Chapter 7: Heat in the Workplace: Anger and Conflict

A Letter from Rafael

Dear Jiwoo, my sister-in-law gave me your letters to read, and she said I should write to you before I do something stupid. So here I am. I work in a big warehouse on the night shift, loading trucks. The work is hard, but I like it. You know when you have done a good job, because the truck leaves full and on time.

The problem is one man on my team. I will call him Marco. Marco is friendly with the supervisor, and he always seems to get the easy jobs. When we are short of time, he disappears for a cigarette or a phone call, and the rest of us have to finish his part. Last week a pallet that he had stacked badly fell over, and the supervisor blamed me because I was standing nearest to it. Marco said nothing.

Since then I feel heat in my chest every time I see him. I go over it in my head on the drive home, and I imagine what I will say to him. Two nights ago I slammed the door of a cage trolley so hard that a young woman who has just joined the team jumped and looked frightened, and I felt ashamed. My wife says I come home angry, and that the children go quiet when I walk in.

I am not a violent man. I have never hit anyone in my life. But I do not like who I am becoming. Should I tell Marco what I think of him? Should I go to the supervisor? Or should I just keep my mouth shut, keep my head down and wait for the anger to pass? Rafael

Dear Rafael

Thank you for writing, and please thank your sister-in-law for me as well. She told you to write before you did something stupid, but the letter you sent me is not stupid at all. It is the letter of a man who cares about doing good work, who has been treated unfairly, and who has noticed, with real honesty, that his anger is starting to spill onto people who have done nothing to him. That kind of noticing is the beginning of every good change I know.

You asked three questions: whether to tell Marco what you think of him, whether to go to the supervisor, or whether to keep quiet and wait. I will come back to all three. But first I want to write about anger itself, because I think that if you understand it a little better, the answers will become clearer. And because many readers, in many kinds of work, have felt the same heat in the chest, I will write some of this letter for them too.

Anger Is a Messenger

Psychology textbooks describe anger as one of the basic human emotions, found in people of every age and every culture. Small children feel it when a toy is taken away. Old people feel it when nobody listens to them. Anger is not a flaw in your character. It is part of the equipment that every human being is born with, and like most of that equipment, it has a job to do.

The job of anger, most textbooks agree, is to tell you that something important to you is being blocked, threatened or treated unfairly. In other words, anger is a messenger. In your case the message is quite clear: you are doing more than your share, you were blamed for something you did not do, and the person responsible stayed silent. Those are real problems. Your anger did not invent them. It noticed them, and it is trying to get you to do something about them.

When anger rises, the body prepares for action, much as it does under any strong stress. As I wrote to a nurse in an earlier letter, the heart beats faster, the muscles tighten and breathing becomes quick and shallow. The heat in your chest is part of this. So is the way the same scene plays again and again in your head on the drive home. Your body is ready for a fight that, in a warehouse at night, is never going to happen, and so the readiness has nowhere to go.

Here is the difficulty. The messenger is useful, but it is not wise. Anger is very good at telling you that something is wrong, and very bad at telling you what to do about it. In the heat of the moment it usually suggests the fastest response, such as shouting, slamming a door or saying something that cannot be taken back. Public mental health guides put it simply: the feeling of anger is not the problem, but what we do with it can be. The aim is not to stop feeling angry. It is to listen to the message and then choose your response yourself.

Many textbooks add one more idea that I find helpful. Anger often stands in front of other, quieter feelings, like a guard at a door. Behind it there may be hurt, fear or shame. When I read your letter, Rafael, I wondered whether some of the heat in your chest is hurt at being blamed in front of others, and some of it is worry about what the supervisor now thinks of you. These feelings are harder to show at work than anger, especially in a place where people pride themselves on being tough. But naming them, even only to yourself, can make the anger easier to understand and less likely to explode.

Letting It Out, or Letting It Settle?

When you compare what different sources say about anger, you find one interesting disagreement. It concerns the old idea of "letting it out". Many people grew up believing that anger is like steam in a pot, and that the best thing to do is to release it by shouting, punching a cushion or slamming a door. Some popular advice still says this. The idea seems to make sense, because shouting does bring a moment of relief.

