The greatest possible good in life is never to be yelled at. There is no higher goal, no purer aim. There is no achievement sweeter, no more towering legacy, than to make it from birth to death without ever having once being yelled at. Better never to go anywhere, never to do anything, if the end result is to go through life without someone having yelled at you. Sweeter than immortality, more precious than fame, the greatest reward of all is nobody yelling at you.
I myself have spent the better part of my young life looking for ratholes and empty train cars to dive into rather than face being yelled at. I have found the following tactics useful in determining whether getting yelled at was imminent and, if so, then whether or not it was avoidable:
1. The moment someone – anyone – asks to speak with you, about any topic, regardless of whether they are in a position of authority over you, open with “Am I in trouble?” Better yet, start every conversation this way. Don’t give up until you get a straight answer. It’s always better to know.
2. If you think a teacher is going to yell at you, drop the class. If you think your parents are going to yell at you, don’t go home tonight. If you think your partner is going to yell at you, stop answering their texts until they’re so panicked at the prospect of breaking up that they’re no longer willing to say anything other than “Are you okay?” Avoid everything and everyone. Make no promises and honor no commitments. If someone knocks on your door, don’t answer it. Hide under the covers, even if it’s the mailman, and he leaves a FINAL NOTICE slip in your mailbox, which is sort of like getting yelled at by the post office. Throw away the slip. You didn’t need whatever someone was trying to mail you, anyway.
3. If you are in a low-level building, consider jumping out of the window.
If getting yelled at is absolutely unavoidable, immediately drop eye contact, make yourself as small as possible, and mumble incoherently until the yeller loses all pleasure in berating you and wanders away to find a snack. Shut down completely until all interaction with you becomes impossible.
Here are the three conditions of not-being-yelled-at, in order of increasing perfection:
1. Not being yelled at while no one else is getting yelled at.
2. Not being yelled at while someone else is getting yelled at for doing or saying something that you yourself would never do or say.
3. Not being yelled at while someone else is getting yelled at for doing or saying something you either A) do or say all the time but without ever getting caught or B) think about doing or saying all of the time but lack the courage to do or say it, so that you experience the twin joys of both not being yelled at and also the vicarious relief of watching someone getting yelled at when it could just as easily have been you.
Tags: advice, live your best life, not getting yelled at, not getting yelled at is the greatest good, relationships, yelling
Related Posts
How To Behave When You Realize You Have Accidentally Traveled Through Time Or Swapped Bodies With Your Rival At Work Or Created An Alternate Reality Of My Own Life Where I Am Married To The Town Librarian
The Pacific Northwest Is Going to Be Consumed By Fire and Water, Leave Now
Dear Businesslady: We Think One Of These Letters Is Fake
What To Expect When You’re Expecting, By Shirley Jackson
Dear Businesslady: A Garden Of Job Advice
Ask Bear: Is This a Good Idea?
This is me. THIS IS ME.
ETA: I was yelled at last night and it did not go well.
ohhhhhh my god I relate to this so hard. so so hard
This is painfully relatable. I DID NOT ASK FOR THIS SELF-REFLECTION TODAY, GODDAMMIT.
I’m so bad about the first item that literally every time my boss calls me into his office for something, he opens with “don’t worry, you’re not in trouble” because he knows me all too well now.
Last week I discovered an amazing strategy for this: when you have to tell your boss you made a mistake, start crying immediately so he has to comfort you instead of yelling at you! Men love that right? Sigh.
I am absent-minded. 90% of the time, if a colleague is contacting me, it’s because I forgot to do something. I don’t even ask, I just assume that I’m in trouble.
My boss says that to everyone she calls into the office! Except on the rare occasion that somebody actually is in trouble. Which only happened to me once, and she didn’t yell, but she was disappointed and sad which was also bad.
My old boss was so stern that whenever he’d call me into his office, I’d automatically burst into tears. Half the time I’d get there, and he’d just want something minor. Then he was confused and dealing with a panicked, sobbing office manager. :-/
Stop responding to texts the moment the other person sounds even mildly irritated. Say nothing until they finally message you a day later about something completely unrelated. Crisis averted.
