Your Work Friends
🔥 #2: Wrath - From Our Fishbowl LIVE "7 Deadly Work Sins" Summer Series
This week, we're talking about...WRATH.
Ever wonder 'what the hell is that person's problem? In this episode, we are talking about Wrath ...you know wrath, that fiery feeling that bubbles up in the pit of your stomach and you have to control your face? Maybe you lost it on your co-workers in a stressful meeting and things got awkward. Maybe you thought you were on mute but said 'this is dumb' out loud to 3000 people. Or, maybe you find yourself being the target of fury from a co-worker and you don't know why. At work, wrath shows itself in a lot of different ways, and we want to talk about it. How you can recognize it, how you can manage it, and what to do if you're a victim of someone else directing their rage at you.
About the "7 Deadly Work Sins" Summer Series
You want to know what really messes employees up? Raw human emotions. Listen, we ALL experience them from time to time (we totally have), but if you don't handle them well, man can they be deal breakers. In this series, we break down
• The common spectrum of experiences with each 'sin',
• We talk about real-life (kinda salacious stories) scenarios (yeah, this stuff happens every day),
• How to not ‘commit’ the sin, and
• Most importantly, how to deal with a sinner
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.
Thanks for listening!
Hey! We love new friends! Connect with us!
This week, we're talking about...WRATH.
Ever wonder 'what the hell is that person's problem? In this episode, we are talking about Wrath ...you know wrath, that fiery feeling that bubbles up in the pit of your stomach and you have to control your face? Maybe you lost it on your co-workers in a stressful meeting and things got awkward. Maybe you thought you were on mute but said 'this is dumb' out loud to 3000 people. Or, maybe you find yourself being the target of fury from a co-worker and you don't know why. At work, wrath shows itself in a lot of different ways, and we want to talk about it. How you can recognize it, how you can manage it, and what to do if you're a victim of someone else directing their rage at you.
About the "7 Deadly Work Sins" Summer Series
You want to know what really messes employees up? Raw human emotions. Listen, we ALL experience them from time to time (we totally have), but if you don't handle them well, man can they be deal breakers. In this series, we break down
• The common spectrum of experiences with each 'sin',
• We talk about real-life (kinda salacious stories) scenarios (yeah, this stuff happens every day),
• How to not ‘commit’ the sin, and
• Most importantly, how to deal with a sinner
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.
Thanks for listening!
Hey! We love new friends! Connect with us!
I was like F this noise, and so what did I do? What did I do? What was my immediate reaction? What did you do? Yeah, so of course I remember feeling this and I'm sure it came out this way, in a really annoyed, somewhat snarky tone Time out. Why are we doing this? The thing that made it even worse is that I gave the actual time out symbol Nice one.
Speaker 2:Hi friends. It's officially summer in the US, and what better way to take a midweek break from work than to talk about all the shit we never really get to talk about unless you're with your work, friends, quick introduction I'm Mel and I am Francesca. And we've been working in HR for a long ass time. Francesca, how long have you been in?
Speaker 1:HR yeah, I just hit my 20 year mark because I am that old. Yeah, but it's a big two zero.
Speaker 2:Two decades of working with people yeah, yeah, same, I got you beat by one year 21. Listen, if you want the good stories, ask someone in HR, because we've seen it all. We've heard it all, every single last thing. And a few months ago, francesca and I started a podcast to talk about it all, called your Work Friends. Look, we're just two HR friends with no filter here to help you get through the work shit. And throughout our experience, one thing has remained true there are things that really trip people up and sometimes it totally destroys their careers.
Speaker 1:Francesca, absolutely, and when we were thinking about all of this stuff that really messes up employees, it's actually these raw human emotions that really no one talks about and we like to call them the sins, because it actually fits very beautifully in the seven deadly sins, and those seven deadly sins are also the seven deadly work sins. And, by the way, these things like lust and envy and greed and wrath, they're things that we've all experienced from time to time. I know I have you, mel. Yeah, of course. Yeah Me sloth. I'm a big napper too, sloth, that's my.
Speaker 1:But listen, this is the thing with all of these quote unquote work sins If you don't handle them well, man, they can be massive deal breakers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, in this series, folks, we are breaking down a number of the sins. As we said, we just talked about lust two weeks ago. That recording is on the Fishbowl app. Please check it out. We're going to be covering gluttony in a few weeks, but today we are here to talk about wrath, and wrath is it's, an interesting one.
Speaker 2:Before you think you're immune, we had three stories come into our podcast. Look, before all of these series, we put out a call to action to our listeners to say, hey, send us your stories. We want to know what happened. And just the last two weeks, this is what we've read or heard from our podcast listeners. One listener who worked in IT said their coworker of a year someone they thought they actually had a good relationship with yelled at them for a small mistake in front of a room full of their peers and colleagues. He said this coworker kept repeating you screwed up, even after he corrected the error, and now he just wants to resign because he's. Oh, you're treating me like a child. Why are you repeating I screwed up, it's a mistake, it's not that serious, it didn't have big and you're just embarrassing me and yourself.
Speaker 2:Another listener wrote noted that they witnessed their boss yell at a coworker who was more senior to them and then the two of them proceeded to get into a screaming match Again.
