This is a weird question, but I hope that I can get some insights!
Context: I’m the kind of person who has trouble setting boundaries, and consequently starts feeling resentful about ‘being taken advantage of’. I’ll go out of my way to be nice and helpful, but if there are repeated instances that someone pushes me too hard, especially if they’re being very entitled or lazy, I start feeling angry and resentful.
Now, I feel resentful towards a coworker who has demanded a lot of mandatory overtime from me, and occasionally not given me credit for my work. Unfortunately over a couple of years that has resulted in some bad feelings from my side, and it’s difficult to keep my patience when he is dismissive or says something that shows that he has not put in the hours that I have.
How can I get rid of my anger or mask it? I don’t want to be passive aggressive or contribute to a toxic work environment.
3 comments
There’s 2 different methods that come to mind, right away… they have different sorta methods and outcomes.
The one I use with a couple particular people is obvious passive aggressiveness with overstated manners and sweetness. Hard to explain, but an example is when a usa southerner says bless your heart, they’re calling you a moron in a sickening sweet way that leaves no room for them to say your words were offensive.
The one I use most often is blatantly ignoring someone and not responding in any way to their vitriol. Mentally I’m thinking, ok I can’t hear you asshat. When they repeat themselves say, oh sorry I’m working on something, is there something important you needed? I’m sorta busy. When they are nice or chill, I always hear them. That one takes longer tho.
Yeah, I’m a salty old prick. You don’t need to take crap tho. The posts in subs like antiwork, pettyrevenge, or prorevenge may have even worse ideas than I noted.
Back to the point. Don’t eat shit, there is no reason to let people treat you that way. (Mumbles something about ‘hostile work environment and lawyers’…)
This is an absolutely great question. I struggle with this too, but maybe just in a slightly different context, where I’ll easily hold on to little digs/roasts that friends have hurled at me, even if I know they were simply kidding. I just *still* have a ton of trouble letting go of them, especially since I try my hardest to never roast anyone else, so it just always feels so undeserved. All I can do is just grit my teeth and wait for that salty feeling to subside, which sometimes takes a while, but of course in the meantime I always feel like the resentment is eating me alive in a way.
The only actual insight I can give you is this: if I don’t consider the person an actual friend, then I really don’t give a crap if I come across as salty, unpleasant, whatever, because what’s the worst that could happen? I’ll come across bad and they’ll complain to one of their friends about me. The end. So yeah, all I can say is just don’t lie to yourself. Don’t try to paint this person in a good light at all if you can feel genuine anger/animosity toward them. Let yourself be pissed at them, whether or not you show it—simply trying to swallow that anger and basically flip a switch like that is basically impossible. You can be cordial, sure, but that won’t just dissolve the true resentment you feel so don’t force it to go away. Let yourself feel that resentment as much as you need to before you start to act authentically nice to them.
If you try to get rid of that energy completely, you’ll just be shoving it around in the same body bottling it up. It’s there. If you fight it, it grows stronger. Just sit with the feelings, all of the feelings. Let them run through you without judgement as to if they are good or bad. They’re just feelings, and they will leave you alone after you leave them be long enough. After you’ve successfully allowed yourself to be left alone by these negative emotions, realize that they are still in you only now quieter.
When you reach this point, where you are able to quiet them and raise them at will, use that raw energy inside of you to begin setting boundaries. Any time your boundaries are broken that fire within you (which you have already but lack control over) will arise to enforce them.