Crying at work!

[Jourdain11]

I'm so annoyed with myself for doing this and it is definitely, 110% unreasonable! It's been a super busy and theoretically stressful period at work and I am in a new and slightly different role within a different team (same organisation). The workload and work pressures haven't really been getting to me, though - although it is a lot and it's pretty non-stop. It has more been a combination of outside stuff and the fact that my line manager picks up on everything that she wants me to do differently, to the extent where I have felt sort of picked away at, or at least under excessive scrutiny.

Anyway, yesterday was vile: the morning started badly because DD1 (9) is in school refusal mode and we had a fully fledged battle to get her to go before, all before 8am. I thought j was going to be late (although I wasn't) and then when I got in there was a massive mess for me to sort out because someone else had made a minor mess of something. I was so tired that I felt like I was aching all over and I could have quite happily gone home and back to bed, ha. Then I had a one-to-one with my line manager and ended up saying that I felt a bit got at and it wasn't very good for productivity (because I am constantly second-guessing everything or having to defend my word-choice or whatever). LM wasn't really up for the discussion and I ended up sort of tearing up and my voice did a little baby wobble.

I'm just pissed off with myself for being so pathetic. I'm a grown-up 33 year old woman, FFS, not a teenage intern, and I hate the fact that I've made myself come over as an emotional liability. Ugh.

It’s an alpha male fallacy that there should never be any emotion in the workplace. You’re human. Humans have emotions. You didn’t wail you had a small cry. Your manager can fuck off

I always get the voice wobble at work. Going through a rough time and been caught at a bad point several times. I understand how you feel. We are only human x

One aspect of Management is about managing the team, the good, the bad, and the messy.

It is about supporting them to be their best selves, which ultimately supports their productivity within the organisation.

Anyone even vaguely involved in management would know that faced with a (very slighly) emotionally overwrought staff member, would take them aside to offer support.

They certainly under ANY circumstances would not get involved in competitive angst.

The OP is obviously carrying a huge load and to berate her for not managing to keep her private life separate is just awful.🙄

OP, please don't feel bad about being upset.

I cannot imagine how stressful health issues with school refusal going on must be.

Wishing you well.

@Bluntness100 Ok 🤷🏻‍♀️ Hopefully you’ll never have reason to and if it works for you then that’s fine. Some of us will find that personal circumstances affect our job performance and if that happens then I consider it better to be able to acknowledge that than pretend it’s fine.

Although @Bluntness100 I’m pretty sure I saw comments of yours in a different thread yesterday saying that mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of - I agree with that and I think sometimes that means having a conversation with your manger about how your mental health/wellbeing is affecting your ability to do your job, as you would with a physical injury. I spent a long time feeling like I couldn’t bring any of that ‘shit’ to work; I ended up getting signed off and then the jig was up. It was actually a lot easier once I had given up trying to pretend I was coping. Subsequently I’ve just been honest and have been fortunate that my line managers have been understanding - hence why I was able to arrange to make an adjustment of 20 mins to the start of my working day that made it a lot easier for me to come in.

I think the fault is partly mine, in that I haven't been particularly open about any "life stress" and how it might impact me at work. But to be honest, I don't think it really has impacted on my work - except for yesterday! And even after that conversation, I just went back and continued - it wasn't like I then had to stop for the day or take time out or whatever.

I also just don't find it easy to talk about health issues and stuff - I always get a bit embarrassed and saying "it's no big deal"! Even with friends. Stupid, I know!

DH, like I say, has been amazing in helping DD1 through her school fears. So it's not like I'm handling it alone. But Christ, I don't know how single parents do it! Already anticipating a Sunday evening of tears and "tummy ache"...

Anyway - Monday will be a new week!

@Flowersinthefireplace

It’s an alpha male fallacy that there should never be any emotion in the workplace. You’re human. Humans have emotions. You didn’t wail you had a small cry. Your manager can fuck off

I grew up in France and, while I think most of Emily in Paris is stereotyped and trite, the long lunch thing is certainly true to life. Consequently, in French workplaces, I reckon everyone gets time to cry in their lunch hour if they need to. Or to offload and unwind, thus cancelling out the need to cry

Whenever I’ve been crying at work or seen someone crying at work it’s usually for a very good reason (toxic workplace, bullying or bereavement/terminally ill relation).

I wouldn’t give yourself a hard time over it but if you have support people at work (counselling) it might be a good idea to talk to them. If you feel you’re getting upset then either square it with line manager or just do it, take a 5-10 minute walk, preferably outside. This really helped me just to refocus and get my head in a better shape to not cry.

Oh, just saw re your line manager, please go above them if you can and mention you don’t feel supported.

I think it may also be partly everyone getting used to "being back in the workplace". Although no one was working completely from home during the pandemic, most people were doing some days from home. Now everyone is back in, 5 days a week.

Oh bless you OP. It's far more normal than we imagine. I've definitely cried at work a few times, three times in my current role and despite me being the only woman in an office of gruff seeming military men, no one batted an eyelid or was anything but lovely.

I've cried twice in shock and pain after nasty falls and just got patched up and taken home.Then he other week when the civil service HR self service site gave me merry hell for 3hrs and I was incredibly stressed trying to print out some docs I needed very desperately for something very pressured and important. The last straw was the bloody thing refusing to cooperate with the printer and I burst into very ugly, noisy sobs . Someone else fixed it, showed me the trick and nothing more had been said. They're the best and I feel very lucky.