If they don’t message you, you may be tempted to initiate unrelated texting to confirm that the period of yelling-risk is over. Resist this urge–it may trigger yelling. Prepare yourself to sacrifice however many years of friendship to avoid any sort of resolution that might include being yelled at.
1) So accurate.
2) I love your username. The Tamora Pierce reference made me grin.
Friends are disposable compared to the priceless joy of Not Being Yelled At.
See also: sending a text full of disappointing news and then immediately shutting your phone off for a full 24 hours so as not to see the response until a critical window has passed.
I’m a lawyer. I not only get paid to be yelled at, but I get paid to yell. How is this my life?
I used to ask myself this question all the time, back when I used to do customer service over the phone. Regular in person yelling would surely be the end of me.
I am also a lawyer and I hate being yelled at. I will hang up on opposing counsel in a heartbeat.
His eyebrows! His forehead!
They’re like a mountain range on a 3D map.
Like Robert Redford before him…
True fact: Brad Pitt’s most hilarious performance is in that movie. He has hardly any lines, but the laugh ratio he gets out of them is ridiculous.
I’m in for the sequel/prequel thing Tarantino keeps hinting at following the Basterds around 100%.
you joke, but my job involves a heavy public facing coordination role assisting teachers with their field trips, usually under a time crunch. plus you know, docents (see our discussion of docents a while back.)
september is practically LOOMING in front of me. because the last three months have been a beautiful respite from the very possibility of being yelled at.
Ugh. Docents. You poor thing.
some are charming! and insightful!
then, of course, there are some…
In fact, I just realized I’ve structured my entire life around Not Getting Yelled At. (It is hard for me to make this comment, because I am currently weighing the likelihood of getting yelled at for not being open to the possibility of getting yelled at.)
This is an anxiety my brain never thought of, but would clearly like to have.
Yeah, GAD / PTSD/ depression have given advanced anxiety abilities, which include not only fear of being yelled at, but also shame at the fear of being yelled at.
We might be neurosis twins. If all else fails we can hide in the rathole together.
Oh, I understand this perfectly.
Pretty much all of my social anxiety problems (and other anxiety problems now that I think about it…) come from being afraid of being yelled at.
I am so bad at being yelled at.
Oh and another thing, I want to show this response to my parents so I can explain my social anxiety problems to them (and why my problems are not ‘stuff everyone has’!) but I don’t want to be yelled at (side note: my parents are pretty cool but are bad at dealing with my weirdness in a way that involves not yelling). So there’s that.
I was about to say this website understands me perfectly, but then the last three situations were in reverse order. When no one is yelling at anyone ever, I feel my soul ascending to a higher state of being.
Same. Whenever someone else is getting yelled at I am drowned in secondhand embarrassment. It’s the worst. (Well, second worst.)
And there’s the risk that the yelling person might yell at you. No yelling is the best scenario.
When yelling is occurring in the vicinity, I find that the best strategy is to hold very, very still, making no movement other than that which is required to very productively and professionally be the very best in the world at your job. Also never ask questions. Stop breathing if you have to.
Yelling (in anger) of any kind always upsets me. I mumble, “shutupshutupshutupSHUTUP” to myself and put headphones in. Yelling should be reserved for true emergencies, like to save someone from imminent death or when your computer crashes.
When my ex!boss and the bookkeeper were having an argument one day, I freaked out and immediately had to clock out and take my lunch (and go buy everybody pastries, because nobody can yell at you when you’ve just brought them pie). Then when I got back, my boss told me I shouldn’t have gone to lunch without clearing it with someone and making sure the phones were covered (I told the bookkeeper I was leaving because I was panicky, and she said it was fine). He didn’t yell at me, but I’m pretty sure that was because I had pie and looked actively terrified.
Yeah, I agree – I would prefer not to experience someone else getting yelled at either.
When people are mad/yelling, thinking they’re joking is my default reaction. This unsurprisingly has made the situation worse.
The only higher state of being is no one yelling at anyone ever and promising that this state will continue for all of eternity.
Me too! *Cloying grin*, *polishes halo* … .