Speaker 2:It started over a simple mistake and the other person was just defending themselves. This person who witnessed it shared with us that they actually suffer from their own PTSD from outside circumstances and witnessing this actually put them into a very frozen mode and they weren't sure what to do and it psychologically just really was damaging for them in the workplace. They noted now everyone's upset, everyone's hurt, and most people that were in the scenario or surrounding it are talking about quitting because it was just so obnoxious. And then, lastly, someone in the trades reached out to us to share on their job site. They actually got into a physical altercation with their coworker over a disagreement on how to proceed on a piece of equipment. They notified their supervisor about the attack and they took a few days off to decide whether or not they wanted to stay with that company and they also were trying to decide whether or not to press charges, quite honestly. So they noted this is generally accepted behavior in their environment, which really shocked us and we have our own stories, right, francesca, you have your own story.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So this is what's so interesting about all of these quote unquote sins you can be the victim of somebody's sin, be the victim of someone's wrath, which all of these stories are, or you can quote unquote be the sinner and in this one, I'm the sinner. I got an anger management issue, which is why I'm talking to you today. No, so listen, this is what happened. I'm 25 years old and my boss's boss walks into a conference room where a few of us were sitting and she basically said listen, our company is going global, so we had a US footprint, and then we're going to expand globally, which is really exciting. And then the next thing out of her mouth was that means our HR footprint needs to expand as well. Aka, my workload was going to triple. Without a raise, without a promotion, nothing.
Speaker 1:And I immediately felt pissed. I was like F this noise. And so what did I do? What did I do? What was my immediate reaction? What did you do? Yeah, so of course I remember feeling this and I'm sure it came out this way in a really annoyed, somewhat snarky tone timeout. Why are we doing this? The thing that made it even worse is that I gave the actual timeout symbol Nice one, so the GDR on that one that didn't work out so well for me, but, yeah, I have felt anger and done some stupid ass shit at work about it. What about you, mel?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've also been the sinner. My story is more around being the victim of the sinner in this scenario. Very early on in my career I had someone senior to me yell at me in front of a room full of people and when I yell, yell like a parent. It was really bizarre. When you're just like am I getting scolded in front of a room full of people, what is happening? Am?
Speaker 2:I an adult, yeah and of course, at the time I was really like what do I do here? So in the moment I just froze and didn't react. I wasn't sure that reacting would have been productive at all, so I decided to reserve my addressing this until after the meeting. So I went to their office after the meeting. I confronted them about it in a nice professional way hey, I would appreciate in the future if, instead of yelling at me, you pull me aside and provide the feedback one-on-one. I'm gladly take ownership of my mistake and correct it and work towards that. But it was really unprofessional to do that. They did not like that. I confronted this behavior and proceeded to say to me you're not even scared of me, are you? What type of shit? To which I replied no, should I be? That's the naivete in me as a young person. I'm like should I be? It was just my first reaction. We really stared at each other for the most awkward 10 seconds of my life. It felt like 20 minutes. Look, after that incident I left. I left their office and then I left that job within the year, because I knew I was going to have to work with that person, that they contributed to my performance reviews and I just didn't think that was the type of work environment that I wanted to be in, where the feedback wasn't productive. But you're one, you think I should be scared of you because of your seniority and the organization, but two, that's how you're providing me with developmental feedback. I just didn't think it was appropriate. So, look, we're all human. We've and hope.
Speaker 2:Folks on this call maybe this resonates with some of you likely does, because we're all human beings. You've likely been the sinner and you've probably experienced the sin. Listen, we're kicking off wrath because you know this. You know the feeling of wrath. It's that fiery feeling that bubbles up in the pit of your stomach and you've got to control your face. Or maybe you lost it on your coworker in a stressful meeting and things got super awkward. Or maybe you thought you were on mute but you said this is dumb out loud to 3000 people, by the way. That's a true story. Or maybe you find yourself being the target of fury from another coworker and you don't know why. Or you're witnessing someone else experience that from the sidelines At work.
Speaker 2:Wrath shows itself in a lot of different ways and we want to talk about it, so we're thankful you're all here to talk about it with us. So on the agenda today we're going to cover how you can recognize it, how you can manage it, what to do if you're the victim of someone else directing the wrath at you. And listen, francesca and I love to talk about this stuff and, more importantly, we want to hear about your experiences too. So this is going to be an interactive call. You can all come up into the conversation.
Speaker 2:We're going to leave time at the end as well to answer some of your burning wrath questions or sticky situations. So you can DM us if you, you can raise your hand to come up on stage and we'll be paying attention to that. Look, we are going to keep things anonymous, especially if you DM us, but if you come up on stage, it does show your name and your face, just for everyone's sake. Just want to throw that out there. But we love all the impromptu stuff and hearing from you too. Does that sound good, francesca? Should we?
Speaker 1:get into it Sounds good to me. Yeah, we are. Just so you all know, mel and I are like Vegas, but it is I always like to say it is fun hearing your stories, but they don't go anywhere.
Speaker 2:They don't go anywhere. They don't go anywhere. It stays there. Let's do it, mel. Yeah, let's talk about the spectrum, because, as we mentioned when we kicked off this session, this stuff happens on a spectrum. Here's the deal. 99.9% of us have experienced wrath at work. If you've sent or received a per my last email response, you've experienced wrath at work. If you've raised your voice or witnessed someone else raising their voice to others, you've experienced wrath at work and, according to a survey conducted by Profile Tree on Anger Management, wrath at work is not uncommon. At work is not uncommon. 65% of office workers have experienced some form of office rage and 45% of employees lose their temper regularly at work. Francesca, what do you think about those numbers?
Speaker 1:I will tell you, when I first saw these numbers, 65% have experienced some form of rage, or 45% of employees lose their temper temper regularly at work. I was like that seems so high. But then I thought about my work experience and thought, yeah, that tracks that 100%.
