I'm a sympathy crier. As in, if I get any, I will get worse before I get better. So just leave me the hell alone. I had to take a couple walks around the time officemate got laid off, but that's it. If I can make it not-immediate, I can shut it off. Back when our dog died when I was in high school, I was a gawdawful mess on the drive in to school, until about halfway there. Then I was fine until I was about halfway home that afternoon. Reverted to earlier state. Compartmentalize? Oh yeah.

From that Futon Critic article, is anyone here watching Criminal Minds? It's like the commercial The Inside.

I've been watching it (taping it while Lost is on) and enjoying it quite a bit. It is a bit like a more commercial The Inside, but not really. It's based on real FBI profiler cases, and Mandy Patinkin's lead character is modelled very directly on John Douglas, the guy who basically invented FBI profiling. Since it's less about the personal lives/mind games of the FBI team, it's less of a mass appeal The Inside than I was expecting.

I am not a fan of public crying in the office. I am also not a fan of public yelling or stomping around.

Sure, not as a matter of course. Crying at least you can hide, more or less.

I am making a valient effort to keep Rosemary Clooney singing in my head, and not That Ad, but it's difficult.

A few jobs back, it was so horrible that I ended up crying a few times, but I would have eaten my own liver before letting anyone who might report back to the evil little troll boss man see me cry, so I used to sit in my car after work and cry.

mmm liver.

If I were the boss, I'd have no issues with crying. Hysterics, yeah, there's a problem. But my eyes well up when I'm very pissed off and trying to keep cool. I think it's healthier than acid eating away my stomach and my blood pressure going through the roof.

But my eyes well up when I'm very pissed off and trying to keep cool.

This is so me. I HATE that I tear up when I'm mad. It makes me more angry at myself for losing control.

My workplace is fairly old-fasioned, and (perhaps not coincidentally) thoroughly devoted to avoiding situations of high emotion. I attended a meeting once during which I was rightly yelled at, and afterwards my boss came by to tell me how sorry she was I was yelled at, and how I should not take that yelling personally, etc. etc. She seemed to think I would quit on the spot, despite the fact that I totally deserved to be yelled at.

I've never been in a meeting (yet) where tears were shed, but I think they would only inspire the same panic-faces and desperate topic-changing. It's a very weird workplace sometimes.

My previous workplace, I was known to both yell and vibrate with hatred, but the one time tears were truly in order, they did not come till after I had left for the night. (I spent two hours under the worst tension I've experienced in my adult life -- I say that advisedly, as a Red Sox fan -- and left knowing my job would end. It was only after, as I began to react to the tension, that I cried.)

I will say, however, that the above experience, with a male boss, and several arguments I've had with men, have led me to conclude that my crying in an argument will often cause men, and sometimes women too, to completely panic and end the argument immediately, as if I'd whipped out some kind of nuclear weapon on them. I find this unutterably irritating, because I want the argument to continue, and I hate the idea that someone would think I was using a physiological expression of emotion to manipulate an argument.

Sometimes, when I find an argument where is getting intense or heated, I will gesture or say something to "give permission" for the argument to go to that next level of intensity. It's sort of funny, doing this with my Flatmate's classmates, because they are law students, and chomping at the bit to kill me with their exciting new logic, but also shy about how much they may steamroll your average layperson without coming across as an asshole.

Like, "Give me liberty or give me death!!! ...If that's okay with you."

Let it go. I used to feel all mad and embarassed. But I find that makes it worse. It's easier to say, "excuse me," dab your eyes with a tissue, and continue the conversation as soon as you feel them welling.

Gives you and the other person 20 seconds to cool. I've said before, "some people get ulcers, my eyes well up." I don't say "cry" because that's got fucked up baggage.

I will gesture or say something to "give permission" for the argument to go to that next level of intensity

What sort of signals do you give?

I should be so polite as to wait for these...