How strange, if you think about it, that we’re taught to keep emotions out of the workplace. That in the very place we are required to expend most of our energy, our feelings are seen as a destabilising and disruptive force. To think that a dozen people in a meeting room – now, on a Zoom call – might be little crucibles of feeling: disappointment, excitement, anxiety, eagerness, shame, and their faces show none of it. The recent explosions at a Handforth Parish Council meeting were a rare glimpse of the kind of thing that’s going on under the surface.
Marc Brackett is currently researching the most common problem of the office space: venting. “Why is the default for many people venting rather than problem solving?” he asks from his home in Connecticut. “Research shows that venting does not actually help you. It’s a trick our brain plays on us: we go around saying, ‘I can’t take it anymore’ and you feel like you’ve got it out, but you still feel like crap afterwards and the reason for that is that the feeling itself remains unchanged.” Brackett’s studies also show that people rarely express their gripes at work to the colleague who can do anything about it.
Content from our partners
