to think crying in work is just a bit weird?

[RedHotPokers]

I don't know what it is with the women people in my office. They just seem to cry an awful lot. I find it bizarre.

Recently my colleagues have cried for reasons including:

1. Someone being a bit 'off' with them on the phone
2. Losing some unsaved work on the PC
3. Feeling unappreciated
4. Being asked to take on an additional piece of work cos someone is off sick
5. Even because they left their purse at home would you believe!

Since when was it the done thing to run off to the toilets sobbing every time something a bit stressful happens.

I can honestly say I have never cried in work. If I have been a bit pissed off or stressed, I take it home with me (rightly or wrongly). I would be mortified at the thought of sitting weeping at my desk!

AIBU to think people should get a grip?

(And btw, my workplace is one of the least stressful I have EVER worked in. Think public sector admin, no threat of job losses currently, and very few people working past 5pm).

Have a look at the 'I cried at Peppa Pig' thread on the pregnancy board and suddenly it might all become clear... (sorry, on phone so can't link)

Seriously though, I've really struggled this year-have been feeling v anxious about my pregnancy and as a result have found it hard to control my emotions at work if the boss shouts etc. It's v frustrating. Maybe they hate crying as much as you hate them crying??

Well if you have nosy interfering cows at work Jareth that is awful and hope they get what they deserve.

If you are having a rough time at work I am very sorry. I dont know what is going on and I have just checked to see if I have missed a post about it. I am sorry if I am mistaken but I cant find one. Without this information it is easy for me to be made to look a bit of bitch though isnt it?

And I am not a bitch. So that isnt very fair.

I have already stated that I am more than willing to support my collegues who are having a rough time and I do. It is not about judging on very little info. Its about attention seeking nightmares who disrupt the work environment and manipulate their colleagues.

This is very different from someone dealing with difficult issues breaking down at work.

devon I hope the horrible person at your work also gets what she deserves and things get easier for you.

I have cried several times in the office - but only twice that anyone knew about.

1. I went to tell my manager that I wasn't coping with being the sole provider of 24 hour support to the very tempermental accounting system for a huge international bank (I was working all day and then going home, getting called at about 1am and then working all night from home until it was time to go to work again). This was happening while my FiL was very ill, in fact dying, in hospital. I went in to the office planning to calmly explain, but just broke down. My manager was great.

2. Telling my manager (a different one) about my ectopic pregnancy - she was fab too.

3. Many times in the toilets - mostly either work pressure or TTC-related. But I always went back in to the office with my tears dried and my head held high.

Drama queens. Can't be doing with it. My family are a bit like this:

"oh did you hear S* is having a breakdown? it's so sad"

why?

"well she's just decorated and the council are coming to redo the electrics."

oh for fucks sake, get over it already.

Maybe that is it mutant. I too have family drama queens. It lowers your tolerance a bit.

BUT only to DRAMA QUEENS. Not to people who are struggling.

I used to cry at work all the time when I was pregnant :) Made sure I got to the loos first so noone saw me. The only two time I've had a non-pregnant cry was when a junior member of staff had a huge, personal, agressive, in your face rant at me, inches away from my face (for something I hadn't actually done).

YANBU OP and MrsdeVere

Frequent criers are disruptive and manipulative. In my line of work crying was used to get out of unpleasant but necessary jobs that then were landed on others increasing their workload and stress.

The more challenging aspects of my job weren't a secret when any of us signed up. They could even be said to be what made the job interesting but just because I find something interesting doesn't mean that I want to be the reliable, hard-as-nails mug who'll always do it.

I've also had a nasty bullying boss, who when management finally took the numerous complaints about her seriously, burst into tears in HR and claimed she was only doing her best and we were bullying her.

I had a surreal meeting with the HR director who asked me to sympathise with the woman who'd relished making my life a misery until she'd been pulled up.

It's really bad management to allow criers to manipulate colleagues just for a quiet life. But too many companies do it.

It wasn't that MrsDV, I just thought it was weird that you jumped on my comment without thinking. No, I haven't posted about it but that doesn't matter.

Anyway, we have enough to worry about between us without misunderstandings on the interweb :)

I've cried at work (and in my office too) while we were going through fertility treatment. I was working ridiculous hours so tended to notice that my period had started while I was at work and then had to try and get hold of the clinic on their completely impossible constantly engaged phone number.

I don't think I've cried at all in my current job but then I've never really cried about work anyway. It has only been when personal things have got completely out of control while at work. I would have preferred not to, but I'm not going to cry again about having done it.

Jareth I hope you understand that I would NEVER EVER be horrible to someone in that way.

I will admit to ripping into people with certain views on certain subjects but NEVER would I want to upset you or any other poster

Its really not me. I would have sleepless nights!

I hope things improve for you whatever is happening.

I said in my last post I cried after being assaulted at work well I have just remembered about something that happened a long time ago when I cried after a trivial (though not so nice comment).

A woman asked for a particular product. I had said that I was sorry that we didn't have it but would she like me to order it in. Her reply was 'My Husband has benign prostate hyperplasia, and you want him to wait until tomorrow for something he wants you ignorant little girl' Now I will freely admit that what the lady said was minor and I shouldn't have cried at something so minor, however it is the perfect example of the straw that broke the camels back.

I had been struggling to work full time, study for professional post grad exams and nurse my terminal ill father (with Prostate cancer)

It was my first day back at work after taking a few days off when my Dad had died.

Immediately on walking in the door my managed had called me in to tell me I was unprofessional for having this time off, going to the funeral because it wasn't as if it was a close relative.

My boss then informed me, he had contacted the body organising my exams to withdraw me as I wasn't showing enough professional integrity because of above. SO all my studying had been for nothing.