But real yelling is a loss of control- it’s possible to find that funny. What I dread is much icier: disdain, stonewalling, cold-shouldering, guilt-tripping, disappointment… All of that trades on helplessness and sets a deep chill into the heart. This piece is a great tonic against futile fears, it made me laugh a lot.
BUT IT’S OK TO BE THE ONE DOING THE YELLING, RIGHT
BECAUSE YELLING FUCKING ROCKS
CRY HAVOC AND LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY, <S>SAYS</S>YELLS I
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH
(well, except at my job at the library. comes off as a bit hypocritical when i gotta shush someone’s ass.)
Some days I feel like all I do is yell in the library. My favorite is the yell-shame, “Hey! Guys, this is a library! Keep it down! Have some respect!”
“Gentlemen you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”
Congrats on nailing my M.O in literally every relationship I have with another human being. I think I project an air of “this person will literally crumble into dust if you yell at her; look, she’s on the verge of tears at the vague prospect of being criticized.” This may make me appear weak, but it has often saved me from a worse fate: being yelled at.
In college, I accidentally accused my advisor in an email of not warning me that I couldn’t get credit for a class I took when I studied abroad. I was distressed, but it was unfair of me to say what I did. He yelled at me in his response – capslock and everything. And this was the chill ex-hippie professor that the whole department adored! I did not respond to his email, I dropped his class, and I managed to avoid ever seeing him again at my tiny school of 2800 people. As far as he knows, I am dead.
Don’t feel bad, I work at a college and all the staff live in fear of the faculty, because they YELL SO MUCH. One faculty member who has won campus-wide teaching awards and projects a very warm and compassionate public persona cussed out the staff for stuff that wasn’t even their fault.
I work at the same university I attended for my BA, in the department I majored in. My knee-jerk reaction to the returning presence of the faculty is to close my door and hide under my desk until they go away. And don’t get me started on the grad students. When I was in grad school, I never dreamed that any of my colleagues might treat the staff with anything other than respect. HAHAHA yeah no.
https://i0.wp.com/media.tumblr.com/24c1cc56f5f63c…
Sometimes (rarely) crying works but sometimes (usually) it makes things worse because then they think you’re guilty even if you didn’t do what they are yelling at you about. So I guess crying is futile thank you Dr. Ferber.
Sometimes I stop checking my email because I’m afraid of what might be there. And then I become afraid of people being angry about me not checking my mail AND SO I CONTINUE TO NOT CHECK IT FOR WEEKS.
And yet somehow I’ve fooled people into believing I’m a functional adult?
One time I had a position of actual responsibility in a student organization, but went into a depressive episode and dropped off the face of the earth (literally, stopped going to class, stopped talking to everyone, and dropped out of school for a semester). Meanwhile, people were sending me increasingly-frantic emails about the Things For Which I Was Responsible, and I was so terrified that I stopped checking my email. Those unread emails are still sitting in an archive somewhere, six years later, and I still feel pretty anxious when I think about them.
I understand. The email address I used for student senate has largely been abandoned because of something similar. Now it’s my throwaway account that I use for signing up for things, so every few months I’ll rush in there like some sort of rescue mission, find the verification email, and then run back out before I accidentally see anything.
Oh, my goodness, the depression email death spiral. Depressive period –> stop checking emails –> get marginally better but too scared to check emails because of all the horrible yelling waiting for you in them –> just pretend they never happened, preferably getting a new email address and online identity
I may have done this a few times in my life.
When I went back to school, I changed my physical appearance, avoided everyone from the organization for which I was supposed to be responsible, and pretended not to know them if forced to interact with them. I was like my own little witness protection program. The shame spiral is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?
see also: deactivating your facebook account so people can’t find you any more, having recurring dreams in which you accidentally run into those very people
I’m going through this right now D:
When I was dropping/failing out of grad school during a depressive episode, I unlinked my university email account from my Apple mail app so that I wouldn’t see the emails I was surely getting about classes I wasn’t attending/assignments I wasn’t turning in. Also, during the times that I was supposed to be in class, I would get in my bed and semi-hide under the covers because I had this irrational fear that someone would somehow come looking for me.