Speaker 2:I first saw those numbers I'm like this is bullshit.
Speaker 4:No way.
Speaker 2:But then, when you think about it, it's, it's this spectrum, it's the little things to the big things. So it, yeah, that's probably true. So what is wrath? Let's define it. Wrath, it's annoyance, it's anger, it's ire, it's indignation, rage, fury. Wrath, as Merriam-Webster would like to say, is an emotional state induced by displeasure, so it can be triggered by stress over workload and deadlines, team conflicts, co-worker conflicts, personality clashes, communication challenges or, honestly, just not feeling valued or respected at work. And wrath, like all of the other deadly work sins, is uber complex and can manifest in various ways at work and at different levels. So let's get into it. The wrath spectrum will go from harmless eye rolls to more serious forms of misconduct, like screaming at someone in a meeting. It goes from low, medium, high all the way up to you guessed it illegal? Yeah, let's start on the low end of things. At the low end of things wrath may look like in these forms of these microaggressions. This is when individuals express behaviors like I don't know, you don't think it has a big impact, but it really does Something super light, like an eye roll in a meeting, checking your emails while someone's speaking to you in a passive, aggressive way, of course not acknowledging someone in the room because you don't like them. So you talk to everyone else and you don't talk to them. These are irritations in the form of microaggressions and it's pretty common for everyone to have done this or witnessed someone else doing this in the workplace. But it's important to remember that, although small like paper cuts, a thousand of these little acts have a devastating impact, like reductions in employee motivation, productivity and commitment to the employer.
Speaker 2:According to Mind your Anger, this is an anger management group. First of all, I love the name Mind your Anger. Mind your Anger, I know Well, I was curious. What does anger management say? Mind your anger, I know Well, I was curious. What does anger management say? The average office worker suffers desk rage twice a day. Oh my God, I know. Can anyone on this call relate to that? Does anyone else have desk rage, where you just get that email and you're like that's this Signing off for the day? Yeah, that's what desk rage looks like, but that's wrath at work. You're experiencing that anger. Francesca, have you expressed one of these?
Speaker 1:at all. No, mo, I'm perfect. Yeah, yeah, absolutely Absolutely, and I'll be honest, desk rage. I have felt that, especially as things have gotten way more stressful in my career too. Yeah, twice a day might be low for me on some days. I always think it's interesting, though, the people that make this a habit.
Speaker 2:But that's where it starts to get a little. But I think it's fair to say we've all had some form of desk rage. Maybe you just got a team's message for the 40th time while you're trying to get work done and you're angry about it and you're like, oh, what the hell, that's desk rage. The risk factor here at this stage is pretty low. It's not entirely no risk. Why? Because other people are involved. Chances are this isn't a behavior creating a hostile work environment at this level of the spectrum, because at this stage it's a one-off behavior related to someone's poor stress management for a bad day or a bad feeling. Again, it does have impact, though. Although these actions seem innocuous, the eye roll might make someone else feel like they're not valued or respected in the workplace. For example, or maybe that email that you got. You didn't think and you immediately shot off a response that included your tone of irritation in it. Someone else experienced your irritation in that moment.
Speaker 2:Moving on up to the middle here we're going to talk about anger. Moving on up to the middle here we're going to talk about anger Anger when we encounter this. When we're talking about anger at this stage in the spectrum, what we mean is the non-threatening kind of anger. So according to Cornell, non-threatening anger, it means that this is not intended to threaten, manipulate or cause harm, but it might interfere with feeling comfortable at work. Anger is an emotional reaction to perceived stressors. Right, it's part of our human behavior and nature. But when it's mismanaged anger is counterproductive. And, francesca, you know anger when you see it right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have worked with people that you could tell they were like seething under their skin. It was almost like they just carried F this noise with them all day, every day. And they weren't doing anything necessarily overt, like screaming at people or throwing punches, but it was in the way that they would communicate or in the way that they carried themselves, or in some of these microaggressions where you were just like man you're pissed yeah.
Speaker 2:It turns into just a regular aggression. It's no longer microaggressions. That's just what people expect from you. On this call. Be honest. How many of you have expressed anger at work? Take a pause, think about it. When's the last time you have expressed anger? Listen, you're not alone. This isn't to call people out. It's just to recognize this is a human emotion we all feel, but it's at this level that we really have the opportunity to check ourselves or check our work friends, if we notice this from them or if it's someone you don't really trust having that conversation with.
Speaker 2:Maybe you're going to HR to check it, but you're not alone in feeling anger at work. According to the American Psychological Association and their 2023 Work in America survey, 19% of people have felt irritable or anger with coworkers and customers. So it's a very real experience in the workplace. And, listen, the risk factor here goes way up because we see it we as in plural, your colleagues, your team, your peers, your stakeholders. Anger, if not checked, as Francesca noted oozes and it just becomes this little gray cloud around people and the person who isn't really dealing with their emotions in a productive way. So if not checked at this stage, it can quickly turn into the threatening kind of anger and this is when people quite frankly start chatting about it, which can be really bad for your career. But it really makes a good team's conversation Cocktail conversation, yeah, and we did see a hand go up. So I don't know if you want to come back on stage, but we're happy to pull you up. If you want to come back up, throw that out there. All right, now we're getting into the high end.
