Sure, there’s no crying in baseball, but there’s plenty of it in the workplace
I’ve cried on the job. Many times. But I cried the most while working as an intern at a newspaper during college. An editor made it clear by the way she talked to me and the reporting assignments she gave me that she didn’t like me. I felt her actions were racially motivated since I was one of a group of young African-Americans she consistently treated unfairly. I didn’t share my suspicions with management. I just cried.
One of the many pieces of advice you hear about working is to never let your boss see you cry, especially if you’re a woman. But is this advice still relevant?
We spend so much of our time at work, how can we avoid getting emotional every now and then?
Well, we can’t.
So what should be the rules and boundaries for showing how you feel while you work? That’s a question asked and answered in Anne Kreamer’s fascinating book, “It’s Always Personal: Emotion in the New Workplace’’ (Random House, $25), which is the April pick for the Color of Money Book Club.
Kreamer, former executive vice president at Nickelodeon, interviewed scientists and workplace experts and talked to everyday folks to find out their feelings about, well, having feelings on the job.
Kreamer writes that she wanted to find and offer “a blueprint for how each of us can remain true to our individual temperament while nevertheless developing the means to be more effective within the social context of work.’’
Although the anecdotes make it very readable, it’s an analytical and scientific look at an issue that rarely gets discussed. As Kreamer points out, our emotions don’t turn off when we show up for work. There’s some good research that would be useful for both employee and management training seminars. Kreamer teamed up with ad firm J. Walter Thompson to commission a poll to get perceptions on what leads to emotional incidents at work. The survey found:
■ Forty-two percent of young men believe that anger can be an effective management tool. Only 23 percent of women feel that way.
■ An overwhelming majority of workers said they have witnessed their bosses get angry about something.
■ Forty-one percent of women said they have cried at work compared with just 9 percent of men. But because women are often embarrassed, they are also the most critical of workplace weeping.
To manage your feelings better, Kreamer recommends building an emotion management toolkit. For example, if you tend to be emotional, write down your feelings. Try some deep breathing to relieve stress. Eat. Drops in your blood sugar can weaken your emotional self-control. Find people who make you feel confident and who support you and connect with them on a regular basis.
And you know what? Cry if you want to. Just use the suggestions and techniques she outlines to make sure it doesn’t get in the way of your work.
Michelle Singletary is a columnist for The Washington Post. She can be reached at singletarym@washpost.com. 