I am now at a point in my life where I actually probably should try going to grad school again (in a very different field), but I get cold sweats just thinking about that Dark Period of my life.
This comment thread is deeply painful to me because I have done the exact same thing and I’m getting tense just thinking about it.
I’m just so relieved that I’m not the only one.
I resonate with this on a spiritual level. So it’s something that other functioning adults do too?? this gives me hope. My mother is incapable of these small social-surrenders, & is perpetually confused by this tendency in me.
When I was particularly depressed and in need of an extension on a major essay due to that, I flatly refused to open emails from the professor in question because a) depressed and b) she is terrifying. Lovely, but terrifying. She figured this out (bless her!) and put “you have an extension it is okay” in the subject line. Then she gave me a semester-long extension. And I passed.
That is SO lovely, omg.
I do it with voice mail. I have a message on my voicemail telling people NOT to leave me a voicemail, to text instead (because then I can’t be responsible for whatever it is they were calling to bug me about). But still, they leave voicemails, and the little alerts haunt my phone, and I ignore them, and right now I have 28 of them. I imagine that it is 22 people yelling at me, one offer for a cruise, and five people “calling to say hi.” Rationally I know that there are probably some valuable messages there, but the part of me that doesn’t want to get yelled at just shrivels into a little dried pea of fear every time I consider listening to them. Why????????
Oh my gosh, someone else who’s pathologically afraid of checking their voicemail! Eventually I steel myself and….delete all of them without listening to them. But just LOOKING at the notifications makes me break out in hives.
I wish I could do that with my work phone! I’ve considered just removing my phone number from my email signature but I’m afraid my boss would notice… I probably listen to about 1 in 5 voicemails I get at work- the others I put off listening to for a week or two, and finally delete, assuming that if the voicemail-leaver really needed to contact me, they would have emailed by now.
I am so glad that so many other people do this too! Emails and voicemails are the most terrifying things in my life and the shame that comes from being afraid of them just makes it so much worse. I actually once left a comment on an article on this very site and was so afraid of the response that I never checked to see if anyone responded to me. …And now I’m probably going to do that again!
Why would I enjoy seeing someone get yelled at for doing something I do all the time but haven’t been caught yet?! It just means the person yelling isn’t on to me, but soon I’ll be caught and the yelling will be EVEN WORSE because they have already had to yell at someone for the SAME THING and oh god I’m having a panic attack thinking about it.
Any yelling happening anywhere in the world is too much like me getting yelled at.
And the yeller will KNOW you were there for the previous yelling and said nothing!
This piece might as well be called, “So you want experience life as a person with an anxiety disorder?”
And/or be a survivor of child abuse.
True fact: Nobody at Hell LLC liked Yelly Boss.
I didn’t realize until years after the fact that the reason I couldn’t let Yelly’s yelling roll off me, or yell back like some of the other employees, was that I was too busy being triggered, because I hadn’t realized that it wasn’t usual for people to spend as much time being afraid of a parent as I had. Nor had I realized that I didn’t *deserve* to be yelled at every day, nor that it would be okay for me to hold out for a job that didn’t result in me feeling physically ill every morning.
Wait, are we coworkers? Because you’ve just described the collective trauma of everybody in the office.
Maybe? Did your Yelly blame all rage episodes on support staff “who must have screwed up and put the regular coffee in the decaf pot– you *know* I’m extremely sensitive to caffeine”? Did your Yelly explode at you for holding open the door for him as you were leaving, so he wouldn’t have to pull his key out, and also for not holding the door open for him? Also, did you harbor suspicions that your Yelly abused support staff because he was too cheap / unmotivated to pay for marriage counseling, despite having more money that you would ever earn in your life? If so, yeah, we probably worked in the same office.
One way or another, my condolences.
Fun Fact (probably not): after I got my cochlear implant I had to start taking anti-anxiety medication because suddenly everyone was so loud and it felt like I was getting yelled at all day.
oh my gosh, I have never thought of that. That sounds like the real life version of going from chatting normally to EVERYONE USING ALL-CAPS. what a nightmare. (did it ever normalize?)