Speaker 2:Look when you are on the low end. Ideally, you're checking yourself when you're at the irritation stage because it's so low level there that you can really be like why am I doing this? But if you don't check yourself by the time you get to the anger stage, it's quickly going to move into rage and hostility. As anger intensifies it can turn into this and it's this rage and hostility that's the threatening kind of anger. This is when someone is having frequent angry outbursts. Maybe they're damaging property, screaming constant irritability. It can also look like mockery, insults or rampant aggressiveness towards others. Have you ever had that in the workplace? Someone mock you or make insults?
Speaker 1:I have. Yeah, I absolutely have. And I think this is a really important distinction, because I think a lot of people think rage, they think someone's screaming right, someone like hitting a wall, but it is also mockery, it is also insults oh, you think you know everything, or oh, just because you have a master's degree or mockery and insults or anger. It is an absolute manifestation of anger. It is an absolute manifestation of anger.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so interesting to me. I had that happen one time. A guy that I worked with quizzed me on the meaning of an acronym at the organization that I had been in for six months and then joked I probably didn't know it, which I did, and I repeated it to him, but it was just like what was the purpose of that? That's like a rage and hostile His reaction to me doing something earlier. But it was really strange.
Speaker 2:Look, rage and hostile behavior can lead to feelings of discomfort for others, anxiety and even fear, quite honestly, for the person on the other end of it. So it's creating a potential hostile work environment. And, look, not every unpleasant work environment, unfortunately, is illegal. The EEOC states that petty slights, annoyances and isolated incidents, unless extremely serious, aren't considered illegal unless it's discriminatory against a protected class, and this is truly unfortunate, but that happens, I don't know. We have to be aware of this stuff. Let me tell you about what this looks like in real life.
Speaker 2:One of our listeners wrote in with a story of a coworker who, during a heated team meeting, screamed like literally in their face, screamed at the top of their lungs I hate you. Twice, and then slammed the door and left and apparently that one incident. For the person who screamed I hate you, they never. They couldn't get promoted after that that, no matter they had a bad day, they apologized. Everyone seemed to put everything under the water under the bridge, like it worked itself out, but that person never. They had to leave it just it. That reputation that one incident carried with them for the rest of their career in that org. Francesca, you have a story too right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so I'm not going to name names or where I worked, but I worked with a guy who, when he got really upset and it was usually about something that he messed something up or he got really awful feedback he would literally be like he would literally go scream really loud and slam doors. I kid you not, he did this multiple times, but the first time he did it there were three of us sitting in a conference room, my boss was sitting across from me and this person, this guy and this guy is six to like, tall guy, big guy, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's intimidating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm like five, six and a smart ass and he F something up literally in the conference room, got up and slam the conference room door shut, slammed it as hard as he could and the walls of the conference room shook and I remember looking up at my boss and being like what the F just happened? This guy's a nut job. Anyway, yeah, he ended up getting fired because he did that one too many times. The rest of the day I was a little bit scared. I don't like when people start screaming or throwing things and getting physical. That makes me really wiggy. It makes most people wiggy.
Speaker 2:I also think of the earlier story from one of our listeners up at the top of the hour. They had their own personal PTSD from personal circumstances. How you show up in the workplace and the behavior that you exhibit. You have no idea how that might be impacting people with what they're going through on a personal level and behavior like rage and hostility man personal level and behavior like rage and hostility man that can really mess others up. If they are the receiver of that or they're on the peripheral, that can really ruin their day and their environment. Yeah, and look, going back to the American Psychological Association, their 2023 work in America survey also noted that 24% of their respondents noted that someone within or outside of their org had yelled at them or verbally abused them in the last 12 months. That's a quarter of the time of their work experience is getting yelled at by someone.
Speaker 1:Here's my thing with this, and I don't know how anyone else feels about this. I'd be really curious for the folks that are on the call with us. 24% of people said that they had been yelled at or verbally abused in the last year, and I actually got so fricking bummed out about that because, first of all, no one should ever experience that. I wouldn't want that for anybody. I know shit happens whatever, but absolutely 24% of us should not be experiencing that at work and it just is. That's so high. It's just so high in this day and age.
Speaker 2:I was shocked by that Same and I just yeah, it's. It's ridiculous. The risk factor, as you all can imagine, it is going way up here, this side of the spectrum. You do not want to be on this side of the spectrum, whether you're the center, on the receiving end, or you're just a bystander. This side of the spectrum is bad news. It isn't healthy and if someone's reached this level of the spectrum, they really are not acting rationally. There's a reason there's a term called blind rage, because they are just not seeing clearly, they're not thinking about the risks or the impacts and for folks around them it can make them feel really unsafe, as we said. Or, let's be honest, just weird it out. I don't know about you, francesca, but when someone yells at me I'm like what? What's your problem? Where are we?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I also like to do the hashtag get some therapy, yeah, like if you are the center, this is the stage where you're becoming a huge liability for your company and potentially for yourself right Because of this demonstrated behavior.
Speaker 2:And if you're on the receiving end of it here, man, this is where you need to reach out for support if this is happening to you. And then the last stage of the spectrum is workplace violence. Listen, here's the thing Once someone has reached this stage, it almost certainly has created a toxic work environment, at a bare minimum, a hostile work environment, and if it's gotten physical, it's a total. It's created an illegal act within the workplace, because that, my friends, is assault. That's assault, and workplace violence. Assault and workplace violence one we want to be clear. It's never understandable or acceptable.
Speaker 2:And at every stage of the wrath spectrum there is contribution to an unhealthy workplace. So it doesn't just get unhealthy once you get here. It's unhealthy at every stage. But at every stage there's an opportunity to manage it right. But look, truly, at this level it's crossed all boundaries and you're in the danger zone.
