We could attempt a tearful reinterpretation of Fight Club. In David Fincher's cult 1999 movie, narrator Jack, played by Edward Norton, is a car company employee at the end of his rope. He cannot sleep, unable to express the detestation he feels for his job, whose sole purpose is to finance an absurd consumerist lifestyle. But what if Jack's problem is that he cannot cry at the office, that he cannot drown in tears this feeling of non-life smoldering under the neon lights?
In an attempt to untie this emotional knot, Jack starts attending discussion groups for people with serious illnesses. By posing as one of them each time, he is able to vent on the shoulders of strangers and relieve his overflow of dark moods. Snuggled up against the chest of a guy who just had his testicles removed, he finally finds a kind of peace: "Being there, pressed against his tits. Ready to cry. This was my vacation." As if by a miracle, Jack starts sleeping again.
If letting your tears flow at work has long been associated with a form of weakness and a lack of control over your emotions, things seem to have gradually changed. A survey carried out in 2019 by French job search site Monster.com showed that eight out of 10 respondents had already cried at work, with 14% of those questioned admitting that it happened to them at least once a week. Hierarchy and colleagues, personal problems, workload and harassment are among the main reasons for this necessary letting go. Tears are a warning signal not to be taken lightly.
Expressing something you cannot verbalize
Good news: You do not have to hide in the toilets before letting the floodgates open. "As a manager, I've already cried in the workplace (and not hidden in the toilet)," said psychologist and former company director Bénédicte Vassard on LinkedIn. "So while it's true that showing vulnerability isn't always easy or pleasant, and yet! The few times I've pulled out my box of tissues (for myself or for people on my team), it's never been a problem. After the first moment of surprise or discomfort, a deep connection is established. The mask of function cracks."
An effective way of relieving pressure, crying allows you to express something you cannot necessarily express with words. For the superman (or superwoman) manager, it is also a way of shattering the myth of omnipotence and infallibility that has the deleterious effect of kryptonite on him (or her). But what is truly new in the ways of "Team Kleenex" is the public face of crying. Cry, OK, but make sure people know about it.
In August 2022, Braden Wallake, boss of American start-up HyperSocial, wrote a post on LinkedIn, with a photo of himself in tears, in which he explained how affected he was by the layoffs just made: "This will be the most vulnerable thing I will ever share. I just want people to see that not every CEO out there is cold-hearted and doesn't care when he/she has to lay people off." Sniffle. Many internet users took offense at what they then perceived as a form of tearful self-promotion. While every emotion should be welcome in the corporate world, including on the part of senior executives, some see an emerging and questionable practice taking shape here: "Tearful branding."