Emotional Accountability

A friend of mine was recently called into a meeting after work with his boss, the boss's boss, the department head, and an HR rep. He was told that one of his colleagues, a young woman, had cried, and that he was responsible for it. Apparently, she had asked him to shoulder some of her work tasks that day, and he refused. So, she ran to her boss and cried.

After receiving acknowledgement from management that this young woman was not alleging any abuse, threats, defamatory language, or physical assault, my friend responded, "I am not responsible for her tears."

The management team did not know what to say. "Well, this just can't happen again." My friend said, "Then tell her that. If any of you had seen me crying at work, you would have told me to suck it up and get back to my job. Why aren't you all holding her to the same standard?"

Eventually, everyone begrudgingly agreed with him. They couldn't come up a defensible position or explanation that could hold him accountable for his colleague’s emotional upset. Yet this scenario plays out in HR departments across the United States every day: men being held responsible for their female colleagues’ emotions and emotional reactions to things they don’t like at work. Not surprisingly, HR departments are overwhelmingly run by women. They have become nothing more than compliance tools to enforce unfair standards that favor specific groups, such as women, transgenders, and ethnic minorities at the expense of everyone else.