I've cried multiple times in check-ins with my boss who is the CEO and I am a member of the senior management team. It has not affected her respect for me (I worried that it had but during my last appraisal she said I was brilliant and she had the same utmost respect for me she always had) and she has always been compassionate but also motivating and a mentor. A good line manager cares about what is going on in your life that may affect you at work and helps you manage that. A good line manager is supportive and motivating. Your line manager sounds like a terrible manager. I'm sorry. I know how awful it is when you have a nightmare morning with a child and feel like you've done ten rounds in the ring before you even get to work. It's so important to have understanding colleagues!

Have just got DD1 off to bed with a hot water bottle, a warm drink and an audiobook. Poor child has been in floods of tears since dinnertime and I'm anticipating another stressful morning tomorrow. With any luck, she might have got it out of her system!

Ugh, I feel totally drained and I am not looking forward to work tomorrow. On Tuesday I have half a day off to attend my regular hospital check up and I'm genuinely quite looking forward to the peace and quiet. It will be like a bit of a rest! Haha, quite evidently not indicative of a healthy life-balance...

I hope you got your daughter off ok.
School refusal is so stressful.

I hope your day at work goes better.

@RobinPenguins

I cry as a reaction to anger or stress so unfortunately there have been occasions at work where I haven’t been able to completely suppress it and I’ve cried. Completely mortifying and made me feel utterly pathetic, which obviously made me feel even more stressed and likely to cry!

This is me too. I have burst into tears at work. There was also a time I was having some MH problems I think they must have got a bit fed up with me.

@billy1966

I hope you got your daughter off ok. School refusal is so stressful.

I hope your day at work goes better.

To be honest, it's been a horrible start to the week! I think I'm going to find that 90s song, "Things can only get better" and play it for the whole evening on repeat 😂

You are human you are allowed to have emotions - they are there for a reason. I always tell my daughter to cry if she needs to .. the worst part after crying is feeling guilty like we are weak or have done something wrong. But imagine how much relief would be felt if we could all cry freely

By pure chance my friend who went through this asked to drop by for coffee this morning.

Her child is now through this and is doing so well, but she AGAIN referenced it as the toughest time in her whole life.

So all I can say is that you really need to go easy on yourself.

On top of your health issues you really are in the trenches at the moment.

Anything you can do to lighten or ease that load, do it.

I'm really sending you the best of wishes.

Fuck it. You are human. I have done this and seen others do it. It's just made me think I / they are at breaking point. Time for people to recognise that. You can't keep chipping away at someone and not get a reaction. It's just emotion. Better that than scream blue murder at LM.

I did this in a one to one once. My body literally betrayed me and I was telling myself to get it together but it was a total physical reaction! It happens. If your manager was unsupportive and therefore it felt more awkward than it needed to than that’s on their lack of management skills, not you.

@Bluntness100

Tbh a manager shouldn't be telling someone to leave shit at the door.A good manager would be there to listen and offer help where needed if possible.

That’s just not true, a manager is not yout personal counselled there to be a shoulder to cry on when your personal life gets tough. And I’m appalled anyone would think they are.

Crying at work is never anyone’s finest moment, the manager was likely try it to show sympathy, they do need to not micro manage unless their is a performance issue, which there might be, but telling someone it’s ok to bring your personal problems to work and to cry about it to yout manager and their job is to give you personal support for your home life is very wrong indeed.

This is totally incorrect of where I work. I work in a massive multi national and we are positively encouraged to discuss our team members personal issues with them (if they want to of course), and help them with signposting to solutions (we have counselling through work, mentors, buddies, MH support groups etc etc) or just offering a friendly shoulder to cry on.

As a manager I’m on a 6 figure salary (I mention that to show just how important the firm takes ‘managing people’) and the firm seems to be doing rather well too so I think your points are incredibly outdated @Bluntness100

@billy1966

By pure chance my friend who went through this asked to drop by for coffee this morning.

Her child is now through this and is doing so well, but she AGAIN referenced it as the toughest time in her whole life.

So all I can say is that you really need to go easy on yourself.

On top of your health issues you really are in the trenches at the moment.

Anything you can do to lighten or ease that load, do it.

I'm really sending you the best of wishes.

Ah, I'm so glad that they came through it and are doing okay. It just breaks your spirit because you feel like the wickedest parent on earth. This morning DD was lying on the ground screaming that I obviously hate her and she hates herself and she wants to die... And you feel, how can you possibly be so cruel as to make this child go to school? But what's the other option?

I also had my hospital appointment this morning (which is always mildly stressful) and of course it ran late, so I was later getting into the office than planned. And LM was pick, pick, picking away. For better or for worse I felt stroppy rather than delicate today so was probably sulky and stroppy, but I just... don't really care!

Someone I supervise cries a lot. Often during supervision. I'm not an awful boss, they just cry through stress/ anxiety/ anger. Basically any emotion! I just give them space to get on with it, I don't think any worse of them. I've never had anyone else cry during supervision without reason and this supervisee has always been a crier!

I quite often cry at work. I don't mean to, but the stresses in my personal life sometimes come out at work. Once I've had a little cry I'm fine. It's a bit embarrassing cuz I go bright red and proper ugly cry even if it's just a few seconds.