Emotional Fragility Doesn’t Work Well in the Workplace!
I am a cry baby. Literally. Put on a commercial with dogs in a shelter and I’ll switch the channel to avoid welling up. Take me to a kid’s school play or presentation and I’ll be in tears in seconds. Do something heartless that hurts others and I’ll turn on the sprinklers in two seconds flat.
Being a cry baby has its pluses. I have never been accused of being cold-hearted. I know that I care about others, and have a special spot in my heart for animals.
But mostly, it’s just a big fat pain in the ass. It’s embarassing! While others are watching “The Bucket List,” dry eyed, I am sobbing away that two old buddies are about to, um, kick the bucket. Turn on a picture slide show with some music, and I don’t care if I know you or not, pass me the Kleenex.
This cry-baby syndrome is a huge burden at work. Today was the third time in my 1.5 years with the company that I have had to leave work because I was crying so hard that I couldn’t stop. It’s embarassing and I fear that it hurts my chances for promotion in the future.
I work for a large rental car company. For this company, I work on site at a high-end dealership, renting out high-end vehicles. (Apologize my vagueness, but I’ve heard of people getting in trouble for name-dropping companies they work for in a bad way on the Internet, and trust me…. you’ve heard of both companies.)
Working in customer service, I have gotten a thicker skin about getting yelled at by pissed off people. I’ve actually learned to handle it pretty well… diffusing the situation, solving the problem and killing them with niceness.
Today, however, was a new situation. It wasn’t a customer yelling at me… it was the CFO of the dealership I work at. I had said something to a customer that displayed her company in a negative light and she didn’t like that. Basically, without boring you to death, the dealership had promised to pay for a customer’s rental car, and when the bill didn’t get paid 3 months after the rental car had returned, it had once again become the customer’s responsibility to pay since the dealership hadn’t paid. And while I was charging the disgruntled customer, I explained this to him.
He, in turn, he asked the dealership why they didn’t pay. No biggie. This has happened before with other accounts. But this time, this evil bitch from hell decided to literally yell at me and attack me verbally because I had matter of factly told the customer why the bill was his responsbility now. She was angry that I gave this customer the impression that her fancy shmancy dealership didn’t pay their bills. (Even though they didn’t….)
She was so mean to me, along with a service advisor at the dealership who has been nice to me for the past 10 months and suddenly turned on me today, that… you guess it…. I cried.
The tears started and then I couldn’t stop them.
Truth be told, I hate working. I think I’m too fragile for such harsh work environments. Laugh at me if you wish, but my real wish is to be a stay at home mom. I don’t even have kids, but this is all I want….
I don’t know if I should quit or keep on truckin’. My manager was wonderfully supportive of the situation… she told me to go home, and she paid me for the rest of the day. She also went over and let that mean lady know the next time she has a problem, to speak to her, the manager.
Why are people so mean? And why am I so emotionally weak???
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Hi. You and I are a lot a like when it comes to cry baby-ness. I was nodding along as I was reading your blog in agreement. Like, “Oh, yea. Me too!”
I too work in customer service. I have been in it for a little over 5 years. There have been quite a few times when I asked the question “why are they soo mean?!” Truth be told, a while back, when I was told I was going to day shift,I burst into tears. My hubby asked what’s wrong? And all I could say was “I don’t wanna go to days; they’re mean!” And my tears justified a couple of times, but I never let my mgmt see me. I was too embarrassed.
It still happens from time to time. Not so much the people being mean, but I get all over emotional around my T.O.M.
My trick is to pretend something’s in my eye and look up until I can force the tears back in.
It might work for you, I dunno.
Thanks for blogging. It’s really refreshing to find a fellow cry-baby.
i so understand what you are talking about! i had an incident with a co-worker not too long ago… and i couldn’t stop myself from crying. so embarassing! i’ve gotten a better as my confidence has improved, but still… there are times i cry and its so irritating! i hate being emotionally weak. lol- so, if you figure out how to fix it, let me know!!
good luck with things at work. i’d say try to tough it out a little bit longer, it might get better. and… i think you’ll probably feel better if you quit on your terms, not b/c someone made you feel bad. but, that’s just my 2 cents worth
I’m sorry that lady was such a jerk to you, especially since you were just telling the truth! After working in retail so long, I’ve decided that there are people out there who shit all over people to make themselves feel better. At least you have a supportive supervisor, but I know that still doesn’t erase the situation. Take comfort in the fact that you’re a better person than the lady who yelled at you, at least you don’t need to tear someone down to feel good about yourself.
OH MY GOSH MEGAN, YOU SOUND SOOOO MUCH LIKE ME. I HAVE EVEN BEEN KNOWN TO CRY OVER MCDONALD COMMERCIALS. I AM SO SORRY THAT HAPPENED TO YOU. I WORK IN MY HOME WITH MY OWN BUSINESS BUT I KNOW WHEN I DID WORK OUT IN THE WORK WORLD I WAS WAY TO SENSITIVE. WHEN PEOPLE MAKE ME CRY I ALWYS WISH I WAS MORE LIKE MY NIECE, SHE WOULD GIVE THEM A LARGE PIECE OF HER MIND AND I WOULDN’T WANT TO BE THAT PERSON. ANYWAY, PLEASE KNOW MEGAN YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE, I THINK THERE ARE A LOT OF US OUT THERE. HANG IN THERE. THAT WITCH WILL GET HER TURN, I SHOULD SICK MY NIECE ON HER. LUV YA