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I've NEVER cried at work. After work, sure, but never actually at work. I am the only female in my department and if I started crying they would have a field day with it.
I haven't, but I know one girl who had breakdowns everyday. The boss would ask her to do something simple, like file a few papers, and she would burst into tears. Another day, she would sit at her computer and just start crying. It wasn't b/c the work was hard, it was due to all the drama she had going on in her life. The boss has fired only one person in his entire career and he had to let her go because she spent everyday crying in front of customers instead of working. She eventually found another job.
I don't know of anyone yet who has cried due to the stress from layoffs. With the exception of one or two jobs, I've been fortunate enough to work at jobs with pretty laid back bosses who made the employees feel like leaders instead of slaves. They also had pretty successful businesses as well. Maybe there's a correlation .
Honestly? Never. I have never cried at work. I don't take my personal life to work with me and I don't bring my professional life home with me. I am very good at "keeping it together" and if I ever have issues where I am so stressed out that I feel the need to have a good cry, I will do it at home, or drive out to some remote, secluded location where I can be alone, and let it all out. But, this is a rarity, as I am never that stressed out.
Yes, I've cried at work and have seen others - both men and women - cry at work.
Like any emotional extreme - crying, anger, depression, manic-ness - it's best in small doses and not as a habit. Frankly, I'd rather see crying be more accepted at work than it is and anger be less accepted. I think if it was, there'd be less of both! Actually, some people cry not just out of sadness but when angry or frustrated.
Causes of work tears include personal, work, and global issues. Relationship trouble (love or work), loss of a loved one, layoffs, being reamed out by the boss, being exhausted from overwork, 9/11 - all of these have sourced tears at work for me or my coworkers. I think it's too bad that some people think there's any shame in tears - and feel even worse for their loved ones.
I found out about a friends death minutes after walking in to work one morning. I cried then, but was one of many others.
I have cried one other time and wish I could say I hadn't. This was a few years ago, I was working a 40 hr desk job and working 35-50 hours waitressing at a resort at the same time. So not much sleep was to be had. The resort was huge and involved a lot of running around on outside decks, lifting large amounts of food onto huge trays several hundred times a night and weaving through the masses hoping to God you didn't knock someone over or tip the tray. I was the only one working in the household at the time, and was having a lot of back problems so had to try to fit in a chiropractor appointment every three days on top of working through the pain. In short, it was a hellish six months. One day, it was a busy friday evening, high humidity, high temps and we were so packed you could barely move around without stepping on someones foot or tripping over a purse. I hadn't had anything to eat that day as I had woken up twenty minutes late for the desk job and spent the rest of my day trying to catch up. Anyway- I was carrying a tray of food to a table of 12 on one of the lower decks around 7pm or so, and they had already been waiting over an hour ( this was normal with the high volume of people there and we were constantly understaffed) and I tripped. Went down HARD. Not only had I sent the entire tray of food flying, meaning the food would have to be remade and add to their wait, I fell in front of approximately thirty people, so add embarassment, and it HURT. There was a step up between the two decks, I had tripped over that at high speed, landed fully on my right knee and then skidded my face onto the boards of the deck. I managed to play it off and make it back into the kitchen but then-Cue the hysteria- F*** it, I quit!!! Sob, sob blah blah. Then more hysteria because I couldn't afford to quit, sob some more. lol- It was a terrible night. My boss ended up covering all my tables for me and sent me home to take a nap. yes, actually told me to take a nap...I was 22 at the time. She knew I had been doing this routine for several months now, so she understood how worn out I was. So nothing really bad came about from the whole experience, but I was so humiliated. She did start giving me an extra night off a week after that, so maybe it was for the best.
I've done it but usually due to enormous frustration at a task or someone just getting on my case over and over. On those occasions I've either bolted for the restroom or sat in my car. I really try not to do it front of anyone in the office but that may change depending on my how my review goes this year.
Has anyone cried at work? Especially over the uncertainty of layoffs, mandatory overtime and workload? These have been big factors looming at our workplace and I was talking to a friend at work about the situation and I just broke down! I'm glad it was late in the afternoon when the office was almost empty.
I've not observed this under normal conditions but under the circumstances you've described I think I would understand.
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