Making him aware of something that might affect his career down the road? He's a young programmer, a year or two younger than me (23/24). If I knew people could hear my muttering, I'd appreciate someone telling me.

@avidspartan1 If you want to help him then I suggest you talk to him, instead of "bringing it up" to anyone else.

I feel like my problem has been solved and all the answers so far are pretty similar. I'll give it 24 hours, though. :) I am interested in what experiences other people have had in this area.

@Kozaky, see Mister's answer regarding moving my desk. In my office, no one ever moves unless they get promoted, moved to a different team, or fired. I'm sure it would bring up questions.

I share my small office with one other person, and he curses occasionally and sings (both in English and Spanish), so I feel you. The singing has been brought up before, once by a coworker because of the volume and another time by our boss (likely because he was doing it while our boss was meeting with some vendors), and it stopped for the next month or so.

I'm exactly like that guy. Somehow I manage to stay employed.

I do the exact same thing as well - and sometimes a bit more loudly. I've had a few remarks on it, but honestly I do it so automatically I find it very difficult to stop

Obligatory Atwood i2.wp.com/commadot.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/wtf.png?w=‌​550

Totally amiable co-worker. I would love him for these little outbursts of microagression, which totally in the frame of the programers's tourette syndrome.

It sounds completely unacceptable - no coder I've worked with has ever done this. Instead, they tend to loudly speak, or shout, and follow up with "have you seen this ****? Come and look at this load of ******* "********!" I suggest you politely ask said employee to speak up, and go and look at the offending code without being asked. This will show you're interested and they'll likely start inviting you over after a few times. HTH. :-)

Better than the guy I used to work with who would shout at the top of his lungs at a coworker 3-5 rows of cubes away using language that would make a sailor or longshoreman blush. Might be worth mentioning to him at lunch or after work one day, something along the lines of, "Bob, it doesn't bother me too much (I put headphones on when it does), but something you may want to be aware of for the future. This might not go over well in every office." i.e. - he's probably not aware that he's doing it audibly and you're being his buddy by helping him out instead of calling him out.

Are you working with me, by chance? :P (Oh, wait, it's in the US. Can't be me then...)

This is completely normal behavior for programmers. Unless you can help, just leave them alone.

In the UK, if one of my colleagues wasn't perpetually swearing all day I'd be wondering what was wrong.

I always curse, trying not too loud if somebody around

We had a young lady join us on a temp basis, as we put her opposite this one guy... at lunch she said quietly, "he swears a lot", We all laughed, as it was very true, and everything was fine.

A simple coping mechanism, nothing more.

Not gonna lie, sitting here in my 4-corner's cube, I had to peek over to the diagnal cubical and whisper quizzically, "Are you The Spartan?" with a head nod to the cubical adjoining ours.

You and he both need your own offices.

When I read the question, I was 99% certain that you were talking about me, until I read your comment about how young the programmer was :(.. yeah this is definitely a very common occurrence in this industry. I'd personally want the other person to tell me if my random cursing is bothering them though.

I must admit, I am a new programmer and I'm kind of astounded by the responses here. It seems incredibly unprofessional to me, and definitely not a norm at my workplace (a large software company). I guess you have to abide by your company's culture whatever it may be-- or find a different job.