The Benefits of Crying at the Office—Today and Always

My mother told me never to cry at the office. She said that if I felt the urge I should take a walk, take a few deep breaths, sip long, slow gulps of cold water. Today I lost my cool. I walked into the stoic, sturdy offices at One World Trade Center—a building with its own ominous political roots—with tears already welling up as I ascended the escalator. My dream, my mother’s dream, of seeing the first woman elected president wasn’t going to happen today. My heart was broken.

Walking to my desk felt like a single-person funeral procession, and it was, in that moment, safe to let go a little of the gnarled knot in my throat, release some tears and sniffles out of my body. No one was looking. Then, more of my coworkers began to trickle in, each with red, watery eyes, and I realized that the office, this office, was actually a safe space. I stood up and took a walk around the floor, had a few deep breaths, sipped some water like mom taught me, and retired to a large conference room, to a table lined with tissue boxes. I stayed for a while, surrounded by colleagues who showed no remorse for wearing their proverbial emotions on their sleeves. Men, women, we all cried in the office together, even before Hillary Clinton came on TV to concede the presidency.

She began her address and I cried some more. I cried for our hate-filled country; I cried for my mother—an OG Hillary supporter and lawyer who built her career during the same era—and her sadness over this election outcome; I cried for my paternal grandmother, who lived in a blue-collar neighborhood in Chicago, raised a family, but was never able to fully realize her dreams of independence for subconscious fear of breaking with tradition; I cried for my maternal grandmother, a governor’s wife who was never able to find freedom from his shadow; I cried for everything I never did and couldn’t do in that very moment.

A recent Time magazine article titled “The Science of Crying” says that studies have shown that when one human cries in front of another, it can actually “trigger social bonding and human connection.” The piece goes on to cite the work of Ad Vingerhoets, author of Why Only Humans Weep: Unravelling the Mysteries of Tears, who notes that in his years of research he’s found that “actually being able to cry emotionally, and being able to respond to that, is a very important part of being a human being.” Today, in this office, it seemed that the vulnerability that I and many other women in the work world shy away from was a sign of strength. Clinton wiped away a tear on the podium today, just as she did on the first campaign trail in 2008 (to much criticism, of course). It was beautiful, and she was beautiful as she cried. Emoting with her, with everyone in that conference room and outside of its walls, showed the world, in whatever miniscule way, that we were connecting and we’d continue to move forward. So go ahead and let it out. Crying at the office today, or any day for that matter, doesn’t make you less of a man or woman—it makes you stronger together.

And think about this as you clutch that tissue in your hands: Mr. Trump has said and done a lot of unbelievable things publicly throughout his campaign, but having the audacity to shed a tear has never been one of them.

 

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