You Have the Right to Remain Human
Why emotions are consistently discounted in the workplace, and how it’s hurting us.

I’m struggling with a big decision right now. I accepted a position with a seemingly wonderful company, but the culture there turns out to be one of disrespect and dissatisfaction. The good news is that because the company started me on a one-month contract, just in case I wasn’t a good fit for them, I have a built-in out. Only now I’m being made to feel guilty for exercising that option — especially on these grounds.
Apparently, even though culture fit is a perfectly valid reason for this company to discontinue a person’s employment — after all, we agreed to my contract on those very grounds — it is not a valid reason for me to do the same. Instead, it is implied that bailing on “emotional” grounds (a disrespectful work environment, anxiety-inducing pressure to succeed at arbitrary goals, etc.), somehow constitutes acting in bad faith.
This whole situation has prompted me to reflect on the consistency with which emotions are invalidated in professional settings. By now I’m sure we’re all familiar with the groundbreaking study from a few years back that proved emotions, not logic, are the keys to decision-making. And yet here I sit, in a room with a perfectly intelligent individual who insists that I take the emotion out of this discussion and come at it logically.
And it’s not the first time.
Crying at Work — It’s Valid
Thus far, work-related incidents have brought me to tears in no less than all of my workplaces. Like the time my boss asked me to helm a time-consuming project, then confessed upon its completion that he had also secretly asked his sister to do it, with the intention from the start to use her work over mine. Or the time that another boss, in the wake of the Charleston shooting, required that I delete our social media response lamenting the taking of yet more black lives — because he didn’t want to risk losing business.
Both of these experiences — along with one or two others over the years — left me feeling disrespected or disgusted and brought me to a tearful squaring-off with the superior in question. In each instance, their immediate response was to minimize their role in the matter. In my emotional state, they explained, I was blowing their actions way out of proportion.
The truth, of course, is that each time, it was the other way around: Their actions had prompted my heightened emotional response, and if they hadn’t done what they’d done, those exchanges would never have taken place.
When They Tell You to “Take the Emotion Out of It”
Within my first week at this latest venture (the one-month experiment), I witnessed the CEO mocking various employees and their work, and heard her cut off my coworker mid-sentence with “Stop talking. I don’t care about this anymore.” I was myself berated on ridiculous grounds — twice, in front of the entire office. Remember: this is still my first week.
During these “exchanges” with the CEO, she accused me of incompetence and repeatedly cut me off so as to prevent me from either explaining what had happened or defending myself. When I asked that I at least be given guidance to avoid these mishaps in the future, she responded disdainfully with “concerns” that I wasn’t resourceful enough to find that guidance on my own.
You can imagine the next conversation I had with my manager.
I was “emotional” — work-speak for “crying” — and he advised me that while he could understand my feelings, the only way to make progress on this matter was for me to come at the problem “logically” and “take the emotion out of it.”
But that response is flawed in two fundamental ways.
Why Eliminating Emotion Is the Wrong Answer
First, it ignores that the problem is rooted in emotion. What I’m reacting to in this instance is a lack of respect, and while of course you could frame that problem as, say, a resource constraint issue — for example, “the more time you spend upbraiding me, CEO, the less time I can spend doing work” — or as a financial concern — as in, “the more people you alienate, CEO, the more money we waste on turnover” — you can’t frame the solution that way, for the solution lies neither in resource allotment nor in the financial model, but in the emotional sphere, specifically in the CEO’s ability to empathize with her employees and to recalibrate her interpersonal tendencies.
So removing this problem from its emotional context ultimately moves the team not toward the solution, but away from it.
Moreover, the idea that emotions aren’t a valid response or concern in the workplace is widespread and dehumanizing, which of course is the point. The average person spends 30% of their life working and, by extension, attempting to put aside the very thing that makes us human: our complex emotional self. Why do we do this?
Because a company tells us to.
How Companies Strip Us of Our Humanity
It behooves employers to dehumanize us, so they can expect ever more without raising wages. So they can lay off swaths of individuals as needed and claim “it’s not personal.” So they can demonize unions and anyone else fighting for better working conditions.
And I’m not just talking big corporations. Start-ups are just as guilty — if not more so.
They offer relatively meager salaries for the experience and complex skill sets they require of their employees. Many do not provide healthcare or retirement plans because they “can’t afford it.” Founders are often product-savvy and management-inept, unable to communicate a vision or inspire a team, resulting in frustrating interpersonal dynamics and feelings of pointlessness among hires. These companies demand loyalty, but will pivot you out of a job in a heartbeat or replace you with someone less experienced if it benefits them financially.
So the more we as employees put our humanity first — demanding respect from coworkers and higher-ups, insisting on appropriate compensation for time invested, and developing actual work-life balance — the more difficult it is for these companies to take advantage of us.
What’s more, have you noticed it’s only certain emotions employers are uncomfortable with?
How Men Lock Women Out of the Business World
Several years ago, when yet another instance of misogyny had put me over the edge at the start-up I was working for, I called my mother and explained the situation: I needed desperately to meet with my boss about what had happened, but knew the confrontation would bring me to tears, inevitably undermining my entire point.
My mom made a brilliant observation: Letting yourself be fooled into believing that vulnerability is unsuitable for the workplace plays right into the hands of the patriarchy.
Think about it: Emotional vulnerability, associated in American culture with weakness, and specifically with women, is verboten at the office. No crying, no asking for help or helping others who might need it, no flexibility or understanding, no indication you aren’t 100% sure of yourself at all times. On the other hand, strong, aggressive emotions like jocularity, pride, arrogance, impatience, anger, and distrust are not only welcomed, but encouraged.
“Be on your guard.”
“Cover your ass.”
“Give ’em an inch, they’ll take a mile.”
“Always look out for number one.”
Businesspeople regularly impart these little nuggets of wisdom, and no one bats an eye. No one condescendingly asks a man if he “needs a minute” after he yells at a coworker. Nobody informs male employees their emotions are getting the best of them when they rudely demand to know why a certain project isn’t finished yet. In fact, men who don’t act in these ways are passed over for promotions, and women are told that the key to making it in business is to adopt these very traits and leave the vulnerability at home, where it belongs.
Striving for “emotionless” workplaces is yet another way men lock women out of the business world, and how companies in general strip employees of the dignity each of us is owed, and by extension the respectful office environments, manageable hours, and livable wages we deserve.
Decision Time
So where does that leave me? It’s not really possible to remove emotions from the equation, and it disadvantages us to try. The irony in this case is that it’s actually the emotional nature of the decision that’s keeping me from walking away: I see how stressed my manager is, and I don’t want to contribute to that.
The advice I’m getting from the outside is to put myself first. That I shouldn’t go on being unhappy — especially when my contract specifically offers me an exit — just to keep another similarly unhappy coworker from going it alone. That the company should apologize for letting me down, not vice-versa.
And yet, here I sit, a perfectly intelligent individual, unwilling to remove the emotion from the equation, tethered to my current position by the balloon-string of empathy I feel for the very man who advises I let that go.
Any advice you can offer from an emotional place would be most welcome.