Speaker 2:And this can look like a lot of different things. Sometimes it's getting into a fistfight with your coworker. Going back to the story at the top of the hour, which the guy in the trades that wrote to us and shared his coworker started a fistfight over a piece of equipment at work. It could look like someone threatening bodily harm or hey, let's take this outside. That's also workplace violence, or threatening violence, and in some of the worst outcomes, unfortunately, this has resulted in murder in the workplace.
Speaker 2:There are a ton of stories about workplace violence and if you don't think that happens, it 100% does. It's in the headlines every year. According to an APA report, approximately one in 10 manual laborers so around 12% they reported that someone within their organization displayed physical violence toward them. 12%, and about one in 20 office workers so about 5% reported the same. So whether you're in the trades or you're in office work, this happens. At this stage of the spectrum, the risk level is max. This is the red alert zone. Osha defines workplace violence as any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation or other threatening, disruptive behavior that occurs at a work site. It ranges from threats of verbal abuse to physical assaults and, as we mentioned, even homicide. It can affect and involve employees, clients, customers, visitors and acts of violence and other injuries is currently the third leading cause of fatal occupational injuries in the United States 5,333 fatal workplace injuries that occurred in the U?
Speaker 1:S in 2019, 761 of those were intentional injury by another person that they worked with Like on real. But it's sad, but it also is. Yeah, this stuff happens on a spectrum and anger unchecked, wrath unchecked has massive consequences?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it can lead to this. So it's truly at that irritation stage and, again, it's human nature to be irritated or express anger or to feel anger. But it's at that low end of the spectrum where the opportunity is to get this in check and look, understanding the spectrum of wrath, where the opportunity is to get this in check and, look, understanding the spectrum of wrath. This is essential for maintaining a respectful and professional work environment and by recognizing the different levels of wrath and their potential impact, organizations can take proactive measures to prevent misconduct and promote a culture of respect and inclusion. And we all have this responsibility here to understand what that spectrum looks like and how we show up in each of these areas Before we move on. We have a real story we want to get into, but we want to do a quick pulse check with you. Do any of you recognize yourself in any of these scenarios? Where have you fallen on the spectrum? Does anyone want to come up on stage?
Speaker 1:Or if you have a funny wrath story. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Mimi, welcome Hi.
Speaker 4:So this is not for my current company. This is something I experienced in the past and what happened was so it's like a three-member team and two of them ganged up and it was really uncomfortable and I didn't even know what the problem was. Right, and it turned out Jen respond to your emails, or even your team, and so you have to escalate it. And you know how sometimes that narrative goes Right, the minute you look in the team leader, the manager, and it's OK, this, this person is trying to take it up to management, but you're not responding to me. So how else do I get what I need if you're not being responsive? Right, so it's like turning the narrative around to make them look like they're victims, but meanwhile they are the ones doing the dirt.
Speaker 4:So I had to. I tried to reach out, talk to them personally, because I had their phone. Talk to me. What's the problem? We can keep it professional without being friendly like before, right, but this microaggression and just creating a hostile environment, it's not to me, it's not professional. We don't have to kiki and haha, but just let's get the job done. So eventually I just stopped communicating with them, unless I absolutely have to Came back some petty girl bullshit and I said I can't be friends with you anymore but I will try. We can work together so long as you keep it respectful, but we can never be those co-workers that go for lunch not anymore. Because I was like I went through some mental agony because I'm trying to figure out what did I do? Did I say something? Did I? And they weren't saying anything? So for me to just go through that mental pain of trying to figure out what I did wrong, I think it's just narcissistic to some point, because they're punishing me for something I have no clue about. That's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Mimi one thank you for sharing your story with us and we're sorry that happened to you and that was your experience, because it's just unacceptable, right? It's not productive and it's not helpful and man, did you handle that really well, quite honestly we've all been there, I've been a victim, I've been the sinner quote unquote.
Speaker 4:But then we need to also have in our conscious mind that we are working, but we're also human. So we will falter sometimes, but you're going to have that level of maturity to discuss. You can be like, hey, we can be friends, oh, this is how I feel, but this is what you did to me and it wasn't. I didn't like it and we take it from there. But just that silent treatment. Come on, what are we?
Speaker 1:high school. That's the thing it's so interesting we hear. First of all, I agree with Mel. I'm so sorry that happened to you and I hate to say that it's common. And to your very good point. It's what are we doing here? Very good point. It's what are we doing here? This isn't constructive at all.
Speaker 4:And yeah, oh.
Speaker 1:I'm so sorry that happened to you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Yeah, thanks for sharing. Yeah, nobody needs high school antics. Yeah, it's just so dumb. It's so dumb, build a bridge, get over it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's get rid of this anger. Mimi, thank you so much for sharing. But, yeah, like we've all experienced it. But to Mimi, your good point it's about what are you going to do to get over it and address it and handle it in a healthy way, and your approach was super healthy. Even if the other person wasn't, your approach was super healthy.
Speaker 1:Spot on, absolutely spot on.
Speaker 2:All right, all right, let's get into the real story. We do have a juicy one that was shared with us, that we reserved for this episode. So, francesca, I'm going to hand it over to you to share that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So this is a story again that one of our listeners wrote in around and Mel and I read it. We always like to pick stories where we're like, oh, this is so interesting and gray, but it does demonstrate how wrath can show up and what it can do to someone. So this story the title of that is oh, that's just John, and again we've anonymized everybody. So here we go.
Speaker 1:It was August and Mary was a new marketing director at a publishing company, so she was 30. She was accomplished, great at her job, hyper, liked, lik, likable People just loved her. She's one of these people that you mentioned her name and everyone's. Oh, my God, I love her. And then there was John.
