scrubbedexpat141

So. Particularly stressful period at work with a lot riding on what happened this year, from bonus time in March through to the pay review we're meant to be having 'now'.

Lots of pent up, blood boiling frustration and anger has meant on about 3 occasions I've used every sinew of my body to keep my mouth firmly shut and arse on my seat instead of just exploding into a ball of rage and pointing out what a total **** everyone is and exactly why they should all be sacrificed like goats at a party.

Glad I have managed to control it, obviously it is ever so slightly more professional to remain calm and clear instead of offering a director outside to fight for his salary.

Haven't had this much before, never felt the pressure like this in such an intense manner that's caused me to want to just resign because '**** them'.

Anyone else nearly genuinely explode at buttheads at work?
Any great stories of actually doing it? Was it long term successful? Wait. I don't want to know the answer to the second part of that.

Charl01

I feel your pain Scamp.

Very close to extending a not so polite middle finger and telling the big boys exactly where they can shove this job......grateful I am managing (barely) to hold my cool and not punch a couple of faces. Yes it is that close

Bahtatboy

Ah, but you don't really mean that otherwise you'd have deleted it...

Close friend and former colleague; we were working together in the head office of a Japanese EPC contractor; he'd been there about 10 years, and had had enough of office politics and dumb (or so it seemed to us) decisions, and often a post-box MO (where we were kept in an information vacuum, just given a particular letter/MOM to write or edit, and then not seeing or being involved with the outcome). Eventually he snapped, laying into our line manager and another senior colleague: "You're too rude, and so are you, and I'm fed up with these stupid decisions ignoring our advice and expertise", and just walked.

He was back a year later (with a little help from me), and stayed another 8 years.

He was very, very good at what he did, mind.

Bahtatboy

Buckets, guys, buckets.

scrubbedexpat141

Have a smoke or a coffee or walk round the block. I managed the latest one by going for lunch (lucky timing). I also wrote an email to my old man explaining why I hated work so much. Venting on email for 20mins of work time was a great release

True.
Interesting. I'm at the point where I feel like I've given all I can and am waiting to see if it's repaid in the reviews. If it's not I'll feel even more of an idiot than I do right now for believing they might return the love.

Have never quit a job without another but if it goes badly, I'll be sorely tempted. I'd back myself to get another but might not be what I want ideally. Not sure.

Shit one is always more full.

DaveLovesDee

I played this to one former employer as I headed for the door.

scrubbedexpat141

I'll listen later, given the topic might not go down well if I blast it out at work....

carcajou

Scamp, I sensed this in some of your posts recently, unfortunately in the Middle East with any sort of "pay review," "pay rise," etc, my rule is always that it is never happening until the second after the money actually hits your account. Too many disappointed people otherwise.

To your other question, yes on multiple occasions I did know of people exploding on morons. By "successful," what do you mean? None of the morons' behaviour changed. The people exploding suffered no consequences either, other than being sneeringly gossiped about by some Westerners and being smeared behind-their-backs as having a "negative" attitude. Which also had no short- or long-term consequences.

Best advice I ever got on how to work effectively in the ME was, don't argue with stupid people. Just say "I understand your opinion" and move on.

Miss Ann Thrope

Alert: this is a long boring post which mostly addresses the question you said you didn't want the answer to rather than any butt-clenching anecdote about office explosions.

I have felt like you describe on a great many occasions in the last decade that I have spent in my current role (f**k! it's now even more than a decade...) and somehow always managed to button it up and slide through. Consequently I have seen off several bosses while largely keeping my own team intact. More satisfyingly, I have seen quite a few implosions of utter arsehole colleagues who rose without trace and thus massively underestimated their own dispensability and over-reached fatally. I'm now in the most peaceful and lowest-stress period I've known during the this job (which is as senior as I care to go - or as I'm likely to get: next step would be CEO). On the other hand I'm bored to distraction (not unconnected to my reappearance here) and get minimal satisfaction from my work. Still, I'm happy, sleep better and no longer have any work-related stress.

As mentioned elsewhere, I have basically agreed tenure for another year at work and have salted enough away to be able to retire in my early 50s and go and do other stuff that does give me satisfaction. So I am very happy that I didn't let my emotions get the better of me during previous difficult periods - not that I was a doormat either...

So, what to draw from my experience? If you're ambitious to rise in your current field, find a way out but on your terms, not because you had a fleetingly satisfying moment of self-destruction. Your next steps will likely be better taken elsewhere and you'll be more accomplished for having made the move. Unless you see a path to remove the obstacles (presumably people) above you in your current role but that would likely be a very risky scenario.

Always remember, also, it's only work. If it pays the bills and that's what really matters, become a cynical cruiser like me and milk the system for all it's worth. But my guess is that is not the stage you are at. I have been about half my working life now in senior management. The critical point to note about that is that is the point in any large organisation where politics matters more than contribution - just as much in supposedly performance-driven hard-nosed commercial enterprises as in public institutions I think (though all my experience is in the former, I have family and partners who have been in the latter). The good part of being a boss is that you are in a position to enable talented people to do great things and that can be very rewarding. The down side is that sometimes that doesn't matter because some other bullshit ends up being more significant for some stupid extraneous reason.

Though I guess since you will all soon be replaced by autonomous Amazon drone-bots anyway, you might as well, in the words of my favourite lesbian poet, "go out like a f**king meteor"!

Meow

All of the above is exactly why I work alone, at an office in my house, and go to the company office for a few hours twice a week on average. I have all the benefits of being self-employed whilst being under the umbrella of a larger organisation but I do what I want, when I want. I really couldn't imagine being a proper employee ever again. If I don't work I don't earn but I am happy to put in the hours and my income comes from more than one source.

I work in an industry that is full of egos but I tend to keep out of most office politics and do my own thing. The odd person winds me up and one has recently tried to spin against me but let's just say he has made a huge mistake. I've been around a long time and am valuable so will be around long after the cowboys leave.

Many times I have wondered if being smart and ambitious is what can lead to frustration. If you have no ambitions or goals then they cannot be thwarted. There is also a lot to be said for doing work that you enjoy or gives you satisfaction as well as having plenty of outside interests.

Meow

That's ace! C&W really does have its moments.

Bahtatboy

Unless you can afford to financially, don't. Without doubt another door would open as the one behind you slams, but its far better to have half-opened a few first.

Its only work (as others have expounded on above). It doesn't define you unless you let it; there will always be wankers; and despite it being composed of organic organisms, the structure and rationale is entirely different.

And never, never expect love in return, or at least not anything different from the type you can buy at the York. The girls there have far more morals than most any corporation I've come across.

Millhouse

Never gone nuts at work. Never will. Had people shout at me and a couple of times I've shown more frustration than I would have liked at times but generally have play it cool.

As for joining in / trying to change others / screwing people over / or cutting off nose to spite your face ... as Mikey J once said: take a look at yourself and make that change.

carcajou

Never love anything that can't love you back.

I have a somewhat different take than others: If you want to go, go. If you wait until you have something "in hand" back in the UK you might be waiting years. Don't know what it is like in your field but in mine, it is extremely difficult to convert your ME job into a job in a Western country while you are still in the ME, and impossible to convert it into a promotional position. Virtually everyone I managed was looking to get out, but vowed they wouldn't do so unless they had something "in hand" that did not pay a single Pound less. No similar position offered that, so they were all applying at promotional positions they had no shot at, and were miserable and stuck.

Bahtatboy

I agree with that. My advice (have at least a foot in another door before jacking) was in the context of Scamp staying in the ME. If its jacking to go home, then as you say the decision is -- and should be -- much simpler.