW.” Otherwise, should the captain walk by and glance over, someone’s getting thrown into the ocean.
On a spaceship, however, robot-to-robot communication can be done warning-free despite their plot to murder everyone on board because humans can’t read binary. Even if the astronauts were able to decipher the robots’ not-safe-for-work 1s and 0s, the crew members would still blow it off because Isaac Asimov’s not-safe-for-humankind’s first law of robotics falsely puts everyone’s guard down.
The only thing that needs a “not safe for work” label no matter what, are these penis enlargmenet medication emails. There is no workplace nor situation where that kind of message is ever safe.
