Adult Tantrums..

[getawfmylaaaand]

I witnessed something incredible today.

I was in a meeting with a usually lovely client and had to essentially demand that she paid an outstanding invoice. Invoice had gone unpaid for 3 months and after a lot of probing, it’s got to the point where we had to bring her in for a discussion. She’s in her mid-40’s and very well respected in her field. She’s been a pleasure to work with until now!

Anyway, I went in professional and to the point, and then my lovely client transformed into a toddler in a full screaming tantrum, complete with foot stomping and the phrase forever now etched on my memory: ‘it’s my money I’ll pay whoever I want!’.

She went bright red in the face, balled her fists and actually stomped.

I’ve never seen anything like it and in complete shock, I didn’t say a word for a bit too long and just sat there, horrified

Anyway, eventually my colleague said ‘so the choice is we cease service and begin proceedings to collect the arrears or you pay the arrears and we’ll carry out the work to the end of the contract, we’ll leave it with you’.

Half an hour later she paid us

Im still in shock, is this a thing? Ive not been in a lot of board level meetings so Im not sure if this is commo. (It’s certainly not normal!). Do these kinds of screaming meltdowns happen often or have I just been unlucky?

I need gin.

Bizarre isn’t it. During my nursing days I saw a very senior anaesthetic consultant literally Jump up and down in rage as he was given a coffee with no sugar.

What a twat.

You embaressed her op and she didn’t like it. Silly cow

Yes very occasionally you do encounter people who just can’t control themselves. I worked with one who threw a (company, not personal!) phone at the wall, smashing it.

You console yourself by thinking, “thank fuck I don’t live with that person!”

It was mad, like someone flicked a switch.

I’d said ‘we have a lot of plans and ideas for the account so we’d love to keep working through the XXX (insert businessy stuff), if we can settle the finances we can continue on he really solid footing we kicked off on’

She said ‘yeah the planning looks great, it would be a shame for red tape to get in the way of it, you’ve all worked so hard’

So I said ‘yes, once the finances are settled and we have the go ahead from financial director we’ve got lots to get cracking on!’

Then she just went up like a firework!

How did you keep a straight face, I'd have been struggling not to laugh at her performance.

I had a boss like that. It was unbearable at first, then it became amusing.

Not normal or ok. But not that uncommon I'd say! I've seen a business owner/ CEO throw the mother of all tantrums, punch a wall in temper and break his hand.

People are weird! And unprofessional.

I worked for a company where one of the Directors would do this.

A man in his forties, with a wife and kids (and two mistresses) and he would throw tantrums in the office and slam doors and chuck cups at walls and call people names if something didn't go his way.

To be honest it’s quite frightening seeing adults out of control.

Yes very occasionally you do encounter people who just can’t control themselves.

Absolutely. I do think they can control themselves, though, they're just choosing not to.

A woman I went to Uni with behaved quite badly towards another woman and was hauled over the coals by several senior members of staff regarding the bullying. It was that insidious sort of fake-nice bullying where it's almost gaslighting the person rather than overt unkindness (and to be honest I found it worse than honest, upfront punching her in the chin because it was so devious). When it happened I was asked to be there as a witness because I'd seen a great deal of the behaviour and had been the one to report it. The woman went absolutely nuts, shouting, screaming, stamping, flailing about and crying and it went on for what felt like hours. Totally bizarre and unreasonable.

I've never seen another adult tantrum since and never want to. Even my DCs haven't been that wild and they were absolute tools at times when they were small.

Could she be menopausal? I saw my nan do something similar over "Egyptian cotton" bed sheets. Essentially the shop assistant was insisting that these sheets were Egyptian cotton, my DN insisted they weren't as the thread count was too low? I don't know why but she had a full tantrum about it. She aoologised the next day.

She’s a CEO so maybe it’s a thing? Wonder if at their networking events they had a seminar on the benefits of throwing an old fashioned wobbly

My colleague and I had a chat afterwards once she’d gone and we were both a bit shell shocked. Neither of us knew what to say until finally he just said ‘well then!’ And we had a bit of a laugh to break the tension.

I mean it was WEIRD. It’s not like the invoices were a surprise, we’ve been working on her account with no pay for it for 3 months and chased her for the payments constantly since!

She acted like we were chaining her to train tracks and demanding payment for the keys!

I had a boss like that. He was very short and he used to go bright red, scream, shout, stamp his feet, hurl insults etc. He'd come storming out of his office and do this to his victim in the middle of a large open plan office. Utterly astonishing to see (although thankfully never did it to me). He was very high level in a big financial services firm and is now retired and doing a very high profile non-exec role.

Always makes me wonder if age has calmed him down at all. Bizarre behaviour from a grown man in a professional environment.

I had a French teacher like this. She was terrifying.

Were you talking about her financial director? If so I think you may have hit a sore spot as you highlighted the fact that they are the real decision maker and need to give the go ahead first?
I used to sell large IT systems and saw clients have these tantrums all the time - usually from senior managers who thought they had fooled everyone into thinking they were the real decision makers on projects - and it was ALWAYS the finance director or CEO really...

The speed of the switch was astounding.

One minute, passive aggressive but agreeable.. the next minute she’s out of her chair, hand on the desk balled into fists and literally screaming and swearing like a pissed up sailor

She could be menopausal I suppose, I’d have no way of knowing though and I’m loathed to assume.

I’m a bit worried about working with her now. She’s probably going to be embarrassed about it and it’s going to be awkward

One of the directors at my old place of work threw tantrums but also hastily bullied too. He was known for throwing phones out of Windows or cups of coffees across desks.... Horrible man.

dino no we were talking about our FD and mentioned him by name so no confusion there. I was basically trying to say that I need confirmation that she’d paid us before I could continue with the work.

We even tried to get to the bottom of why they hadn’t paid but there doesn’t seem to be any reason for it either

I worked for two people like this.

One got fired for throwing a chair across the office and the other was promoted and now only tortures other very senior people.

I’ve experienced more minor tantrums quite regularly.

Sibce having my kids I have developed a zero tolerance policy though- if I wouldn't put up with a particular behaviour from my children I’m damn well not accepting it from an adult.

My first line manager was like that. It was quite scary. She was a highly educated woman in a middle-management position and she'd just suddenly go nuts if something went wrong. She'd scream at people and slam the phone down, or erupt over something fairly trivial. She was well known for it and clearly had an anger management problem.

I remember the parent of a child I taught do this. Her daughter had missed a music lesson. The child was called by the music teacher's previous pupil but did not turn up. Parent came in to complain and when I explained she literally stamped her feet and spun on the spot! Child was mortified.

I have never seen anything like it!

God had a client that did this (50 something senior man) threw a tantrum in a large meeting pen throwing and everything. We were his lawyers so had to trail out after him when he stomped off. I was only 24 and even then was mortified!

In 26 years of nursing I saw a few Doctors do this sort of thing. I remember one surgeon throwing a cup of coffee across the room and screaming “even your fucking coffee is shit!” He then ran out of the room and slammed the door!

I never ever saw a nurse behave like that.

Way back when I was a v. junior switchboard operator. I put a call through to one department, (visible from where I sat) and the guy who picked it up literally bellowed down the phone at me in temper which actually hurt my eardrums. The utter arsery of it has always stayed with me but later on the day(s) he came in bent double because he'd put his back out made up for it

My husband saw my neighbour (retired) have a big tantrum recently! Very embarrassing for everyone.

I used to work in the TV industry and had a female boss who would have regular tantrums, she'd smash computer equipment up and other stuff.

It's not menopause that makes people behave like this, it's being a twat.