Within an hour of actually starting working his deputy told me in front of colleagues and customers I was ridiculously selfish for getting upset at my Dad's death because I had my full life ahead of me and wasn't as if he hadn't lived one.

Then the woman who caused me to cry came in. I had held it together until then.

I'll probably be judged as weak, bizarre and a drama queen by many on here but really I am only a human being with feelings. When you are living on the edge of losing it due to whatever is stressing you something minor can very easily push you over that edge

Actually I dont think you would be judged by anyone on this thread as bizarre, weak or a as drama queen.

Why on earth would you think that?

:)

I know MrsDV, and thanks. Like I said, misunderstandings :)

Hug to you too

Well I might just start crying in a minute.
I am SO frustrated with the gadget freaks in my office who HAVE to use the air con. It's about 15C outside. We do not need aircon. It's set to 24C which means it warms up and then turn the cold air on to cool it down. Stupid feckin' thing.

Ooooo I know, if it gets too warm we could OPEN A WINDOW. Then if it gets too cold we could CLOSE IT.

This is England, hardly the Arizona desert. For about 2 or 3 weeks a year it's nice to have aircon, that's it. We're all going to hell in a hand cart what with the new obsession of climate control.

There, I don't feel like crying now. Thanks.

Ooooh bonkers - do you actually work in an office with real, live, actual opening windows? How exciting.
The last couple of offices I worked in were specifically designed to stop people opening windows and buggering up the highly technical balance of air con that was being used. I hate air con - makes my skin itch.

I lurve air-con, having worked summers in labs without it. With all the fridges and machinery in there, the temp was often unbearable and we would take turns in the blood fridge for 5 minutes. We had waterbaths that needed to be at 37degC - times were we wouldn't need to actually switch them on.

Then I worked in a temperature regulated lab - it was heaven!

Crying is involuntary.

Do you work in my former office, RedHotPokers? There were a couple of (female, yes) colleagues in my previous shared office who were like this. They were regularly in histrionics about minor things.

I keep my cool at work generally but have had occasions when tears have erupted - to my utter and absolute mortification if I don't make it to the loos on time. My most mortifying memory of crying at work was in a meeting where I was the youngest and only female member of staff at an relatively intense meeting with otherwise 'senior' male members of staff, all in their 50s / late 40s. They were just arguing and arguing and I had PMT from hell and hated my job and just wanted to leave. One of them addressed a question to me and when I looked up to answer it, I had tears in my eyes (although I managed to hold back from actual crying). He looked terrified once he saw my eyes watering and I was utterly mortified and wanted the ground to swallow me up. I just couldn't hold it in for some reason.

I think women aren't able to hold it in as well as men because we're not 'trained' to. Boys learn from an early age to never let the tears out. My DH and I have talked about this before and he said that even when he was really young - 5 or 6 - his family would ridicule him if he cried and tell him he was 'wee bubbling' Jock' (he's Scottish) so he learned to control tears and upset. Girls are indulged more. I really struggle to hold it in when I need to cry. It just wells up and I feel a kind of physical relief afterwards. Really, really a trait that you need to keep a lid on in the workplace though!

I have been thinking about this. Because I am a nice person ( I am! I am!).

I think that I may feel this way for a number or reasons.
The main one being that I often feel like crying. Infact I feel like crying every single day. Maybe I feel resentful towards those that do? Perhaps I feel its unfair that they get to cry and I dont?
That isnt logical of me and it must sound pretty selfish.

But I honestly only feel that way about the drama queens. Really. I wouldnt watch some poor colleague weeping over the death of her beloved cat and think 'what a wimp!'

I will admit that if someone starts kicking up fuss about some bit of old toss and getting everyone else running after them I would probably want to give them a poke with a sharp stick.

Because itsnt it always the ones with the least to worry about who make the most bloody fuss?

The ones who are dealing with terrible things are usually so busy trying to hold it together they dare not let it out at work.

The posters here who have spoken about TTC and losing people and relationship issues - I bet crying at work was not something they planned to or wanted to do. It wasnt a deliberate ploy to get sympathy or to get out of doing the photocopying!

I am constantly suprised at what people are coping with behind their calm exteriors. You get chatting to someone in the staff room, someone you have known for years and you find out that they are a single parent to 5 kids, two of whom have disabilities and they have an abusive ex partner fighting them for custody

Crying isnt always involuntary. I know people who can turn the tears on at the drop of a hat and I can certainly stop myself crying in a second (not that I am saying that is a good thing!)

This thread is about (from what I understand) serial sobbers who use tears to get what they want. Does anyone really think that working in an office full of crying people is desirable?

people don't cry at being given an extra hours work, there must be more going on in their lives.
your probably not the type of person they would confide in so thats why you probably don't know why they are crying.

i have never cried at work, although i have when i got home.

but ive rather be over emotional than dead on the inside, lacking on empathy and compassion

I think one thing this thread might have thrown up is that you really can't tell on limited information what is going on in the background of someone's life. So if they sob at something trivial at work, there might just be something big behind it that you don't know about.

Even if they sob every day about something trivial, there still might be something in their background that you just don't know about (terminally ill parent, for e.g.) and probably haven't been fussed enough to ask.

However, if they are using it as a means to avoiding work they don't want to do then that is annoying and toddlerish and they need to grow up.

But how do you tell which it is without asking them?

10/10 for a wonderfully insulting post, Carrie.

It's so beautifully crafted I just don't know where to start!

Because with some people, after a while, you can just tell.

I'd have loved to ask my old boss.

"Are you crying over something meaningful going on in your private life or because you have the emotional maturity of a gnat and use crying as a defence when criticised or asked to do something you can't/don't want to do?"

I might have ended up fired but it would have been worth it.