Crying at Work

I follow this interesting blog that offers a question of the day, which can be used to prompt a blog post. As you know, I'm struggling to do much of anything with this blog as of late, so I decided that when I see a question that piques my interest, I have no excuse to ignore it. The blog is called That's My Answer.

Question: Have you ever cried at work?

Answer: Yes. I know it's considered unprofessional – especially if your boss is there – but sometimes you just can't stop the tears from falling! That doesn't mean I don't cringe inside when I think about it, though ...

It is rather embarrassing ...

What? You want the story?

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...

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FINE! I'll tell the story! ;-)

I will start with the good part. It wasn't my most recent job – at least not that I remember. The incident I'm remembering occurred at my first job after graduating college. And, looking back, I think it happened more than once.

Double the embarrassment factor ...

The main one that comes to mind is, I think, understandable. I think. I loved my first job out of college, absolutely loved it. It was fun, and I had an awesome group of coworkers. They were my friends, and we went through a lot together – which is saying something, because I was at that job for roughly 16 months. But, the company had been bought by another company, and that's quite a stressful situation.

Anyway ...

When it became clear that there were absolutely no jobs in my husband's field in the Chicago area, we knew we were going to have to move. Out of the area. Now, I'm a girl who was born and raised in the Chicago area. My whole family was there. (I say "was" because one of my sisters has since moved to Virginia.) Family is one of the most important things to me. Moving away from my family was very, very hard for me. And, on top of that, I loved my job and didn't want to leave it. So, when I talked to my boss about it, I cried. When I knew for sure that it was time to move on, the dam burst and the tears flowed. Fortunately, at that point, my boss was a woman, and she was more sympathetic.

And typing this out has reminded me of another crying-in-front-of-the-boss experience at the same job. And this is the more embarrassing one, because I SOBBED in front of the man who hired me! Not just in front of him, but while trying to talk to him about an issue I was having with another coworker. But, this coworker made me feel threatened, and I had been frightened by him. I don't mean threatened on the job, but physically/emotionally threatened. I would hope that makes the tears understandable.

I honestly don't remember how my boss (again, male boss in this instance) took it. I just remember my feelings at the time. And when I think on that time I'm instantly embarrassed. I can't believe I lost my cool like that!

I'm sure I cried on the job once or twice after we moved and I started working at the company I worked at until Natalie was born. I worked through all three of my pregnancies there, after all – and what pregnant woman doesn't cry at some point or another? Plus, I KNOW I cried when I had to go back to work ... But, I don't think I ever again cried in front of my boss.