Speaker 1:John was vice president of the second highest earning division. He was 62. He'd been one of these people that had grown up in the company. He literally had worked there for 35 years and had a reputation for being somewhat of a dick. Basically Wonderful, yeah, we've all met him. Also, the thing to note here is John was also one of Mary's internal clients. She's a marketing director, so she was there to do marketing for his division, basically. And in the beginning, mary's first few meetings with John were pretty great. First they had a meet and greet and then they had some subsequent meetings to define his annual marketing plan for his division. The only thing that was like a little sus was in the first few months. John was getting a little short during a working session, a little snippy, but she just chalked it up to him having a bad day. And during these first few months she was like I don't understand what this reputation is about, because I don't see him as a jerk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you assume positive intent, like you. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you're like everyone's yeah, maybe the yeah exactly. Assume positive intent. What a? I love that Assume positive intent, but four months later, right, so it was August. Four months later we're in November and a Monday in November the CEO of the company announced that the company was going to go in a different direction. They were going to A invest much more in marketing and advertising and in sales and, b bring in more fresh thinking at the leadership level anyone, vp, and above feelings about the new direction. Some people loved it, some people felt threatened by it and, let's be honest, some people didn't give a shit one way or the other. But rumors started to swell about which of the VP, which of the VPs, would be asked to take quote unquote early retirement.
Speaker 1:Ie they got laid off, but they can say, oh, I'm retiring early. We see this periodically, right, Mel? Oh, yeah, yeah. So the Thursday after the CEO announcement, Mary had her final meeting with John to review the annual marketing plan with his leadership team. This was something that was on the books for months and it was really a formality though, since she and John had already reviewed his marketing plan on the previous week on a one-on-one which he said this looks great. So she thought, okay, we're just going to bring his team together, we're going to review it.
Speaker 2:Just a formality because she already reviewed it with him. Essentially right yeah.
Speaker 1:Total formality. However, the meeting was not great at all because, in front of his entire leadership team, john proceeded to cut Mary down in literally any way that he could, saying things like this plan looks juvenile, or quote unquote. You clearly don't understand how the publishing business works. Or must be really nice to be so highly compensated and not have any real responsibility for the actual publishing gross? Yeah, what the hell is happening right now? Yeah, and honestly, mary left the call stunned, just completely stunned. She was deflated and she honestly felt like John had taken a hit out on her brand, like just was coming after her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what else is that? When you're in a meeting full of people and you're making comments essentially saying what's your value here? What are you? What do you bring to the table? That's just so. Oh, that's awful.
Speaker 1:It's awful and so public right, and such a 180 too. And she on her next one-on-one with her boss. She shared what happened and her boss replied oh that's just, john, let him cool down for a day and call him tomorrow to see what's up, not what you want to hear from your boss.
Speaker 2:By the way, if anyone has a boss like that, you don't have a good boss. They hear from your boss. By the way, if anyone has a boss like that.
Speaker 1:You don't have a good boss. They should have your back, yeah. But we see this a lot in companies where, oh, that's just so-and-so, it's just who they, especially for lifers. Yeah, we excuse a whole bunch of bad behavior, but just because it's common for that person does not mean it's right, doesn't mean it's okay. So here's the deal. The next day, mary let John cool down for a day like a child and she called him. She called him and he answered in a totally annoyed voice and asked what can I do for you? And after Mary asked about his tone on the previous day's call, he said and I quote and we changed names. But I quote you know, mary, no one at this company even knows what you do. If you marketing people think you can come in here and waste this company's money, I really just think you and your little team are complete bullshit. Unquote.
Speaker 2:Oh, so she finally figured out why he was called, what his reputation was in that moment and again yes, listen, this story continues and we will share more about the outcome of it.
Speaker 1:But first I'm just curious have has anyone here ever encountered a quote-unquote? Have you ever encountered a john at work?
Speaker 2:yeah, does anyone want to share their story? Yeah, who's your John? I've encountered that at work.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I've encountered that at work. Yeah, it feels awful. You're just. You're like what do I do with this and how do I move on from this? Because you want to be productive and not to keep calling Mimi out. But she has such a great example, too, of this exact kind of like behavior where you're like hey, I'm trying to have a good working relation. We don't have to be BFFs, but we could at least have mutual respect for each other and get through the workday together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a thousand percent, mimi mentioned to you go through these like mental gymnastics of what did I do and why is this happening, and all this good jazz, and you understand there's so much to these types of stories, and the thing is, what do you do? It really begs the question of what do you do If you find yourself as the victim of someone's wrath, or if you are actually the center, or even if you're observing it, and so I'm going to tell the rest of this story, but first what I want to do is go back through the spectrum and share. What do you do? Here is our advice If, at any point, you find yourself on the spectrum or you are the victim on the spectrum, what do you do? So let's take a look at it.
Speaker 1:Our first angle of the spectrum that Mel talked about was this irritation and the microaggressions.
