Is crying at workplace unprofessional?

Yesterday, a senior leader of Congress, Ghulam Nabi Azad officially retired from Rajya Sabha and our Prime Minister Narendra Modi bid farewell to him with teary eyes.

No one expects a country’s prime minister to cry in the Parliament, but he did choose to display his emotions without worrying about what the world would think.

We all get emotional in our workplaces and tend to burst out in certain situations, while at the same time believe that crying in a professional setting is just about the worst thing one can do.

Why is crying at work such a taboo? Anthropologists claim that crying violates ‘display rules,’ or cultural norms for self-expression and socialization.

Fortunately, more people (including employers) today are recognizing that crying is part of human nature, and crying at work isn’t a denunciation of your professional abilities, nor it’s only a woman thing.

Rather than telling your co-workers not to cry at work, we need to learn how to respond better in such situations. I personally feel I could have handled many such situations better in my past only if I would have learnt how to respond better.

What do you think? Did you ever cry in your workplace? If yes, then how did your colleagues managed the situation?