General explanations of research, however, tell a different story. When people release anger by acting aggressively, even toward a cushion, they often stay angry for longer, not shorter, and they become more likely to act aggressively again. It seems that rehearsing an angry action teaches the body and mind to repeat it. For this reason, psychology textbooks now tend to recommend a different approach: calm the body first, and then deal with the problem when the mind is clearer. Physical activity, such as a brisk walk, can help to use up the body's readiness for action, but that is different from practising aggression.

Traditional wisdom seems to have known this for a long time. In many languages there are sayings that warn against speaking or deciding while angry. One old piece of advice tells people to count to ten before they speak, and to count to a hundred if they are very angry. An old story compares words spoken in anger to feathers shaken from a pillow into the wind: easy to scatter and impossible to gather up again. These sayings are not science, but they agree with what the textbooks say about the value of a pause.

The sources also point out that people learn very different rules about anger. In some families and workplaces, raised voices are part of ordinary conversation and are forgotten a minute later. In others, any sign of anger is seen as a serious loss of control. Psychology textbooks note that these rules are learned, not built in, and that trouble often starts when people with different rules work side by side. A loud word that means nothing to one person can feel like an attack to another. This does not mean that one set of rules is right. It means that it is worth noticing how your anger looks to the people around you, not only how it feels inside.

The pause does not need to be long. Public mental health guides suggest learning to notice your early warning signs, such as a tight jaw, clenched hands, a hot face or a quickening heart. When you notice them, you can take a few slow breaths, breathing out for longer than you breathe in, which helps the body settle. If your work allows it, you can step away for a few minutes, perhaps saying, "I need a moment, and I will be back." You can drink some water, or walk to the end of the loading bay and back. None of this means giving in. It means giving your wiser self time to catch up.

I also want to say something about the drive home, Rafael, because you mentioned it. Going over a painful scene again and again is very common. As I wrote to a delivery driver in an earlier letter, psychology textbooks call this rumination, which means turning the same thoughts over and over without reaching an answer, and it tends to keep anger alive. Some people find it helps to give these thoughts a set place and time, for example by writing down what happened and what they want to do about it, and then closing the notebook. Others play music or talk to someone on the way home. The aim is to walk through your front door as a father and a husband, not as a man still standing in the warehouse.

Speaking Up Without Starting a Fire

Now to your questions. Keeping your mouth shut and waiting for the anger to pass sounds peaceful, but I do not think it will work in your situation, because the cause of your anger is still there every night. Anger that is swallowed again and again does not disappear. It tends to leak out sideways, as it did with the cage door, and onto the people at home. So I think something does need to be said. The question is how, and to whom.

Psychology textbooks and many workplace guides suggest a few simple principles for speaking up calmly. Choose a moment when you are not at the peak of your anger, and ideally not in front of others. Speak about specific actions rather than about a person's character. "You are lazy and a liar" will start a fight. "Last week the pallet you stacked fell, and I was blamed for it, so I would like you to tell the supervisor what happened" is much harder to argue with. Say how the situation affects you and the work, and say clearly what you would like to happen next.

You might first try speaking to Marco directly, if you feel calm enough and if you think it is safe. Sometimes people who leave work for others have no idea how it looks from the outside, and one honest conversation changes a great deal. Sometimes it changes nothing. If it changes nothing, or if you do not feel able to speak to him, the next step is the supervisor. Workplace guides generally recommend going with facts rather than feelings: dates, what happened, and which tasks were left undone. A supervisor may not want to hear that a favourite worker is not doing his share, but a calm list of facts is much harder to dismiss than an angry outburst.

What if the supervisor does not listen, or takes Marco's side again? Then you still have choices. Many workplaces have someone above the supervisor, a person responsible for staff matters, or a worker representative who can be asked for advice. Writing down what happens, with dates, will help you whichever way you go. If the unfair treatment continues and begins to feel like a pattern aimed at you, a later letter in this book, to an office assistant, describes what public agencies generally say about repeated unfair treatment at work and where to find advice.

Let me give you a few glimpses of how this works in other kinds of work. In a large shed where vegetables are washed and packed, two packers had been arguing for weeks about who should lift the heaviest crates onto the trucks. The shift leader finally pinned a simple chart on the wall by the door, showing who lifted what on which day. The arguments stopped almost at once, not because the two men had become friends, but because the unfairness was now visible and could be fixed.