Speaker 1:Right, if you find yourself on the low end of the spectrum, consider if you're the center here and you're constantly and continually doing microaggressions towards somebody. Or even, more often than not, you might want to consider why you're acting this way and how it affects others, especially if it becomes a trend. And if it has become that trend and someone's caught you or told, talked to you about it. Now's the time to really sincerely apologize and do something about it. Stop doing that, because it's just not productive, not constructive at all. And if you're the victim, this is where, again, we recommend having, if you feel comfortable, have a private conversation with that person and tell them how their behavior affects you and request a change. And if they keep doing it, here's where you might want to do something like what Mimi did was to go to their supervisor, or you can start documenting what's going on, because you can always go to HR if it again becomes a trend, right, mel Heck yeah, if you have one note, start throwing those emails in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and you're going to hear me say start documenting a lot during this. So there you go, but let's move up the spectrum again. Microaggressions Hopefully it's not chronic or a trend, but if it is, get yourself into a better position. If you find yourself moving up the spectrum where you're feeling anger all the time, you are angry, one, if you are the center here, identify what really triggers you. Now is the time for some serious self-reflection, because if you're pissed all the time let me tell you this right now it is not good for you or anyone around you at work or in your personal life. Plus, honestly, wouldn't life just suck all the time if you're angry? Yes, oh my gosh, can you imagine? No, gross, ugh, not a way to live. So not giving anyone life advice, but I'm giving everyone life advice. So here's the time where you want to identify what's really triggering your anger. Develop some strategies for managing it. You might even want to consider some anger management training or some counseling to develop healthier ways to develop cope with stress. If you can't get there on your own, if you are the victim of someone's anger listen. If it's someone that you're close to and you feel comfy having a conversation, you might want to do that Not that you're responsible for managing people's emotions, but you might want to tell your friend hey, you might want to check yourself before you wreck yourself there. If you aren't, again this is a place where you can reach out to their coach or their direct manager and share the feedback. And again, if you're not even comfortable with that, this is a time where you can also reach out to HR, not necessarily to report anything, but to ask how you should be handling the situation. So HR is always there for you to think through how to solve a problem if you have it through how to solve a problem if you have it.
Speaker 1:If you're in that high zone and you're getting into rage, this is not good guys. This is not good at all. If you are the center, here's our recommendation, honestly, because you're already tapping over here Seek some professional help. You might want to consider help from a counselor or a therapist to address your underlying issues. This is just, it's not okay and you're probably damaging your career and most likely creating a hostile work environment with each second that goes by.
Speaker 1:If you're the victim of someone's rage, I want you to prioritize your safety and you may be saying Francesca, that feels like an overreaction. It's not Because if you feel threatened, you should be removing yourself from the situation immediately, and if safety isn't an issue but you're just feeling like this person's, like screaming, feel free, and I encourage you to calmly and firmly set limits. You can. It is absolutely a okay to say I understand you're upset, but I'm not going to continue this conversation If you keep yelling. Or to say I'm not going to continue this conversation if you keep yelling. Or to say I'm not going to be talked to like that and just hang up the phone, walk away. You do not need to be in that situation. Get out of it. And I would argue to immediately contact a supervisor or HR immediately and document the hell out of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've had to do that before, have you? Yes, yeah, where I'm just like I am happy to have this conversation when you're in a better space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or we've gotten situations, too, where someone finally reports it and you find out it's been going on for years. And again, if you're on the sidelines, if you actually see this happening again, you this is a place where you can intervene, right? This is also a place where you can intervene If you're in the illegal zone. This is a thing where I hope you have money for an attorney because you've just entered illegal, illegal zone. If you are the center, you better have money for a lawyer. You better have money to cover your unemployment, because you probably need some serious counseling and anger management.
Speaker 1:This is just not okay. Ever, never, ever, no bueno, right, but again, we do see it happen. If you are the victim and you're in the middle of workplace violence or workplace violence has occurred again, safety here is the name of the game. Get yourself to a safe place immediately or if you need to seek medical attention I hate the fact that we have to talk about this on this call but get yourself to safety period, point blank, and please report the incident to workplace, to workplace security, to HR, if necessary, to law enforcement. This is some places where we see people don't want to do this. Very important to do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do not feel bad about reporting it at this stage.
Speaker 1:Absolutely not Turn a minute, turn their ass in and if you're on the sidelines, you know if you need to help the victim get to a safe place or seek medical attention and again immediately report the incident. Most know if you need to help the victim get to a safe place or seek medical attention and again immediately report the incident. Most likely, if you observe something like this, you're going to be need to brought it be brought in on what happened with the situation. Yeah, all things to do to manage wrath in the workplace right, whether it's low or high, and I see that we have. Sandra, you want to come up and chat? I let's see. Did that happen? Oh, technology, there you go, there we go.
Speaker 3:Yes, Hello, hi Angela, hi Mal and Francesca, everything you say resonates with me. Now I have to tell you that I have been the perpetrator of, not violence, but verbal anger okay, again against my staff. I just wanted to be honest about it, because many people um have been victims, but I have been the one who has imposed the anger and I have had to look into myself seriously to see what was causing it, because I was unhappy doing it. And what was happening is I had a manager above my manager, a senior vice president, who, because of her position, was hiring people and sending them to me as their line manager, but they weren't all qualified to do the job and some of them had an attitude towards me. Now, I don't want to say it's racist, but I'm an African-American woman and I was getting a lot of pushback from some of these hires, quote-unquote, when I made very logical and knowledgeable decisions or suggestions questioning me. I was like this person just left college. Why does this person, and one of them in particular? She got on my last nerve and she kept doing this. She wouldn't do her assignments, she didn't check her work, she wasn't meeting her deadlines and I was ultimately responsible for the quality of the work and for meeting deadlines. So what that meant was I had to fix her work to make sure we were meeting our deadlines with the right quality, the quality that was expected, and it was getting really onerous for me and I was sick of it. And she was just rude to me in front of others. We'd have a meeting with a team and she'd be sarcastic and make snarky comments towards me. Yeah, and then I started getting angry. Yeah, I started getting a little. I lost my patience, honestly, and then I started calling her out on her mistakes in front of everyone and asking her did you know you did this? Why did you do that? Did you check zones? Do you know that? This is how we work here? Do you understand zones? Are you willing to work with?
