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Desk Rage Follow-Up: Could It Help Your Career?

By Rob Walker
Posted Thursday, Jan. 25, 2001, at 11:30 PM ET

So let's say that the other day, when you were reading a Moneybox item about the cubicle culture's role in facilitating the supposed rise of "desk rage," you were overcome with anger. Maybe just contemplating your sorry lot made you want to lash out at someone, demand improvements, threaten, and yell. But no. You didn't do it. You held your anger in check and went about your day feeling grumpy but stoic.

Bad move! It turns out that anger in the workplace, while possibly bad for society, can be good for your career, or at least that's the conclusion of a recent academic study reported by Reuters. "We definitely know that when people express anger, they appear more dominant and strong," Dr. Larissa Z. Tiedens, the Stanford professor who conducted the study, explained, "and when people saw someone express anger, they thought that person was a lot smarter than someone who expressed a different emotion—namely sadness—and would confer on them a higher status.''

An important caveat here is that study often asked participants to record their impressions of the angry contrasted against the sad—as opposed to the chipper or the calmly persuasive. But still. Those who "expressed their feelings in terms of anger" are apparently more respected and likely to get better promotions and pay than office sad sacks. The professor adds: "In my view, it's a pretty simple sort of mechanism where we use other people's anger expression as a signal of who they are and what their personality is like and what their capabilities are. When we express anger, what we're communicating is that 'I'm right and someone else is wrong' ... and we want to confer status on those people who are right."

What to make of this? First, for the record, this column does not advocate, nor confer status on, workplace anger. And while I don't take this study all that seriously, I do think it adds an interesting wrinkle to the alleged surge of desk rage—namely, the rather dispiriting point that screamers often get their way (as many members of many professions can probably confirm anecdotally). Anyway, if it's true that the American workplace is more stress-soaked than ever, then surely the last thing it needs is an anger feedback loop: Worker A throws a tantrum and gets a raise, ticking off workers B, C, and D, who follow suit, and the next thing you know a book called Tongue-Lashing for Dummies appears. Makes your blood boil, doesn't it?

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Reader Comments From The Fray:


[Notes from the Fray Editor: After the previous Desk Rage piece, we commented on Tony Adragna's reasonableness and his hints at more exciting stories. He has not let us down: full story below. And the point on windows seems a good one.]


My personal experiences, and my three rules for when and how to express rage:

The first incident involved a colleague who I was responsible for supervising. This colleague could not get it through his skull that he should not take it personally when clients expressed frustrations over the way we did business. After one particularly heated exchange between him and a client, I decided to have it out with him right then. I felt really good about what I did, my manager and the client were impressed, and my colleague never gave me any more trouble. Several months later he transferred to another location, resumed his unprofessional conduct, punched a client, and you can guess the rest. Was I right or wrong? I was wrong. The only reason that he did not give me any problems was because, I scared the hell out of him. What I should have been doing was teaching him a lesson.

The second incident occurred a year later. This time my own job was on the line. An incident occurred involving myself and a member of management under a process called "dual control". Despite the fact that there was no misconduct, and that a member of management was involved, senior management decided to hold me responsible, and only me. I lit off like a Roman Candle! I told them both exactly what I thought of them, in words that I learned in the Navy. I gave them a choice: immediately dismiss me without prejudice, or I would resign and make both of their professional live miserable. Was I right or wrong? Let me just say that I left with my integrity and self esteem intact.

Sometimes expressions of rage are appropriate. Just follow my three simple "rules of engagement":
1)Make sure it's a fight you can win. Fighting a losing battle is a waste of energy, makes you look stupid, and can make you even more "rageful".
2)Direct your rage at the right person. This might seem obvious, but it's not. If the person that you going off on doesn't have the power to solve the problem, then you are left in the same place as above.
3) Never get physical! Committing battery, or destroying property, is an automatic loss, regardless of your "rightness".

My own experience with employers who reward what I consider unacceptable behaviour is that they end up kicking themselves in the butt later.

--Tony Adragna

(To reply, click here.)


Could cubicle rage have more to do with lack of sunlight and windows and less to do with the lack of privacy? I don't mind sharing my space, but I do mind if that space is dark and dreary. Most real offices (e.g. offices with a door) have windows. Most cubes do not.

--Window Classism

(To reply, click here.)

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