Women aren’t the ones that are too emotional in the workplace

I had a frustrating call with a senior stakeholder yesterday. I’m waiting for a client to do something, they haven’t, and he already told his bosses it was done. Probably not the best idea, but hey ho.

During the call this fully grown man whined, sighed, huffed, threatened, yelled, refused any suggestions of solutions, interrupted, told me I was a disappointment and basically worked himself up into a near tantrum. It doesn’t bother me, I was playing Candy Crush while he got his big feelings out. But when I opened my mouth to speak, my voice cracked - too much talking, obviously.

This man had the AUDACITY to say, “oh, here we go, you’re going to get emotional, aren’t you?”. No… I just need a glass of water. It wasn’t me who had to get his emotions out for 45 minutes. Today, he’s sulking. Literally like a child, he won’t interact with me on calls or chat threads and It’s. Just. So. Funny. to me.

Thinking back over my career, I’ve seen people throw things, get in fights, sack people on a whim… and not one of those people were women. Remind me, is anger an emotion? Pretty sure it is.

It feels like 75% of my job is managing or soothing the emotions of men so we can get some work done. And yet, they are so quick to accuse me of being emotional.