Today was a gray rainy day. It was so bleak outside that all we had to talk about in the office this morning was how much all of us wanted to go back home. On top of that, one of our more narcissistic leaders was in a mood. And when she is in a mood, the emotional energy of the workplace shifts. It becomes stilted, tense, and restricted. She is the type of person who can cut you down with a look, or starve you with withheld attention. And she doesn’t hesitate to do any of these things, when one of her moods strikes.

Today was, for me, all about weathering these two storms. There was the one that came from nature, and the one that came from another person’s deep emotional dysfunction. I suppose that, since emotions come from nature, you could make the argument that her emotions were also “of nature”. But emotions, even intensely negative ones, don’t force people to be dicks. I believe that they have to make that leap themselves. And since my manager has made the choice to be unkind over and over again, my sympathy for her has grown thin.

All this to say that by the time I made it home I was wiped out and numbed out. I took a nice warm shower after work to try to warm me up. I felt that maybe if my body was warmed, my insides would follow. The effect wasn’t that immediate, but the shower did at least put a little distance between the gloomy afternoon and the potential of a relaxing evening. That little bit of distance was then all I needed to take back the rest of my night and get something enjoyable out of it.

But it did make me reflect on how destructive people can be, if they give into their baser and darker emotional impulses without reflection. For example, the moment that I dwelled on from my work day, once I had made it home, was a small one on the surface of things. I was approaching the front door of the office building on my return from lunch. At the same time, my moody manager happened to be on her way out of the building. Instead of acknowledging me, she let the door swing shut in my face and briskly walked by me as though I were roadkill. Her decision to do that was probably a minor one, and it required little effort on her part to ignore and dismiss me. But the shadow of that small act loomed large in the subconscious of my mind. It made me feel small, dismissed and unwelcome within the larger work environment.

I don’t know what compelled my manager to act so coldly. However, I do know what it is like to feel annoyed by people. I know what it feels like to want to “put someone in their place” and I know the craving for petty revenge. But what I saw and experienced today was a great reminder from the universe that it is not worth it to act on these shallow impulses. Because what might be just a moment in time for you can linger on much longer in other people’s minds. It also has a tendency to hang around in the emotional atmosphere around you. It’s a game you can only lose.