Weeping in the Workplace

Should educators cry at work? asks Allison Vaillancourt (University of Arizona) in this Chronicle of Higher Education article. Is it a sign of weakness and lack of control? Is it unprofessional? Vaillancourt thinks not, and cites a new book (It’s Always Personal: Navigating Emotion in the New Workplace by Anne Kreamer, Random House, 2013) that found 41 percent of women and 9 percent of men have wept in the workplace – without adverse career consequences. 

“My own perspective,” says Vaillancourt, “is that there is a right time to cry and a wrong time, and that too much crying – or fake crying – can lead to trouble… Genuine emotion, however, can be powerful.” She describes how a tough and impervious manager got feedback that people thought he was brilliant but didn’t like him. “As that became clear, tears started to flow,” she says. “He had no idea, and was crushed to learn that people thought he was so heartless… [H]is willingness to express emotion indicated that he was serious about turning things around, and that made me all the more committed to helping him.” 

Vaillancourt goes on to share a number of responses to her approach from other educators, among them: 

• “Often people apologize to me for crying, but I take the view that crying – in the company of a safe, understanding and caring person – can be restorative and a way to recover and carry on.” 

• Crying in the presence of a hostile person with power can be a problem, and getting out of the room before bursting into tears is a good idea.

• “I can think of no occasion when crying is acceptable. People who cry at work are always manipulative.” 

• “Sure, there are manipulative people who try using tears as a tool, but it’s generally pretty obvious whether a person is truly overwhelmed by emotion or deliberately attempting to play other people’s emotions.”

• “I came from a home where no one yelled, ever, and in my early 20s, I could not emotionally handle being yelled at by someone who had my entire career in his hands.” 

• “The feeling of helplessness when confronted in a meeting, unexpectedly, by nasty, sadistic administrators (or colleagues for that matter) can lead to tears that, unfortunately, communicate the opposite of what one would like to be conveying – or shut down all conversation, needless to say.”

• “People are human. Humans cry. I keep a box of tissues in my office and it gets used, not usually by me. But it’s impossible to make ‘rules’ for it… The only time tears are a problem for me is when they close down an important conversation. I say this as a male administrator.”

“Weeping at Work” by Allison Vaillancourt in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb. 1, 2013 (Vol. LIX, #20, p. A33), http://chronicle.com/blogs/onhiring/weeping-at-work/35753 

From the Marshall Memo #471