as a manager, do I need to hide my stress from my team?

by Alison Green on October 21, 2020

A reader writes:

I work a fairly high-stress management position. It’s the kind of job that comes with frequent six-day weeks, not a huge paycheck, a lot of customer interface, and the responsibility of a regularly shifting staff of seasonal employees.

I’m concerned about how I comport myself as a manager. I don’t have much management experience, I’m not much older than the majority of my staff (sometimes younger), and I have a friendly demeanor that I worry sometimes confuses my staff’s perception of “me as a manager” with “me as a peer.” More worrisome than that, however, I’ve gotten the sense that I sometimes give off an aura of “overworked/stressed” that shakes my staff’s confidence in me. Or possibly worse, it gives them the impression that I need their sympathy and help. For example, I have one employee who I’ve had multiple discussions with regarding her habit of putting her hand on my shoulder and saying “Aw, what’s wrong?” or “Oh my God, you seem really tense!” (I think the last and firmest conversation a couple of months ago put a stop to it.) On the other end of the spectrum, I have another employee who apologizes every time she interrupts my work with a (completely valid!) question.

I don’t want to create this kind of energy or foster a negative perception of me. It’s true that I am not infrequently stressed (evidently I’m not hiding it as well as I thought) and I’m a human being. I think trying to white-knuckle smile my way through will come across as totally disingenuous and do nothing to foster the relaxed, yet focused/fast-paced atmosphere I’m striving to create. What are some good strategies for finding a happy medium of acknowledging stress and creating a positive atmosphere? What’s my obligation as a manager in terms of conveying/hiding how I’m feeling?

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

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{ 54 comments }

{ 54 comments… read them below }

  1. Lena Clare*

    Anxiety is contagious. Consider it a part of the role of management to be both appear to be coping well and to look after yourself effectively outside of work. You don’t want to panic your team.

    1. Bostonian*

      For the most part, I agree with this. I do think, however, that it’s also important to show a little bit of vulnerability from time to time so that your direct reports feel comfortable being honest when things aren’t 100% awesome for them either. It’s definitely a balancing act. Managers should definitely shield their team from drama and anxiety, but it’s also OK to sometimes say “you know, X hasn’t been easy” (when X is something like adjusting to COVID work from home).

    2. Filosofickle*

      I used to have a pack of sticky notes that read “I don’t suffer from stress but I’m a carrier.” One of the biggest projects of my adult life has been increasing awareness of my anxiety and how it impacts those around me. It’s very high on the list of reasons I’m a very senior individual contributor and not a people manager! But no matter how many years I work at it, it seems like people will always perceive a higher degree of worry and negativity from me than I actually feel. :/

  2. Lunch Eating Mid Manager*

    Definitely grappling with the same issue. I have been manager of my group for 11 months, didn’t really know them before, and I was in place 4 months before COVID hit and we went remote-ish. Our workload has skyrocketed with some new funding streams and high pressure to get the money out the door. Everyone is super stressed, me included, but I am trying to balance showing some of that to the staff so they know I am in the trenches with them, with projecting some semblance of calm and faith that we will get through this. I feel like I keep chirping in my one on ones, “It’s a tough time!” as an acknowledgement. But I don’t think it would be helpful to the staff to know I feel like crying every night and actually did argue with the Big Boss and cry a little at work recently, defending their work and asking for more resources! What can I say… it IS a tough time!

    2. azvlr*

      I feel kind of bad, because at the start of the pandemic, my manager conveyed some of his worry to me through and IM. My reply was, “You gotta keep it together, man!” Meant to be collegial, but I realized later that it probably came across as, “Don’t come to me with your problems.”
      I apologize on his behalf to you!

    3. Mizzle*

      I’d leave out the crying part, but your staff might really appreciate knowing that you went up to the Big Boss to claim more resources! Even if it didn’t work out (and perhaps it still might?), it’s good to know that your manager understands the situation and is trying to do something about it.

      For me personally, having a manager who shows that she’s taking my concerns seriously is a huge stress relief. Usually, they’re more in her scope of influence than mine, so it’s a way for me to let go. Whether or not the issue gets resolved hardly matters then.

      1. WantonSeedStitch*

        I agree with this. I know that in the past when my team has had concerns and I’ve brought them to my boss, even if I haven’t been able to get them what they wanted, they appreciated knowing that I was making the effort to advocate for them.

    4. RebelwithMouseyHair*

      I agree with Mizzle that your staff would like to know that you are doing your best to bat for them. Even if you don’t get more resources now, your boss may have put a post-it somewhere to remind her that she needs to bring it up with the CFO at the right moment. When I was working for a firm that sold revolutionary software, I remember that every sales presentation ended with the client saying “it’s brilliant but we don’t have the budget”. But then they put in for extra funds to buy the software the next year, so it was just a matter of hanging in there until the funds were released. So it may be the same for your budget.

