AITA for calling my hot-tempered guy coworker “emotional” to embarrass him into calming tf down?
In a male-dominated workplace, one engineer had enough of a coworker’s explosive temper. After formal complaints were brushed off, she shifted tactics—labeling his outbursts as “emotional” or “tantrums” to deflate his macho persona. Her comments caught on with others, causing the angry coworker to change his behavior. But when he confronted her about it, she doubled down, leaving her wondering if she crossed a line. Read the full story below.
‘ AITA for calling my hot-tempered guy coworker “emotional” to embarrass him into calming tf down?’
So I’m an engineer and I’m working on a team with 7 decently chill guys and one guy with anger issues. Like he can’t just have a respectful disagreement, he’ll raise his voice and yell and get up close to your face. I hate it.
So I started by just complaining to my boss about it. And he brushed it under the rug saying he is just like that. And if I thought he was bad now I should of seen him 10 years ago before he “mellowed out” It makes me wonder what he was like 10 years ago because he sure ain’t mellow now.
It’s also a small enough company that there’s no HR, only the corporate management. Which didn’t help. So I took a different approach. I stopped calling him “angry”, or calling what he was doing “arguing” or “yelling”. I just swapped in the words “emotional” or “throwing a tantrum” or “having a fit”
I was kinda hoping if I could shift his reputation from domineering (big man vibes) to emotional and tantrumming (weak sad baby vibes) So I started just making subtle comments. Like if I had a meeting with him and he got a temper, I’d mention to the other people “Wow, it’s crazy how emotional Jay got. I dunno how he has the energy to throw a hissy fit at 9 am, I’m barely awake”
Or when my boss asked me to recap a meeting he missed, I told him “Dan, Jack, and James had some really great feedback on my report for (this client). Jay kinda had trouble managing his emotions and had a temper tantrum again, but you know how he gets.”
Or when a coworker asked why he was yelling I’d say “Honestly I don’t even know, he was getting so emotional about it he wasn’t speaking rationally.” I tried to drop it in subtly and some of my coworkers started picking it up. I don’t think consciously, just saying stuff like “Oh, another of Jay’s fits” or something.
I got gutsy enough to even start saying to his face “Hey, I can hardly understand what you’re trying to explain when you’re so emotional” And again my coworkers started picking up on it and I even caught several of them telling him to get a hold of himself.
After a while, he started to get a reputation as emotional and irrational. Which I could tell pissed him off. But he stopped yelling at me as much. Anyway, he slipped once this week and I just said “I really can’t talk to you when you’re being this emotional” and he blew up at me asking why I was always calling him that.
I shrugged and said “dude you look like you’re on the verge of tears, go look in the mirror before you ask me” and he got really angry I suggested he might start crying. (That was a kinda flippant comment, he was red faced angry not tearful angry, and I could tell.)
I feel like a bit of a d**k for being petty and trying to gaslight this guy into thinking everyone around him sees him like a crybaby. But it also mostly worked when the “proper channels” didn’t. AITA for calling my coworker emotional when he got mad?
Here’s the comments of Reddit users:
Tangerine_Bouquet − NTA because he is, in fact, overly emotional. Nothing you said (except maybe the tears bit) is in any way a lie or even exaggeration. Stick to the truth.
NoxWild − NTA. Here’s another statement that you can use: “Jay, why don’t you step outside and take a minute to pull yourself together? We’ll wait. Go on, it’s okay.”
Narciii − NTA. If he was a woman or femme presenting person, these are exactly the things people would say to him with a tenth of the display. I enjoy a good script flipping.
HerewardtheWoke2022 − NTA. Anger is absolutely an emotion. And there are consequences for everyone else when someone gives themselves permission not to control it. Good for you on naming and shaming it.
EleriTMLH − NTA, you’re literally describing what’s happening- he’s failing to manage his emotional reactions. Other helpful phrases:. “He had another outburst”. “He escalated”. “Out of proportion response”
[Reddit User] − NTA. Anger is an emotion, after all!. With no HR, and senior management being less than useless, you seem to have found a way to rein him in somewhat. I do feel a little apprehensive that your co-worker might ‘blow’ at some point, however. If your campaign to re-name his anger just makes him ‘swallow’ it (rather than actually letting it go). There could be trouble ahead…
Temporary_Fault6402 − NTA. You are single-handedly f**king the patriarchy and I’m here for it. The amount of women that are called emotional when they aren’t acting out of line is outrageous. But when men can’t regulate their emotions it’s just something we’re all supposed to deal with? Sounds like he needs therapy
anxious__rose − NTA. I don’t see any men asking if they’re the AH for calling a woman emotional.
Reasonable_racoon − NTA – this is a lot like a NLP technique called “reframing” and its a good way to deal with what is obviously a problem, but not perceived a such by others. His behaviour is dysfunctional and anti-social, so it’s clever to reference his behaviour for what it is. Start adding in words like “volatile”, “emotional fragility” and “hostile”.. Well done.
BlueBelle2019 − NTA. It is a fantastic way to shift the narrative so that is highlights his bad behavior. People put up with the aggressive male but emotional??!! What is he a woman? \s
Was this an ingenious way to handle a workplace bully, or did it go too far? Should emotional outbursts be called out regardless of gender, or does this strategy reinforce harmful stereotypes? Share your thoughts below!