Don’t be an A**hole and other Reflections on Emotions in the Work Place
I was writing a different blog post, in full below, extolling the virtues of emotions at work. I’d had an emotional week. I’d even spilled some of my feels on social. Despite my big personality, I wouldn’t say I share “real” feelings on social very often. But it was a doozy of a week, with life, love, and humanity coming into focus. The original post was supposed to remind us to live our real selves,
My partner reads and comments on everything I write before I post it. They’d worked with me in museums for many years and then in a close-by non-profit. This morning, as we hunkered down in a nearby coffee shop enjoying electricity while the east side of Cleveland suffered the effects of a terrific Friday the 13th thunderstorm, he said, are you sure you mean this? After that, he proceeded to remind me of scores of people who’d used emotions to keep area workplaces hostage. Some of these people were in power, using their position to justify their emotional warfare, others used emotion when they didn’t have any hierarchical power. All these old, long-forgotten previous colleagues, shared one thing. They were not on the team, they were focused on themselves.
I’d written a book once about self-care, mostly for myself, many people liked it, and it made me an accidental expert on wellness. In that whole time, I’ve often thought about the fallacy of self-care. It really isn’t about the self. First, you can self-care all you want, but if your work culture is emotional dodgeball, you’ll get hit every time. Second, self-care is tied to communal care. As a leader, you want your staff to be interested in their own wellness bc it makes your office run better. Self-care, therefore, should be seen as part of cultural wellness in the workplace.
What does this have to do with emotions? Many years ago, I had a theory that workplaces were like novels, there was one person with a long lead who drove the emotional story, and then everyone else was the foil. Now as a leader, I understand that to be the toxicity a bad manager allows because they can’t create a culture of balance. It sure is hard to get humans to play nice with each other. Any many humans think it’s okay to spill their emotions without concern for how that might feel to the other party.
Almost weekly someone reaches out to share their story about toxicity in their workplace. I try to listen and might offer a few tips. But mostly I invite the people to look for another role. The person crying toxicity is rarely a toxic person. The toxic person is the one who feels completely uninterested in others, who have forgotten there is no I in team.
The thing about emotions in the workplace is, they are all okay, as long as they aren’t against another human. If you are treating someone else in a certain way, you should step back and think, “Hey, how would I react if the roles were reversed?”
Workplaces are group projects. It’s a boat that will sink if everyone doesn’t paddle like hell. When someone holds the whole emotional culture hostage, you cannot make it to the finish line. (Similarly, if people hold in their emotions, they’re liable to explode, also making finishing impossible.)
It’s actually pretty simple. Don’t be an a**hole. Don’t treat people badly. Don’t spread your negativity widely. Don’t make other people suffer from working with you.
Or on the opposite, create the culture that fosters goodness. Allow people to be their real selves, emotions included. Foster positivity.
Once, someone was telling me about driving in Tijuana. Everyone is looking out for the car ahead, and behind them, he said. I’ve often thought of that metaphor for work. If you are driving for yourself, you aren’t creating a cohesive and successful collective. If instead, you think to foster a healthy environment for those ahead and behind you, none of you will crash, and all of you will get to the finish line.
My original post:
I am pretty good at showing happiness and joy. Both emotions have always come to me easily. I’m quick to laugh and easily distracted from sadness, if temporarily. I’ve always known my easy smiles and broad joy can be oppressive to some, and I often try to keep the outward expression of joy in check.
But, I’m also pretty good at negativity. As writer Gretchen Rubin notes in the Happiness project, negativity is more contagious than positivity. In my work life, I’ve spread both. There were points when I felt so mired in work toxicity, I could barely hear the word positivity let alone exude it. I’ve been a bad role model and a good one, almost in equal parts, over my work life.
Why? Well, non-profit work profits off our emotions. People give up living wage and reasonable hours because they believe. The thing is the organizations want certain feelings ones that result in extra hours worked. But, for many empaths at work, these organizations are particularly frustrating. They only want emotions when they fulfill the bottom line. They don’t want the messy ones. They don’t want people who disagree, show dissent, or emote negativity.
Someone was once telling me that museums come from a British tradition, as such focused on hiding emotions. That might be true, or it might be a misplaced need to seem “corporate.” Either way, I find many readers tell me about how dissent and any emotional response in museum workplaces are considered problematic. Women and minorities are particularly susceptible to being called emotional, hysterical even. Most contemporary societies are fashioned by men. Masculinity is often an exercise in hiding your feelings to look like the strongest gorilla in the mist. Workplaces expect women to follow these norms, even though society often encourages women to “let it out” in our personal lives. Race and ethnicity results in other emotional clashes at work. Women of color might be used to a certain level of verbal debate and a certain volume of speak in their own lives. Museum workplaces and many museum managers hate conflict.
All these clashes in the performing of emotions result in a certain level of toxicity and unhappiness. Our places are asking out people to give of themselves, but only so much. Our managers are asking us to be our whole self, but only so much as they can handle. It’s exhausting.
The thing is life isn’t promised. Being half of yourself is living half of your life. I’m not asking everyone to go into work on Monday and cry. I’m not planning to stop smiling. But I’d invite everyone to go into work on Monday and stop policing other people’s emotions. It’s hard to handle someone who deals with emotions differently than you. It’s hard to see when someone who hard-core internalizes is upset if you are an emoter. It’s hard to deal with tears when you rarely cry. But it isn’t about you. Those emotions are about that other person. It’s how they deal, and they get to do it how they do. In the end, giving others more slack to be themselves will be good for the whole workplace.
