Emotions at Work

Chapter 8 of Organizational behavior touches on some very interesting concepts when talking about emotions in the work place. At my current position as license examiner at the Department of Motor Vehicles in Columbia, South Carolina, I feel that I can relate to seeing the broad spectrum of emotions in the work place. In fact I have personally experienced all six emotions (anger, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust, and surprise), all in the same work day! Working with the public, I get to see so many different emotions and moods not only from customers, but from other employees as well. Getting to know my co workers has been interesting and enlightening to how they deal with certain types of customers and situations.

According to the Affective Events Theory (AET) an event in the work place environment triggers positive or negative emotional reactions (Robbins, 2009). Recently we had a fight break out in the DMV between two customers. Names were called that I can not repeat and police and emergency services were called to the office. Granted, we see many strange and unusual things at the DMV on a daily basis, but an event of this caliber created a stir amongst employees. Every employee had their own opinion about what happened and how it could have been prevented. When these traumatic events happen, you are able to see different sides to people. Certain emotions come out that are normally subdued. I think that it is very important not to ignore such emotions so that in the future, if an event happens of this magnitude again, appropriate steps can be taken to help deal with the change in emotion. As a leader/manager, this is even more important in order to maintain a functional workflow. Often times, it only takes one employees unfavorable attitude and emotions to trigger other employees reactions. Emotions, and the minor events that cause them, should not be ignored at work: the will accumulate (Robbins, 2009).

References

Robbins, S.P. & Judge, T.A. (2009). Organizational behavior (custom ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.