Posted on 10/15/2005 8:17:02 PM PDT by nickcarraway
WHEN women first joined the executive ranks of corporate America a generation ago, they donned sober slacks and button-down shirts. They carried standard-issue briefcases and adopted their male colleagues' stoicism.
More than two decades later, women have stopped trying to behave like men, trading in drab briefcases for handbags and embracing men's wear only if it is tailored to their curves. Yet there is one taboo from the earlier, prefeminist workplace that endures: women are not allowed to cry at the office. It is a potentially career-marring mistake that continues to be seen as a sign of weakness or irrationality, no less by women themselves than by men.
For evidence consider a recent episode of NBC's "Apprentice: Martha Stewart," in which a young woman whose team had just lost a flower-selling contest told Ms. Stewart that she felt like crying. Her admission elicited no sympathy from her prospective employer, only blunt career advice.
"Cry and you are out of here," Ms. Stewart said. "Women in business don't cry, my dear."
Women in politics don't either, judging by Geena Davis's performance as the steely Mackenzie Allen on ABC's "Commander in Chief." Discussing the pilot episode, in which Allen navigates a political minefield to ascend to the office of president of the United States, Ms. Davis told a reporter from The Chicago Sun-Times, "I did not cry in my pilot - no!"
For reasons both biological and social, scientists and sociologists say, women are more inclined than men to feel the urge to cry when they are frustrated. Yet Martha Stewart is not the only woman executive who expects her underlings to remain dry-eyed. Many other workplace veterans also impose the rule and through seminars, books, Web sites and private conversations, recommend tricks for how to follow it.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I cry when I can't find the right heels to go with my handbag.
Better tell that to Urban Meyer.
Screaming and yelling by men in the workplace is just as unprofessional as crying by women. In fact, I dare say more so because it can be seen as frightening and intimidating. While I'm not buying the sex-based discrimination ruling, I'd lose all respect for a supervisor if I saw him fly into fits of rage. I'd view him as unstable and incapable of dealing with stress.
A supervisor (male or female) who behaved like this needs to be severely reprimanded and counseled about improper workplace behavior.
Many years ago when I took a new job as a manager of a manufacturing production branch, I learned that the boss was a loud mouthed yeller and frequently yelled at other managers in the meeting room.
After one instance of him totally destroying one of the other participants in a meeting, I approached him in private and told him if he ever screamed (or yelled) at me I would instantly "knock the crap out of him" with no warning.
I fully expected to be fired but could not work under that circumstance anyway. To my surprise, I wasn't fired, and we came to a very good understanding and he never yelled at me. He still yelled, but at other, more timid workers.
Didn't people accuse Dan Quayle of not being able to distinguish between fact and fiction during the Murphy Brown thing?
I witnessed this first hand at a company I used to work for. She eventually became a VP.
Guys shouldn't either. There are three times when it is ok to choke up at the office.
1.) Times of great personal tragedy i.e. just receiving the news that a close family member or close friend died. Your washing machine dying does not meet the standard.
2.) Times of great national tragedy. 9/11 qualifies. Losing the World Cup doesn't.
3.) When you lose your job. Unless you lost it for violating one or two. In which case dry up sobby!
This only works if you're a professional wrestler...
I disagree. My one-man company came under legal attack by one several orders of magnitude larger. The founder of that company deceptively used a third party in order to get in touch with me. I was in deep depression about the whole thing until I noticed that they included my personal information in their legal documents. I saw that as a direct threat to my wife and daughter. It flipped a switch in my mind and I became motivated like you would not believe. It took superhuman effort to develop my new software technology and I have done so, thanks to them.
So, I'd have to say that intense emotion has its place in business.
You are the first person to identify the quote
I loved the movie
I am so sorry for your loss
I think there is a more pervasive phenomenon at work: single moms who for some odd reason feel that they need to remind you that they are a single mom, how tough it is, how thier kid's father won't do his part, etc.
Married moms are only a little better, sad to say.
I think it's a kind of sheild they put up, to hopefully insulate them from criticism or scrutiny. It is remarkably common in every office I ever worked at.
I show emotion at work all the time. In Conroe when that rig burned down around me, or in the Gulf when one of the roughnecks lost all the fingers on his right hand, or the mine riot in South Africa, or the time SWAPO rebels shot at the rig in Namibia. Yea all kinds of damn emotion.
Perhaps it's easier to contain yourself in a nice climate controlled office?
I can't stand when women cry..period. I once and ONLY once felt like crying at work...I went to the bathroom, composed myself and nobody knew and that's the way it always should be.
Been in my current position for 14 years. I've cried at work twice.
Once when I was madder'n'dammit and, yes, I got angry at myself for doing it and that made it harder to turn off the tears.
Second time was when I received a phone call that, when evaluated, told me my stepdad had given up on life and would die soon. I went quietly outside and gazed at the mountains until I could control the waterworks. The guys who work for me would not have even known I was drizzling if one of them hadn't come out to ask me how to proceed on an issue.
I work for a retired Army artillery lieutenant colonel. He's a chauvanist pig from way back. Had a female working for me who didn't like my enforcing the company policy of no flex time. She went over my head to the him. He allowed her to take the time off. I called him and told him either he support me enforcing company policy or he needed to come over and run my lab. He meekly said he wouldn't do it again (LOL!).
The next time she asked for flex time, I told her no. She said that he'd told her she could. I immediately said, "Let's go talk to him" and marched her over to his office. She sat down in his office with me standing there and she started crying. He caved. I was astonished since I'd caught her in a flat-out lie that he also recognized.
I sent her back to the lab and just looked at him, standing there with my arms crossed. He looked down at his desk and fiddled with his pens and said that he didn't handle crying females well. I agreed with him. He promised that he wouldn't EVER allow her to walk on him again. I said, "I'm watching."
He didn't, but then, she moved on in a couple of months to another company. I understand that she's broken up two marriages up there so far. She is the kind who gives ALL women in the workplace a bad name. I've also heard that she still cries at the drop of a hat when confronted and gets her way.
What's the World Cup?
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