Shauna Moerke is…

Now this may come as a big shock to all my darling readers out there (i.e. Not really), but I’m… an emotional person. (Gasp!!) I’m not someone who can hide her emotions. In fact, I have been told that I emote well. However, it is also important to me that I maintain a professional demeanor at work and I do feel that this has greatly improved over time, both due to maturity and the ability to learn from my past mistakes. It only took one supervisor to point out that dropping f-bombs at work was bad before I learned not to do it again. I’m quick, right?

However, I was recently reminded about a much simpler and earlier time in my career, back when I was wide eyed and prone to outbursts of completely appropriate emotions at completely inappropriate times. See, back then I was starting out on a new team and I had my very own mentor. If by mentor you mean someone who routinely tells you to do something, doesn’t bother to explain how to do it or even what that something is, and then proceeds to belittle you for not knowing how to do it. Fun times, fun times.

It was during one of these “learning opportunities” that I found myself about to do something I had never done before. I found myself, as if my body was moving of its own volition, about to flip my mentor off. Luckily, some sane part of my brain decided to reassert its will over my appendages and I stopped it in time. Can you say fired? I would have been in sooooo much trouble. Hell, another manager at this company almost wrote me up one day because I said god dammit.

Needless to say, I’m not advocating swearing or flipping off your co-workers. That’s a big no-no. But I know it’s hard, sometimes very hard, not to get overwhelmed by your emotions at work. You spend so much time at work, with some really annoying people, and it is understandable that you will eventually come into conflict with someone. So train that one, sane and rational part of your brain, to be at the ready to jump in when needed, either to to make you put on a professional mask or to keep that bird from popping up.

Incidentally, want to know a great way to tell if you need to find a new job? You find yourself about to flip off your mentor. After that near miss I got the hell out of there before I could do some real damage.