Either it did or I’m too drugged up to care ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This is the first job I’ve ever had where I don’t get yelled at, and it’s definitely part of why I’m still here. I have never heard my boss or my boss’s boss ever yell at anyone, even people who have seriously messed up and made life difficult for the rest of us. Stern words, frown-y faces, even people getting fired, but no yelling ever. And come to think of it, the one time a client yelled at me my boss said it was unacceptable and went to the client’s boss to make sure it didn’t happen again. A+
Oh man, workplaces where no one yells are THE BEST. I don’t know what I’ve done right in life to end up working in such supportive places, but I hope I keep doing it. One time when I was working for a company whose name rhymes with Vest Guy, a customer spent 10 minutes yelling at me and I just stood there and took it because…customer service. When I told my boss later (he hadn’t been around) he said “you don’t have to serve people like that. You can tell them to leave, and call me over if they won’t get out.” Like you said, A+
My workplace, too, involves no yelling of any kind, except sometimes exuberant happy yelling. HOWEVER there is a downside: Anything even slightly negative feels like yelling to me. I overheard my boss yesterday just being terse with someone, not even saying anything bad, and I avoided her for the rest of the day just in case.
Oh god I relate to this so much. Even someone else yelling at a third person within my hearing causes me to make myself as small and still as possible. Yellers are the T-Rex in my Jurassic Park life: their vision is based on motion and if I just stay still and quiet, I won’t draw their attention to me. They’ll just move on to the next target/victim/prey animal. Ugh, ugh, ugh where’s my whiskey?
Also, related, just came back from a visit with my in-laws all whom I love very much but they are a big, loud, boisterous Italian American bunch from Long Island. When all 20 of us get around a table and the yelling starts it’s actually not so bad due to sheer cacophony & the fact I can normally get a side conversation going about dogs or crazy kids or choosing paint colors or something boring and safe. But this past weekend it was just me, husband, mom-in-law and 2 of his brothers and they all started the usual yelling (about politics) but since it was such a small group I had no where to hide so I took the dog for a 2 hour walk. I had to escape. They were not done by the time I got back so I hid in another room for a while. Thank god for that dog.
I’m from a loud, boisterous family that’s only partially Italian-American but can compete with the best of them in terms of volume and I’ve finally figured out that if there’s three or more of us, there’s yelling. Everyone is always trying to steer the conversation back to their chosen topic or getting irritated with someone else or just trying to talk from the laundry room. If there’s just two of us, we can carry on politely, unless we’re in a car and someone is giving bad directions.
The first time I met a friend’s New England Jewish family, I couldn’t figure out why she and her parents were fighting all the time, and I anxiously asked her if everything was ok. She looked absolutely baffled, and then asked if that was why I’d been hiding in my room for an hour.
*nods*
For me, being yelled near is not really an improvement over being yelled at.
Hey Mallory, why have you used your vacation to peer into my brain? Can we replace yelling with criticism? URGH. Just glad I’m not the only one. Not even going to tell how old I am cough23plus14cough.
THIS IS SO ME. Which is hilarious because one of my no doubt charming traits is to have shouting rants about the state of Things in the World that by default end up directed at my husband. He mostly doesn’t mind except when we are in public and he thinks people would assume that he is the object of my rage, and not, for example, misogynistic Hollywood casting directors or something. Since it is normally me saying something like “HOW COULD YOU BE SUCH A BASTARD” I see his point.
Two stage process: whatt to do if someone asks your opinion. 1 Ask, “What do you think?” 2 Agree with that.
This is very timely, as I just got yelled at (if emailing someone to tell them they’re late on a project while also using an exclamation point and cc-ing an excessive quantity of people is yelling, which I think it is) and I’m upset both by the yelling and the content of the yelling (I don’t think it counts as late when I miss your secret deadline and then when I find out about the secret deadline, fail to complete the project within hours [this is a project that requires the work of multiple people who have all been on vacation]). And then to add insult to injury, not only do I have to be yelled at, I have to respond in a way that defends me without seeming defensive, which is a difficult line to walk.
