You know, I’ve seen my fair share of folks losing their cool over the years. It’s like watching a toddler, but it’s a grown adult, sometimes even someone in charge. They just completely lose it, what some folks call “spitting the dummy.” It’s quite a sight, and not usually a good one, let me tell ya.
I remember this one time, clear as day. We were working on this project, pretty tight deadline, nothing new there. This manager, let’s call him Dave, was usually wound pretty tight anyway. Always pacing, always checking his watch. This particular afternoon, things were already a bit tense. The coffee machine was broken, if you can believe that – small thing, but it adds up, right?
So, we’re all beavering away, trying to get this report ready for the big bosses. Dave’s hovering, as usual. Then, one of the lads, young fella, fairly new, he accidentally prints this massive document to the wrong printer. I mean, a huge stack of paper, and it’s gone to the fancy color printer upstairs, the one that costs a fortune per page. Not ideal, sure, but not the end of the world. You just cancel it, maybe apologize for the wasted paper.
Well, Dave saw the notification pop up. He walks over to the kid’s desk, real slow. I thought he was gonna be calm, explain the mistake. Boy, was I wrong. He just stared at the screen, then at the kid, and his face went this weird shade of purple. I swear, I thought he was gonna explode.
And then he started. Not shouting, not at first. It was this low, guttural growl. He was like, “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?” The poor kid looked like he was about to cry. Then Dave just, well, he spat the dummy. Big time.
He started properly yelling then. About:
- The cost of the toner.
- The wasted paper.
- How nobody ever paid attention.
- How this whole department was apparently incompetent.
- And, of course, how this was going to ruin the entire presentation.
He wasn’t throwing things, thankfully, but his arms were flailing about, and he wasproperly red in the face. He even kicked a bin, a little plastic thing, sent it flying across the room. The whole office just went silent. Everyone just froze, pretending to be intensely interested in their screens. It was so awkward. You could cut the tension with a knife.
After what felt like an eternity, but was probably only a couple of minutes, he just stormed off to his office and slammed the door. We all just sat there, looking at each other. The young lad was white as a sheet. Someone quietly went to cancel the print job and retrieve the misprinted pages.
And you know what? That whole outburst? It achieved absolutely nothing. Zilch. Nada. It just made everyone feel terrible, especially the poor kid who made a simple mistake. The report still got done, the presentation went fine, but the atmosphere in the office was rubbish for days. All that drama, all that huffing and puffing, for what? Just made him look like a fool, really. It’s funny, isn’t it? How some people think losing their temper like that actually helps. Never does. Just makes a bad situation worse, every single time.