Speaker 3:And she started getting really upset with me and she complained about me. But what it did was it made the rest of the team a little leery around me because they'd never seen this side of me, and I realized that this person was a trigger and so she was dangerous for me. So I spoke to my boss about it, but my boss answered to that boss her boss, so she could do nothing about it. So she was powerless and she would just say, oh, just try to work with her. She didn't say, let me have a talk with her or something.
Speaker 3:So I was left to manage this situation and I resented it. I resented having to clean up after her. I resented that she had no respect for me and I resented that I thought she was racist, which is totally groundless as a reason to not like someone. So eventually she quit. She quit Because they realized I was not doing anything wrong, but they realized that she was pushing my boundaries and I honestly, I think my staff. I was worried that they would think negatively about me, but eventually they began to see, because what I started doing was having peer reviews of work. So somebody would review her work and they began to see the issues themselves. So I was able to get some kind of sympathy from them. So I have been that bad person who was not yelling but being very serious and very mean, just pointing out I was incisive with my comments. So, yeah, so I know it's not healthy for anyone.
Speaker 3:My staff were also affected by that. I was very affected by it and that person was affected too. I got no support. I'm not going to say I'm blameless. I lost my patience. After that I was given a book on emotional intelligence to read. I was sent on a leadership training course two days away from the office and in a way I thought they were blaming me victim. I felt like I was a victim, but I took as much as I could out of all the exercises and opportunities that they gave me. It made me a better person anyway, so that was very cool, that's all.
Speaker 2:Thank you, sandra. Thank you so much for sharing with us. And one again, it's just recognizing you're not a bad person, You're a human being and you experienced the triggers that we talked about, like it started on the low end of the spectrum and quickly started to grow. But you, I love your story because you're sharing how you overcame it, and in a really positive way. I think that's like the best outcome that you could have had.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, I was close to murder. I felt like I was going to lunch, across my desk and grab her by the throat because of some of the really rude things, really awful, outrageous things. She would say to me I'm glad I saved myself and the company from a lawsuit and from prison. So that would have been there we're glad you're here too.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, Thank you for not committing murder. Yes, thank you. Yeah, it is one of those things understanding what your triggers are Right and why are you feeling like this A compounding thing too, of like, where you feel like you don't have any support as well is not an easy thing to go through, but I'm really glad it ended up in a better place for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm not speaking to you from prison, by the way. No, that's good.
Speaker 1:That's excellent. Yeah, I have felt that too, though, sandra. It's interesting, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you are not alone. You're not alone. Yeah, thank you for sharing with us. Thank you. My pleasure Thank you what happened with John and Mary's situation?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So here's what happened with John and Mary Cause. Then I also see we have a few questions that came in with the DM too. The thing with these situations are sometimes there's really just no winners in these situations. We go back to the story. John's just told Mary that I think you and your team are complete bullshit, and Mary had 400 feelings at the same time and said I'm going to get off the phone because I have absolutely no idea how to respond to that. And she hung up. Oh good for Mary. Yeah. She immediately phoned her boss to tell her what happened and her boss quite literally said that's just working with executives. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:Mary feeling like she was all alone. Right, sandra, you're on and off, yeah, and honestly, her boss didn't have her back on it. Let me cut to the chase. Two things happened within a month. Mary realized this is not a place that she wanted to work, nor is it a boss she wanted to work for and quit, and found a better job and didn't, you know. John actually retired early because turns out the Monday of the announcement he was told he no longer had a job and that's why he was being so shitty to her in the meeting. Yeah, but again, you can see how things can escalate really quickly based on what someone has going on or, quite honestly, because someone's just a total asshole. There you go, yeah, it's quick.
Speaker 2:I see we have a few DMs. I know we're down to two minutes, so we want to try to answer a couple of your questions that have come in. Someone wrote lately everything is making me seriously angry at work. Is this normal, to feel this every day? I would say it's normal to feel anger. But going back to the start, anger is normal human behavior, right? That said, feeling anger every day may be a sign you need to get it in check. So you might want to ask yourself why are you angry? What steps can you take to manage that anger and what steps do you need to take? And remember, anger can elevate pretty quickly, so just don't let your emotions get the best of you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. One other question and then we'll wrap it. What do you do if acting like an angry jerk is part of a company culture? You quit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you quit Another job. Look, we're not giving formal advice here, but you might want to do some soul searching on this one, because you don't want to turn into the folks you're surrounded by and that's what will happen. Listen, friends, we are so glad you joined us today. We really appreciate that and we want to keep the conversation going, so here's how you can do that. You can check us out on the your Work Friends podcast, on any platform that you listen to, or on Apple, spotify and others. We post new episodes getting you through the work shit every week and if you like what you hear, please do share with a work friend or two. You can also join us on LinkedIn. We have a your Work Friends group where we post content regularly, or you can find us over on Instagram if you want something a little more casual. The gram.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the gram. If you have a topic you want to share with us, shoot us a note at friend at your work, friendscom. And finally, we'd love to see you all back here in two weeks, same time, same place, where we'll be talking about gluttony at work, and it's not just about your favorite break room snacks. So please join us in a few weeks and we hope you all have a wonderful and cool summer afternoon.
Speaker 1:Bye friends, bye friends.