  3. CH*

    I’ve always admired the ability of some of my best managers to make time for me even when things felt very stressful. As someone who tends to shut out everything except the task at hand during stressful times, I’ve actively tried to adopt their patient and flexible mindset.

    Could your employees be picking up on the feeling that you don’t want them there? Or perhaps they’re worried about something else at the company, and are hoping the “you look stressed, what’s wrong?” question might give them insights into bigger picture issues?

    1. Dave*

      The making time can be a double edge sword. My manager has told me to make myself available to people and I have told them sometimes I can not be available because of some deadline, so there are times it is meet a deadline, attend the scheduled meeting, or make my self available for co-workers whenever. My manager loves to be available to everyone all the time and they are constantly late and unprepared for meetings and not getting others the info they need in a timely fashion as a result.

    2. Ooh La La*

      This is what I was thinking. OP, do your reports have access to you for questions and support? Do you have regular check-ins with them? The thing I would find very stressful about having a stressed, overloaded supervisor is if they couldn’t actually supervise me because their own plate is too full. Maybe some duties need to be shifted – you can’t have a workload that takes up 100% of your work hours *and* supervise multiple people.

  4. Trillian*

    Are we talking about multiple people giving OPs that impression, or one or two people doing it a lot, because it’s a form of gaslighting that some people engage in, “reading” or attributing mood as a means of manipulating or undermining the other party. “You seem so stressed.” “You seem so angry.” “Is everything OK?” Etc. The hand on the shoulder sympathizer was giving me a case of the prickles.

    1. juliebulie*

      Good point – you have to consider the source. If one person is saying it all the time, it’s probably a them problem, not a you problem!

    2. Empress Matilda (formerly Matilda Jefferies)*

      Yeah, my ex does that – usually after I reinforce some boundary that he has just trampled all over. He’s all “Of course, of course, perfectly reasonable, so sorry. But also, how are YOU? You seem very stressed! Are you okay???”

      Which sounds reasonable on the surface, but it’s really all about minimizing my reaction – obviously the only reason I got angry is because I must be *so stressed* about *unrelated things!* This way, he doesn’t have to take responsibility for whatever he did that made me angry in the first place.

      I know what he’s doing, and I know how to ignore it – but holy heck, it’s exhausting.

      1. Cookie Monster*

        I had a roommate like this when I was in my early 20s. Any time I had to have even a slightly tense conversation with him about something he was doing he would immediately deflect with “hey, you seem upset, are you having a bad day?” or “did something happen at work?”

        So the answer would either be “no, I’m actually upset with you, just you” or it was “yes, I am having a bad day AND I’m legitimately annoyed with you.”

        Of course, I wasn’t that articulate back then. And I saw him do this with everyone – friends, girlfriends, etc. I think he read The Four Agreements and took the Don’t Take Anything Personally WAY too literally. (Not actually sure that’s true, just seemed like it.)

      2. TM*

        My manager does this – attributes my issue with something to me being stressed. Not to the fact that what’s she asking for something ridiculous. My reaction is generally appropriate given the management structure under which we function. I’m working on letting things just slide off me, and I’m definitely better at it, but sometimes I slip. And then I get the faux concern. It is exhausting to deal with this.

        1. RebelwithMouseyHair*

          Stressed, or about to get your period… good way to deflect and show it’s never their fault.

    3. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd (ENTP)*

      I understand that in general it can be gaslighting, but in this case OP said that being stressed is actually a fact, not just being ‘assumed’ or attributed: “It’s true that I am not infrequently stressed (evidently I’m not hiding it as well as I thought)”.

      1. LGC*

        It can be both, though! Or it can be neither – some people are oblivious to the fact that repeatedly asking “R U MAD @ ME?!?!!??!?!ichi” often results in “well I wasn’t, but now I am!” as an answer.

    4. Lils*

      I thought of this too. I’m a manager and I do struggle with demonstrating too much stress sometimes. I know this can cause anxiety for employees and I try to manage it.

      However, I’m a woman and I’ve had more than one employee ask if I am “sick” or “stressed” just because I decided not to put on makeup or dressed more casually. My behavior and my words, not my appearance, should be the clue to whether I’m stressed, not the way my face or hair turned out that day :(

  5. Ann O'Nemity*

    It is so important for managers to generally appear calm, collected, and reassuring. Part of the job is buffering stress from your team. When there’s a big problem, you can stay calm and share the plan to solve it. Don’t vent, don’t freak out. Keep your expressions neutral and your language calm. Even if you express stress in the moment, like when confronted with bad news, have a couple canned responses like, “Shoot, that’s bad news, but I’m sure we can figure out a solution together.” Think about your other behavior too – if you’re always staying late and/or emailing your team evenings and weekends, what are you conveying about workload and expectations?

