Dealing with angry people

[Alessan]

@Trinopus

And the benefit of making this personal is…what?

I’m sorry. It’s just that your attitude reminded me of several bullies I’ve known - the kind who use anger as a way of asserting dominance. If that doesn’t apply to you, then I apologize.

[Trinopus]

Alessan: It’s as likely as not (or moreso) that I was unclear, or a bit emotional, or whatnot, so, no worries…

My only real point was that people are so very widely different that a technique or tactic that might work well on one person might backfire horribly on another. I’ve met some of those exceptions (and, yeah, I kinda am one myself.)

I had an evil boss, for a long time, who had the absolute genius of taking everything anyone said in just the wrong way. (It had to be deliberate!) When he got angry, there was absolutely nothing anyone could say that would reduce the tension. It was awful…

[CanvasShoes]

@Enkel

^This.

Some of my favorite responses (no matter WHAT has been said), and always said in a calm voice (I try not to smirk and try to keep my voice flat rather than sounding like I’m going to laugh). Stand there and let them continue until they’ve blown themselves out. I was in a multi-month battle with a person who honestly wished me dead. They were the tantrum throwing sort and would get their buddies to jump in on the tantrums. So these do work:

“Well, God Bless your little heart” (heat tilt, concerned look on face)
“Thank you so much for sharing.” (bright smile like you’ve just gotten the cure for cancer)
“Well, isn’t that interesting?” (deep intellectual look, like contemplating their wisdom about the benifits of your going and F-ing yourself)

Sometimes these fit, and I love it when they fit…
“Well, I guess you’re just gonna have to get happy”
“Well, you must love it if you keep doing the same thing”

But, once I pick one, I just keep repeating it. (You’d be amazed at how the rah-rah crowd realizes the joke and will turn on and laugh at their attack dog leader pretty quickly)

Anyway. NEVER turn your back on them, NEVER walk away from them. NEVER advance toward them. Stay right where you are and totally willing to listen to them until THEY stop and THEY walk away (even if they blow on for an hour!). It will go a long way toward extinguishing the behavior, especially if they have their rah-rah crowd there watching. Once you’ve non-reacted to them, they won’t risk their rah-rah crowd seeing another failure like that in the future.

The first time you do it… make a point to notice their faces. They WANT you to yell back, that is their pay off. I’ve driven one person to the point that I could tell they were debating punching me. They had their rah-rah crowd there and were getting creamed by my total lack of reaction. The only reason I wasn’t punched was because the screamer has a criminal history and knew darn well that the cops couldn’t touch them for yelling, but the minute he touched me, that was assault.

Same idiot who wanted me dead also saw fit to try to “chase” me down a road in their car. It was a narrow two lane road with all sorts of twists. Their rah-rah crowd were all piled into the car, flipping fingers, red faced ranting, hand talking to each other. I slowed down to 15mph, turned on my favorite radio station, rolled down the window and hung my elbow out in the sun… and just tootled along like an old lady.

Their choice was to pass or continue the ‘chase’. We traveled over 10 miles that way (45 minutes - and I made a point to NEVER use my brakes, so I wasn’t even asking them to back off), them fipping fingers and ranting at each other in the car… I thought they would explode by the time they finally decided to pass me. (since they were in his beaaauutifuuuul ride, I knew he wouldn’t actually make contact with my old farm truck or try to run me off the road. My truck out weighted his car by at least twice.) Then, as soon as they’d passed, I did a K turn and was waiting for them at their driveway when they got home. I wish I had video of them. I’ve never seen so many creative ways to use the F word. Our tax dollars had not been wasted on their public education!

:eek:

What kinda people do you work for?

[Carol_the_Impaler]

@SeaDragonTattoo

I can’t fathom a workplace where this would be tolerated. I guess if he’s the owner - but I still can’t imagine not telling him his behavior is unacceptable, giving one more chance, and walking out when/if it happened again. Who cleaned it up? This is kind of fascinating.

I can. And like LurkerInNJ says, it’s not possible or easy for a great many people to be able to just walk away. They have to keep coming back every day until they are finally able to get another job, and that can take awhile.