Aaah, cc’ed yelling! I’ve gotten that a lot recently, because we just instituted a bunch of new protocols at work (paperwork keeps getting misfiled, we forget to tell each other stuff, etc), so every correction gets sent to everybody so that we’re all in the loop. Stop lecturing me in front of everybody, supervisor! Even though you’re not really!
OH MY ACTUAL GOD this is my life. Specifically I have a great fear of being yelled at by my parents. Like, to the point where I am less scared of getting into a car accident and more scared of having my mother yell at me for getting into a car accident. Like, the worst moment of my entire life (actually it was more like the worst 3 days) was when I got a C in 8th grade English and my parents did not stop yelling at me for a 3-day period. One of the things that was yelled was “STOP WRINGING YOUR HANDS IT IS SO ANNOYING.”
This is why I don’t have a car in Chicago. It’s easy to get around without one, and much more cost-effective, which are the practical reasons I tell people. In actuality I feel like driving in the city is almost asking for a car wreck, and I can’t deal with the prospect of some driver yelling at me after a fender-bender. I. Just. Cannot.
I was driving home from work once and someone drove into the back of my car while I was stopped at a railway crossing. The prospect of getting out of the car and getting the other driver’s details was so petrifying that I just sat there frozen in terror for a moment until the barriers went up and then drove away, carefully avoiding any glance at the rear view mirror in case of accidental eye contact with the driver behind.
My personal hell:
WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL US ABOUT THIS
…I don’t know…
THAT’S NOT AN ACCEPTABLE ANSWER
WE’RE GOING TO SIT HERE UNTIL YOU GIVE ME AN ANSWER BECAUSE I AM THIS CLOSE TO GIVING UP ON YOU
I got into a not-objectively-bad-but-very-traumatic* accident a couple of months ago, and I was a complete mess.But then I realised: I didn’t need to tell my ex. Because we had broken up! So I didn’t need to defend myself against his anger on top of my own guilt! I could just go ahead and fix things! And get support from people who were interested in making sure I was okay, instead of making sure I knew what a terrible person I was! Without having to also manage the fallout from his reaction!
It was still awful, but once I had that realisation it was like someone had lifted at least half the weight off my chest.
* Dear cyclists, I am genuinely happy to share the road with you but please please please put on a hi-vis vest and use your lights when you’re riding on an unlit road on a dark, rainy night because I honestly could not see you until you were RIGHT THERE and even though you were just bruised I will have nightmares about not being able to brake hard enough to avoid you for the rest of my life.
Oh ouch, what a horrible realisation to have. I mean, useful, and positive, but also upsetting, I’d imagine. Sorry you had to deal with that.
Yes! One time I failed an essay in 10th grade because I genuinely believed it was due at a later date than it was actually due, but the teacher reported it to my mom as “She asked for an extension after the essay was already due,” and you’d’ve thought I had killed someone from the amount my mother yelled. I’m in my twenties now with my own apartment and a retirement plan, and I still have nightmares about my mother yelling at me.
oh my god yes, with car accidents. I have never been in an accident, but I have this messed up belief that my husband would yell at me if I got in an accident. I told him about this, and he said something like “You are way more important to me than the car!”
I still have nightmares where I get into yelling matches with my mom, though. This has never happened in real life–though one time she started talking about abortion while we were driving and I almost threw myself out of the car because the pitch of her voice was getting louder and louder and I needed to run away from the conflict.
Rules of emails: 1. Make sure they are perfectly charming in every way and couldn’t possibly be interpreted in a way that could get you yelled at. 2. Re-read 10 times. 3. If conflict is unavoidable, open email only in terror. 4. Abandon human contact.
How to write a perfect email:
1. Jk, it cannot be done.
2. Still try though, and take at least half an hour per 50 words.
3. Close your eyes and press send.
4. Panic forever.
This actually makes me feel much better, given that I sent an e-mail yesterday that inspired annoyed yelling. The yeller later apologized…but I feel so bad that I sent a yell-inspiring e-mail that I am now agonizing over not having yet sent a thank-you note to the yeller for “responding with grace under fire.”
so relevant to today: some asshole just yelled at me for what felt like forever on the phone at work. There was no professional way to end the call/jump out the window – I was trapped in a loop of his faulty jerk logic. Then when my coworker asked what happened I immediately started crying. It was HORRIBLE, possibly worse than the yelling. She was super not having it. And then after I finally got a grip my boss is like ‘how’s it going!’ and when I didn’t say “great” brightly enough he says “doesn’t sound great!” and I just mumbled something and speed walked out of the office to console myself with tea. When I got back there was a voicemail from the jerk. 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁
Then when my coworker asked what happened I immediately started crying. It was HORRIBLE, possibly worse than the yelling. She was super not having it.
