Anger

So it has been an interesting week for me. At work a few days ago a coworker came to my desk and we were going over some reports and it became apparent that he was going to have to make some changes to his report. He became very agitated and began pacing around clinching his fists. Then he came back to my desk and muttered some ugly words and then started talking again. Within a minute he was at it again…pacing. Then he came back and punched my cube wall and really went off with the profanity.

Of course my first reaction was fear…this guy has lost it. Then I thought man he seems a lot like a 2 year old kicking and screaming because he is going to have to do something he doesn’t want to do. But he is in his fifties.

So what makes the difference? Did this person not have a parent telling them oh so many times to not whine, to use nice words, and to not say anything if you don’t have something nice to say? Did they never learn to count to ten if they are angry and to never react in anger? Or just as you get older you forget to be polite and have some level of tact?

With our advances in technology it is so easy to react so quickly and type out a message hit the “send” button and not think about what is being said or the consequences of saying it. At work we have a name for those messages…a flaming crap ball.

So here’s hoping a flaming crap ball does not show up in my inbox and my cube walls stay intact.

Gordon T. Watts: A man can rather accurately be measured, it has been said, by the size of a thing that makes him angry. (“Slow to Anger,” Ensign, Feb. 2003, 59)