Another glimpse comes from the kitchen of a large hotel during a busy season of weddings. A cook there told me that the head chef had one rule: no shouting during service, and any complaint could be raised at the staff meal afterwards, when everyone was sitting down together. The kitchen was still hot and fast, and tempers still flared. But people stopped carrying grudges from one night to the next, because they knew there was a time and a place where they would be heard.

A third glimpse is quieter. In an office where people answer telephone calls about broken household machines, many of the callers are already angry before anyone picks up. The team leader there made a simple rule: after any call in which someone has been shouted at, the person who took the call may switch off their line for two minutes, stand up and look out of the window, without asking anyone's permission. An older worker told me that those two minutes had saved many tempers and probably a few jobs. They cost almost nothing. They simply gave anger a place to settle before it could be passed on to the next caller.

There is also repair to think about, and you have already started it. You felt ashamed when the young woman on your team jumped at the slammed door. Shame can be painful, but here it is pointing you in a good direction. A short, simple apology can mend a lot, for example: "I am sorry I slammed the door the other night. I was angry about something else, and it had nothing to do with you."

The same is true at home. Children notice when a parent is tense, and they also notice when a parent says, "I have been grumpy lately because of work, and I am sorry. It is not your fault." Saying this does not make you weak in their eyes. It shows them how a strong person handles anger.

Repair with Marco may take longer, and it may never turn into friendship. That is all right. You do not have to like someone to work well beside him. Some workplaces offer mediation, which means that a neutral person helps two people in a conflict talk to each other and agree on how they will work together. Even without that, small steps can help: a nod at the start of the shift, a clear agreement about who stacks which pallets, and a habit of raising problems early, before they grow. A conflict that is talked about honestly often ends in a working peace, and a working peace is enough to make the nights easier.

When Anger Frightens Others

You wrote that you have never hit anyone, and I believe you. But I want to write a few words here for every reader, because sometimes anger grows to a point where it frightens the people around us, or frightens ourselves. Workplace-safety agencies in many places treat aggression and violence at work as a serious hazard, both for the people who face it and for everyone who works nearby. Shouting, threatening, throwing things or blocking someone's way can make a workplace feel unsafe, even if nobody is physically hurt.

If you ever notice that your anger is becoming hard to control, that it comes very quickly or very often, that you have said or done things that scared others, or that you fear you might hurt someone, this is a sign to get help, not a reason for shame. A doctor or another qualified professional can talk with you about what is happening. In many places there are also courses and groups that help people understand and manage strong anger, and many people find them surprisingly practical. Public mental health guides note that anger which is very frequent or very intense sometimes travels together with other difficulties, such as long-lasting stress, poor sleep, low mood or heavy drinking, and that these are worth talking about too.

If you are on the receiving end of someone else's anger at work and you feel frightened, your safety comes first. Move away if you can, go to where other people are, and tell a supervisor or someone responsible for safety. If you are in immediate danger, call the local emergency number. Nobody should have to work in fear.

The sources agree on one more thing, which is worth saying plainly. Anger is easier to manage when the rest of life is not stretched to breaking point. A tired, hungry person who has slept badly for a week has a much shorter fuse than the same person after a rest day and a good meal. Night work can make good sleep harder to protect, as I wrote in an earlier letter to a delivery driver who starts before sunrise. Looking after the basics will not remove the unfairness that made you angry, Rafael, but it may give you a little more room between the spark and the flame.

Rafael, you are not becoming a bad man. You are a good worker who has been treated unfairly and who has been carrying the weight of that unfairness home every night. Listen to the messenger, and then put its message down where it belongs: in a calm word to Marco, a clear word to your supervisor and a kind word to your family. Until the next letter, Jiwoo

A Question to Think About

The next time you feel anger rising at work, what is it trying to tell you? And once the first heat has passed, what would you choose to do with that message?

You might think about the last time you were angry at work. What was being blocked, threatened or treated unfairly? Where in your body did you feel the anger first, and how long did it take to settle?

You might also ask yourself who ends up carrying your anger when it has nowhere else to go, at work or at home. Is there a conversation you have been avoiding that might take some of that weight off them?