    Also, have a direct conversation with the employee who is touching and trying to comfort you. That would be boundary crossing for me, and it’s not helping the rest of the team’s perceptions of you at all.

  6. GothicBee*

    As a manger, you want to be the kind of person who’s good in an emergency, not the kind of person that people avoid coming to in an emergency because you’ll make the problem bigger or more stressful than it needs to be (or because that’s the perception they have of you).

    Also, if you work at establishing a good rapport with your reports and are approachable and don’t take the stress out on others, I think that can go a long way for when stress does show through. I’ve had past managers who I respected and understood were under a lot of stress, so when the stress occasionally showed up, I understood it for what it was. But if you’re always stressed, that’s not a good look.

  7. AndersonDarling*

    Gatekeeping is one of the top qualities I want to have in my managers. I want a manager to keep drama away so I can focus on working. But that doesn’t mean that I expect a cold robot as a boss, and if things are getting tough, I need to know to step up.
    As Alison said, there is a difference between complaining and having structured conversations with the team…”We will never catch up!” vs “We have a huge backlog to get through. I don’t know the best way to organize it. What would work best for you, and do you have any ideas on how to prioritize it?”

  8. Margaret*

    I think there’s a balancing act, though, to not push your stress onto others but also still remain human.

    I realize this is an older letter, but in times like this year when you know that virtually all people are undergoing unusual stress, to me it’s a bit unnerving when leaders appear totally unphased by it. Yes, you want leaders who can power through stress, but it feels odd when they appear to not be stressed at all by being in a pandemic or being in wildfire evacuation alert zones. The lack of stress that I’ve seen from the leaders of my employer makes me wonder how empathetic they really are to the way I’m feeling by current stressors, and if I also should be fully hiding my stress at work.

    1. juliebulie*

      Yes. I don’t need to see my manager running around with his hair on fire, but an occasional acknowledgement that something is stressful/crazy/awful is a helpful reality check.

    2. SomebodyElse*

      It is a balancing act.. and worse you’re often trying to balance this when you are stressed/overworked/things are going horribly wrong (often all at the same time!)

      It gets a little easier with time and experience and figuring out what is appropriate when and how much.

      For instance, I’m not shy if I need to delay talking with or meeting with an employee if there is a bigger priority. But that bigger priority needs to be a very big priority. Because I usually put my employees to the top of that list. I think this also helps them understand that if I can’t talk immediately or if I do have to reschedule something it does mean that things are kind of bad or busy.

      Also, there isn’t anything wrong with stating the obvious. “This situation sucks and it’s not going to be easy” but it’s the way that it’s said and the immediate follow up of “But we’ll figure it out and do the best we can”. Then mean that second part and act on it.

      I think it is good for teams to see their managers as humans with appropriate reactions to stress. It’s the ‘appropriate’ that is the tricky part.

    3. Mockingjay*

      It’s helpful when managers acknowledge that some stressful situations may not be completely fixed, then offer practical strategies to work through it or at least complete critical portions. I know my manager isn’t a robot and there are many things beyond her control. What she does do very well is advocate for small things that actively help: offer OT hours (if in the budget), set new priorities (do A and B, dump C completely), borrow Fred from another department. One year she surveyed the expensive licensed software we had on our laptops to see who was actually using it; we then deinstalled it from a couple of nonusers and reinstalled it on systems of people who desperately needed it. It was a quick fix that made a huge difference to staff without having to wait for next year’s budget to buy more licenses.

      I also like the suggestions in this thread to ask your staff what they need or if they can help you. There are certain times of year when my manager is swamped (fiscal year turnovers, budgets, work allocation predictions) and I always offer to take things off her plate, such as doing the prediction for my project while she works on others. That’s why our team functions so well – we all pitch in together.

  9. funkydonut*

    I currently have a supervisor who is visibly harried, upset, stressed, and anxious, nearly 100% of the time. It is not fun to work for her and it is why I am actively working to leave. She projects her anxiety onto us and finds ways to make it be our fault that she’s stressed out. She never seems to have any idea how to solve any problems and seems confused a lot of the time. She doesn’t trust us to do our job and micromanages us while her own workload goes unfinished (though none of us are quite sure what she does). She doesn’t project calm and confidence to her peers in other areas of our larger department, so they believe our little department to be ineffectual, which ultimately affects our careers. Why she still has a job as our manager, I will never understand.