Hmm, maybe coworker shouldn’t have asked if she didn’t want to hear the answer??
I know! Thank you for your support.
Aaahhhh your boss basically saying “I hear that you’re upset, but frankly I don’t care and would like to take this time to remind you thst you must always be happy at work!!!!” So shitty. Also, everyone else in this story but you is terrible. Sorry today was so terrible 🙁
The yelling is terrible, the inevitable crying afterwards is even worse 🙁
“The moment someone – anyone – asks to speak with you, about any topic, regardless of whether they are in a position of authority over you, open with ‘Am I in trouble?’”
Check. Although I only actually say this aloud to my husband, for the sheer relief of seeing his horrified expression and immediate assurances that I am no way in trouble for any possible or potential reason whatsoever.
“If getting yelled at is absolutely unavoidable, immediately drop eye contact, make yourself as small as possible, and mumble incoherently…”
Check, although “mumble incoherently” should be replaced by “smile ingratiatingly and apologize abjectly.”
Are you talking about yelling, like angry raised voice? Or yelling, like, anger or criticism directed at you, regardless of voice volume?
My husband and I have almost never actually raised voices at each other, but that does not hinder us from expressing bad angry negative upset critical feelings, so we are apt to complain to the other “why are you yelling at me???” even when all is quiet. Too quiet.
Hey did I mention we’re WASPs?
Omg for me it’s anger/criticism/even slight annoyance directed at me! It doesn’t have to be said loudly. When actual raised voices happen, I almost immediately start crying.
My father took college classes in yelling commands at people. I was kicked out ballet class for punching another girl after she called me tall and loud. Our average dinner conversations can be heard half a mile away. I willingly spent six and a half weeks being yelled at. I refuse to be cowed by volume.
I should hire myself out as a sort of human shield to those who can’t handle it.
Take my money.
Gladly.
I would pay top dollar for said service.
“The moment someone – anyone – asks to speak with you, about any topic, regardless of whether they are in a position of authority over you, open with “Am I in trouble?” Better yet, start every conversation this way.”
CRINGING IN RECOGNITION RN.
Petition to send all yellers who insist they AREN’T YELLING to a barren island where they can “not yell” at each other until they starve to death.
YESSSSSSSSS. Patrons telling me I'm talking too loudly in the library is the worst! I work here! I make the rules! Quit mumbling your questions at me!
I hear and obey, O Mallory.
1 – Mostly by means of body language, but yes.
2 – Why yes, I have disappointed people who deserved better and ruined significant portions of my life in exactly this manner, how did you know? (A special case for the advanced student: having pursued an application to the army almost to the point of no return, pause; consider the noble example set by your grandparents in incomparably harder circumstances and the substantial educational and career-building opportunities being held out as incentive to join; weigh all this against the absolute certainty that you will cry in front of a drill sergeant on the first day; hide the recruitment brochures in your sock drawer and cancel it all.)
3 – I have occasionally climbed out my bedroom window and down various trees and fire escapes when there was a risk that opening the door would attract the attention of yelling-prone people, or force me to pass by their doors in the hallway; does that count? (A subtler variant worked quite well in a martial arts class with a bad-tempered teacher: lessons were held in a converted warehouse in which someone had considerately placed a number of large concrete pillars, and sidling behind one of these when the shouting started provided a psychic as well as a physical buffer).
4 – Staring with fixed intensity at the ground and trying not to exist: check. Unfortunately, yelling is a one-sided activity and doesn’t require interaction to continue.
That is to say, your loyal reader had been anticipating your commands for years before you issued them. Please reward my devotion by never, ever yelling at me, or anyone else.