I’ve seen more than one situation where standing up to abuse just results in worse and more abuse. Similarly, I’ve never seen bad bosses, abusive bosses, reported to HR and have anything done at all (with the exception of a sexual harassment situation).

I’ve seen bosses throw things at their employees. Humiliate employees in meetings. I’ve personally been physically charged twice by a bad boss. I’ve seen bosses scream at people very low on the totem pole. People in the organization (hell, even out in the broader community) know about these people and their abuse and nothing happens to them. In fact, it’s been not unheard of in my experience for these people to be rewarded even though it’s well known what assholes they are. And this is not from businesses where these people are the owner, either. It’s tolerated a lot.

[msmith537]

@MichaelEmouse

Agree. Angry cunts are only really a problem in a professional context where walking away can have great costs.

Actually, in most professional environments where I have worked, acting like an angry cunt typically has great costs for the angry cunt.

Frankly, I can’t comprehend where you people work where this behavior is acceptable. Sure, people sometimes get snappy or short tempered when they are stressed out. But going off on crazy temper tantrums is completely unacceptable.

And it’s counter productive anyway. Am I supposed to be afraid of you because you’re yelling? Afraid of what? That you’ll yell some more?

@Trinopus

If you use it on me, I get angrier. I do calm down. But I become coldly, deadly furious. It turns my ire into poisonous resentment, which lasts a LOT longer than ordinary anger. It turns you from an object of anger to a lifetime enemy.

Oh God forbid.:rolleyes:

[_Olive]

I tend to ignore angry folks by not responding. Just let them get it out.

Yesterday a family member died, he was the angriest man I ever knew. His son is not even having a service for him as he said no one will show up.

[Trinopus]

@msmith537

. . . Oh God forbid.:rolleyes:

Which God?

[T.Slothrop]

I like the Betelgeuse (the movie) solution. You say: “Look, there’s Elvis”. And then you say to the imagined Elvis: “Yo, King.” and then you walk away.

[Dave_Hartwick]

Minimizing empathy statements have helped me calm people down-- sometimes. They aren’t magic, though. Sometimes empathy statements have caused people to get more emotional.

Empathy statements are just a formula they used at a crisis hotline. “You sound like you feel [emotion].” A minimizing empathy statement was something we were supposed to avoid, because the goal was to get people to own their feelings. We were to avoid modifiers like “a bit” or “a little”. Likewise, weaker emotions-- if the person in crisis was devastated by the loss of a loved one, you didn’t want to get them to own that they were down.

Empathy statements get people to think about their feelings rather than the situation they’re dealing with. I don’t think I’m explaining very well, so I’ll move on to examples.

Minimizing statements for somebody who is furious:

“You sound upset.”
“You sound like you feel a little pissed off.”
“You sound kind of mad.”

The idea is that you get the person to think about how they’re feeling, but not really. It can be calming. Tone of voice is important. But you never know how somebody will react.

“You sound kind of mad.”
“No. Shit. SHERLOCK. ARE YOU MAKING FUN OF ME? RARAHAHRGH!”

Personally, if I’m mad, sarcasm can make me madder. So can walking away from me, especially if the person I’m mad at tries to get in a Parthian shot.

[msmith537]

“If your enemy is angry, irritate him.”
-Sun Tzu

[Anaamika]

@msmith537

Actually, in most professional environments where I have worked, acting like an angry cunt typically has great costs for the angry cunt.

Maybe. But it takes a while. The boss I sort of mentioned went through days where she was just a total bitch. “Stop smiling!” She’d snap. “I hate when you smile at everything.”

Uh, I ‘smile at everything’ not because I’m mentally deficient but because I work hard to maintain an easy, good-natured sort of mood. It doesn’t come naturally to me. But she was just a bitch sometimes.

From the beginning of her bitchiness it took her about four years to be fired. I had to grit my teeth and put up with it all that time. It wasn’t as bad in the beginning, but over time it got worse and worse. And I like this job, so I didn’t want to just quit.