Is it ever OK to cry at work?

Telegraph

a day ago

From as early as 1500 BC, humans have been speculating about tears. The Old Testament describes them as a by-product of the heart, while Hippocrates believed they were triggered by the mind. In his 1872 book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Charles Darwin declared them as 'purposeless'.
One hundred and fifty three years later, Rachel Reeves would likely beg to differ. Whatever the reason for yesterday's tears at PMQs, it soon became apparent that on the matter of whether they should ever be shed in the workplace, as with so many other issues these days, Britain is divided. To cry, or not to cry? That is the question. Our writers drily battle it out.
It's fine to cry in the workplace
'Everybody hurts sometimes,' sang REM in 1992. If everybody hurts sometimes, it stands to reason that everybody cries sometimes, too. Although if you are a woman, perhaps it's best not to do so in the office.
This was certainly the message semaphored by my male peers. My first serious job, as a section editor of a broadsheet in the late 1990s, saw me occasionally being yelled at across the newsroom by my male boss, an equal opportunities shouter who lost his temper at female and male employees alike. My male colleagues wouldn't have dreamed of crying, so neither did I. I'd already discerned that female reporters were often viewed as 'soft' and 'emotional', as though these traits were weaknesses. I wanted to appear strong.
And so I remained, commanding myself not to cry on several occasions over the following fifteen or so years, the most challenging of which was when I was hauled into a meeting, heavily pregnant, and lambasted by my (female) editor in front of four other senior members of staff who appeared to have been assembled solely to witness my humiliation. When it comes to staving off inconvenient tears, every woman has her own tricks. Some dig their fingernails covertly into their palm as a distraction. Others fix their gaze on a point in the room and regard it, unblinking, willing their eyes not to well up.
Whether Rachel Reeves employed such tactics, we will never know. Had she lived in Ancient Greece, her wet eyes would have been commended. In Homer's Iliad, the warriors' tears were viewed as a sign of their forbearance. When Winston Churchill cried – a not infrequent occurrence – he was revered for his sensitivity.
In 2025, 'soft' and 'emotional' have rightly come to be regarded as strengths, at least to some extent. It's a strange sort of logic where anger is acceptable in the workplace while tears are still frowned upon. Which is more toxic? Crying at work shouldn't be seen as a sign of weakness, but as a sign that you are human, and that you deeply care about the job in hand. When AI comes for our jobs, we'll miss these signs of humanity. I hope my daughters feel that their worth in the workplace isn't dependent on them acting like machines. More than this, I hope they aren't replaced by them.
The lump in my throat was the first sign, followed by a flushing of my cheeks, and before I could stop it the tears flowed. Suddenly, whatever had caused them felt inconsequential – I was being told by my boss my writing wasn't up to scratch, I think, but my crime of crying in the workplace quickly eclipsed any professional misstep, rendering me weak and humiliated. Or so I thought at the time.
Throughout my office-based professional life, I cried when criticised – so much so that I had to reassure editors it was okay to chastise me: I would take their comments on board as I wept.
Which might not have won me employee of the month, but it didn't mean I wasn't putting in the effort. The opposite, in fact – I was crying precisely because I cared. Which is why I relate to Rachel Reeves' outburst in the Commons yesterday.
Whatever your view of the Chancellor, she's hardly a slacker. Her tears reveal she's emotionally invested in the job, and shouldn't that be applauded? When fewer of us are bothering to show up to work at all, shouldn't those of us who do be granted grace for giving a damn about it?
Surely, we have moved on from binary tropes of Office B------ and Cry Babies, especially as tears can be as instinctive and uncontrollable a physiological reaction as sneezing. We can have a crying habit and a core of steel – I wouldn't have survived in journalism were I to crumble at the slightest provocation. The older I get the better – and braver – I think it is to be honest about our emotions, be it with our boss or the British public. I'm more likely to warm to someone who shows their vulnerability – and suspicious of those who don't.
Besides, there's something about the pressurised environment of an office and potential for humiliation in it that makes crying more likely. Working from home, away from scrutiny, I sob less but empathise with criers more – their critics revealing more about themselves than those who need the tissues.
No, it's really not OK to cry at work
Stand me under a Lancaster bomber (my dad flew one in the war) and I'm sobbing with the thousands in The Mall; show me an appeal for a donkey sanctuary, or a picture of a dead whale tangled in fishing line and everything gets blurry.
A child handing a bouquet to the Queen… Anyway you get the picture. I'm not a stiff upper-lipper but the only reason I would cry at work is if a colleague had collapsed and died – ideally, at my feet. Otherwise, being a crybaby at work is an absolute no-no. It shows a lack of resilience. So much better to take a deep breath and diffuse it with humour, maybe swivel around, shrugging 'Sorry. I'm having a bad chair day'.
Mostly, people cry at work because they're being told off. Or to put it another way – bullied. Bullies want to make people cry, which is why work bullies often harangue junior employees in public. In fact, A-level bullying was almost a job requirement for senior editorial staff on Fleet Street 30 years ago. I remember one notorious tabloid bully jumping over three desks to scream in the face of a young reporter, who had compiled the TV listings. 'Lucy! Coronation Street is on Wednesday, not b----y Thursday!!' Ludicrous, but terrifying.
If only she'd had the courage to laugh in his face, because laughter is the great diffuser. But he knew she hadn't.
Many great songs make me cry. Last week, I had to fish out a Kleenex at a music concert when a soul singer launched into Sam Cooke's soaring, heartbreaking song of struggle A Change Is Gonna Come.
Now, if Keir Starmer had launched into that song, at PMQs, I would understand if Rachel Reeves' mascara began running down her cheeks.
But if she'd then jumped up, slapped a thigh and socked it to him with Aretha Franklin's Respect she would have brought tears… of joy… to my eyes.
I've cried in many strange places over the years – in a Pret, at a dog show and at 30,000 feet after watching Erin Brockovich. But I'm proud to say I've never cried at work. Well, not in front of anyone, anyway. That's what the work toilets are for.
We've all felt the tell-tale signs that we're about to start blubbing, but in my experience you can normally hold yourself together until you're away from your colleagues and save your dignity.
Although scientists still don't understand exactly why we cry, it's normally when your brain is overwhelmed by an emotion – anger, frustration, surprise, happiness. I think crying in the office shows you're not in control of your emotions, it makes you appear unpredictable and volatile.
Although I'm all for the catharsis of a well-timed weep occasionally, I don't think it should be in the boardroom or – as in the case of Rachel Reeves – at PMQs. It doesn't exactly scream professionalism to be snivelling and wiping away tears and snot when you expect people to take you seriously.
I think I feel so strongly about not crying at work because I once had a boss who loved to have a good cry at her desk. I remember during my first few weeks, she turned up to work wailing uncontrollably. 'Are you OK?' I asked her, thinking perhaps a parent had died. 'I had this dream last night,' she spluttered between sobs. 'About my ex boyfriend.'
No event was too minor to trigger full-blown waterworks – ripped tights, a bad edit, a missed email. It became so bad that I was scared to approach her with anything remotely negative in case I set her off. Although I know that her bosses had a word about keeping her emotions in check, she was clearly just one of life's very sensitive types. Which made the rest of us feel we were walking on eggshells.
Of course there are times when life's events make you feel more prone to crying, but if you're going through something traumatic at home, then you shouldn't be at work.