I started a new job three weeks ago. Today I was in the office and a colleague I didn't know started to loudly berate me about occupying a free desk as the desks belonged to his team. I had asked permission of a team member to use the desk, if it was free, and they'd said it was and I could. He said I should have been properly allocated a desk - I agreed, and said that unfortunately the person doing the allocations had been off work since I started the job so I had no way of getting one (there was no stand in). He said I should have asked someone if the desk I was using was free. I said I had, and they'd said it was free. He grudgingly agreed it was free and I could continue to sit there. But only for the day.
I humiliated myself by bursting into tears, at which point he asked me to reassure him that he hadn't upset me, which I obediently did - between sobs (why do men do this? do they actually think 'that's okay then' when a woman they've obviously made cry tells them they're not crying because of them???).
What they don't know - and I'm not going to tell them - is that I left my last job because of being bullied horribly by my manager, and having this man hector me loudly and publicly about something I felt wasn't my fault made me very (probably disproportionally) upset.
I was crying so much that I had to pick up my things and leave the office, and missed a meeting. As soon as I got home I emailed my manager (at a different location) and explained that I'd gotten upset and why, and asked if I could be allocated a desk or suggested I work at a different office, that has plenty of free desks, in future.
I've just got off the phone to him. He knew about the incident as a couple of people had emailed him to say I was upset. However, he was confident the other person wasn't actually rude, the people emailing him had said the guy definitely wasn't being rude, and I need to understand there are all different types of people, some of whom say things loudly but don't mean to be rude. I have now been allocated a desk for the next two days and so he needs me to just focus on the work, going forward.
Tomorrow I need to go and sit next to these men who have witnessed me reacting to a definitely-not-rude guy by sobbing in the workplace. I'm hideously embarrassed and currently sinking into a bottle of wine.
I suppose I need to learn not to cry at work. I don't know how. I'm not sure the wine is the best way of dealing with this, particularly as it's a habit I adopted at the previous job (see comment above re bullying) and was trying to stop.