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Comment by Disruptive_Dave | Hacker News Reader

Serious question: what else happens around that time? How long does it take you to "recover" from a crying episode? Are you unable to perform other tasks during an episode? Etc.

I'm genuinely curious because I've had some frustrating experiences with crying in the workplace / around work that seemed a bit unfair to me (at the time I was a young'n who still assumed "fairness" was a thing). Someone would cry at work and they'd be coddled, yet if someone else raised their voice and showed "anger" they'd be in trouble. Seemed a little silly to me.

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There are healthy ways to express your anger. Raising your voice at your coworkers is not one of them, and is out of line.

I can't think of a time when I've had to yell uncontrollably. I can think of many times when the only thing I was capable of doing was crying.

Who said anything about raising voices at coworkers. From my perspective (which is one with zero psychology or medical training), these are two expressions of emotions. You just proved my point here. If the same situation makes one person cry and another person stone / red faced with "anger" why is one treated so tremendously different from the other? From my POV, you have two people unable to control their emotions in a work environment.

Not all emotions have equal rights. Sadness elicits sympathy, rage elicits fear and hostility.

I think I understand what you're saying, but the GP is correct, and did respond to what you said

> Someone would cry at work and they'd be coddled, yet if someone else raised their voice and showed "anger" they'd be in trouble.

Anger is more likely to trigger fear in other people. Anger is also more likely to lead to action, and therefore possibly mistakes. Being sad is just safer for the business.

But I agree there should just be a protocol for handling both and neither should be a big deal. Management should want to take time to sort either out.

I'm certain it's person by person, but for me it doesn't really interfere and clears up pretty quick. It's just little quick bouts.

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