With Angel’s modifications in mind, the answer is no. I’d be more likely to think about punching the person, assuming it was a male. And then thinking, “You know, Skaldimus, you really should find ways of resolving your angry feelings that don’t involve punching.”
It takes a big person to cry at work…but it takes an even bigger person to laugh at them.
I answered “Yes, I have, and I am male” because I fell apart in front of one of my professors in college once.
But that doesn’t answer the actual question of whether I would, by which I assume the OP means “would you again?”
No, I wouldn’t do that again. It was an embarrassing and humiliating experience.
I would certainly prefer not to cry in front of my boss/teacher–but sadly, one of the ways which I have tended to respond to criticism is to leak tears.
Seriously, more leaking than sobbing, but it’s still been embarassing/unprofessional even if it bothers me more than the other person.
And it’s worse if I’m hungry. And then I get all defensive, but I still can’t stop with the leaking.
Hasn’t happened recently, but then, well, let’s not talk about my employment situation, ok?
Dangit, I left off the second half of my answer. Would I do it again? Not if I could humanely help it.
This is me too - I did it once (I seem to recall I was also pregnant at the time and therefore a little emotional) - but he was giving me a really hard time and I tend to release tension and frustration through tears. If he would have let me out of the room, I would have preferred to go the the bathroom - but he didn’t. I have no plans to do it again.
Now that I picked Never in the poll, I will probably cry in front of my boss tomorrow.
I don’t cry in front of other people very often in general, much less my boss and/or coworkers.
when i was 11, i was a school ‘walker’. that meant that i walked to and from school and also walked home at lunch time.
so it was november and snowy and icy and i was walking home for lunch. i slipped on the ice in my own driveway, fell, and broke my wrist.
the pain was so instant and so agonizing that i burst into tears immediately. but as i stood up, i saw that my neighbor’s child (pre school age) was in her front yard watching me. i was so embarrassed at crying in front of a little kid that i turned off the tears instantly.
so when i went in the house and told my mom i was hurt, i wasn’t crying then. my mom called the school nurse who told her to put ice on it for a while then wrap it up in an ace bandage. the ice made it hurt even more…
my mom sent me back to school after the lunch period. she gave me a note and told me that if it hurt too much, i should give the note to my teacher and she would let me come home.
i went back to school. i was in agony. i had never experienced so much pain in my young life. but i sat in my classroom and could not bring myself to cry or to give that note to my teacher so that i could leave. even at 11, i somehow thought that that would be weak and humiliating…
it was the longest afternoon of my life. but…you don’t cry in public. you just don’t.
I don’t like crying around other people period. I think it is unprofessional to cry in front of a superior. I could give some more leeway around a coworker because sometimes those people are like friends and the relationship is more informal. There’s no real need to cry around others at work, though – that’s what the bathroom is for!
I have teared up in front of my advisor. A lot of grad students I know have at least misted up (if not sobbed) in front of one prof or another.
It’s not something I WANT to do, but I do feel that my advisor needs to know what’s going on with me if it’s affecting my work - personal or professional. And for me, at least, even work/school stuff can be extremely emotionally fraught.
I can’t remember if there were any profs around when I had an extreme personal crisis in the office, but I definitely sobbed in front of many, many of my friends/peers/coworkers.
Thanks for the disclaimer. Only broke down once: when I’d just learned that my grandma had died and I went to tell my boss. But now I see that doesn’t count.
Male, and I wouldn’t and would never, unless I happened to be holding the winning lottery ticket.
Then, yes, tears of joy and rapid farewells.
How can you separate the two, either as the crier or as the person who’s being cried ‘to’ (not entirely sure what that means – in their presence, I guess)? Unless someone is sobbing every day and not doing their job properly, I just don’t get this idea that crying is somehow a sign of weakness or lack of professionalism. Unless you have robots working for you.
While I’ve never cried in front of a boss before, if I were working in a traditional office, between poor overhead lighting, computer screen eye strain, mid-afternoon hunger pains and lack of exercise/stress relief (from being in an office environment all day), I can’t say I never would.
I cried at work once. I’d just received news that a very close relative died in a car crash.
Past the age of 6, I have never cried in front of anyone other than my parents (and that’s only happened twice in my early teens). I’m not sure I could even if I wanted to. Two instances of private crying in my adult life, both non-work-related (after breaking up with my almost-fiancee and a good friend killed in a freak skydiving accident at the age of 21). I take that all back, I cried at that funeral, quite publicly. I feel the sad tingles, mostly, but am unable to actually shed tears lately.
There’s a woman at work who cries when she gets incredibly angry or frustrated (once or twice a month-ish). She mostly does it in private, but you can tell afterwards that she’d been crying. I don’t think any less of her for it, nor do I treat her any more gently than others when my position requires it (though I don’t believe, to date, that I have ever been the cause – the things that anger and frustrate her to that degree generally annoy me as well).
I wish I could do that. I don’t cry in public because I want to, I do it because I can’t stop it from happening.
Closest I even came was to a teacher when I was about 14. He was giving me a few whacks with the cane for doing something or other and I nearly broke down. I tried to stay stoic though through the event and tried to just keep looking in his eyes with as much defiance as I could manage.
I like to think it was like this amazing scene from Glory but obviously I wasn’t as cool as Denzel.
Why do you regret it? It didn’t impact your work, and it showed your human side. There should be no embarrassment to genuine grief just because you are a woman. I would think less of you if you HADN’T cried.
Never cried at work
-Ender, professional baseball player.
Only time I ever cried was silent tears when my ear was so badly infected I could no longer function. We were working in a loud cafeteria (I was a TA) and I just lost it.
I had mastoiditis, the worst kind of ear infection. She had someone take me to the ER because they weren’t sure what was wrong with me at the time.
Can’t think of any other incidence.