    1. Old Woman in Purple*

      (I realize the odds are likely ‘nil’, but wouldn’t it be horrible if OP actually WAS your boss?!? O.O )

      1. funkydonut*

        Haha, that would be pretty horrible! Luckily there are enough details to make it clear that OP is NOT my boss. The stated lack of age difference, for one! So, if you’re reading this, OP: please have no fear, this isn’t about you. ;)

    2. funkydonut*

      To be clear: I am not saying OP is like this! Just that it’s not fun to work for someone who is.

  10. ladymacdeath*

    This is such an art too. One of my first jobs out of college, I was on a three-person team and my immediate supervisor ended up in the hospital for two weeks. The work we did was often hard, thankless, and we were very much constantly putting out fires. His boss (my grand-boss) was not only incredibly supportive of him, but also was so calm and collected throughout it. We were understaffed and worried about him, but she was very much of the mindset of “we might get behind but that’s not the end of the world.” I think that attitude comes with a lot of experience, and it’s one of the things I admire about her.

    We ended up getting ahead of our work significantly so there was nothing waiting for my supervisor when he got back. If we had been super stressed out those two weeks, I doubt we would’ve gotten so much done.

  11. Still Here*

    There is also the Health & Safety aspect of the cleaning work: Whoever is doing the cleaning needs to be trained on correct use of the chemicals uses, safety gear, etc.

  12. TechWorker*

    I mostly agree with this… but not totally.

    If the team workload is too high, you raise that up and get more people or work out what to drop… but I don’t think it’s sane or healthy for a manager to take on 100% of the stress and/or extra work in the interim period. Yes, you shouldn’t be stressed all the time, but if there’s a deadline that actually needs people to work late and come together to get it done (very rare at my company actually, but it does happen), then I’m not sure hiding that by projecting an aura of calm or just taking on the extra work yourself is helpful?

    I also think (from experience!!) that it’s possible to go too far down ‘projecting calm’. If your reports come to you because *theyre* stressed that x project is way behind schedule or their workload is too high and your response is ‘yes there’s a lot going on, but it’ll be fine’ *without* any plan of how to actually resolve it or reset external expectations, that only increases the employees stress level. Ask me how I know :D

    1. TechWorker*

      Incase it wasn’t clear I mostly agree! I think I do a pretty good job now of always being calm (I did a less good job as a new manager of an on fire project) and my current manager is awesome at it. But I still think you can take it too far!

    2. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd (ENTP)*

      I was about to disagree (at least partly) with this as well, but was trying to think ‘how and why’ to formulate it.

      I was in this situation myself as a manager. In my case, a significant part of the stress was due to taking on the workload of ‘my direct reports’ who I couldn’t delegate to due to a combination of 2 things: 1) we hadn’t recruited the right people (I ‘inherited’ them initially; I did later recruit people myself) and they were fundamentally unsuitable, primarily because the salary being offered wasn’t enough to get suitable people due to a mismatch between the budget and what was actually needed, due to erroneous ‘salary bands’/’job grades’ and 2) even if they were trainable, we had a cycle of hard deadlines and drop dead dates such that there was never slack in the system to train them or soak up slower work/incorrect work that had to be corrected/mistakes in general, since it often came to be that even an hour’s delay would mean that we wouldn’t make the deadline.

      As such, I had no choice but to take everything on myself. Did I express stress outwardly — you bet, not really intentionally, but it was bound to happen. On one occasion I had a stress-induced ‘incident’ with a manager which resulted in a formal “this is your last chance” reprimand, rather than a radical examination of what was wrong in the system, at which point I realised it was hopeless.

      I don’t think it’s on the manager at all to ‘project calm’, personally. What should they do. Absorb, absorb, absorb, absorb, explode? Take up drinking again?

      As an IC (and a manager, come to that) there were few things more frustrating and surreal than a higher-up who seemed to have ‘drunk the kool-aid’ and was convinced everything was ok, there’s no problem, we’ll ride through it…

      I have only shouted at an exec-level person once (no, not because I was fired after!) as I can tolerate a lot, but we were in a situation where a significant amount of revenue depended on something that we only had about 20 minutes to hash out a decision and resolve (which would have taken a couple of days at least in a normal company or even in normal operations at this company); the exec-level person was aware of the crisis, but showed up in the “war room” to demand that everyone leave immediately and go to the communal area because a photo needed to be taken for social media of ‘the team that work on project X’ and the photographers are waiting… My boss, and my grand-boss, were also in this crisis meeting and both said nothing. I had nothing to lose at that point anyway, and my giving-a-***-ometer was in for repairs and had been for about 3 years at that point.

      Afterwards I only got “I wouldn’t have had the guts to say that but I’m glad you did”, from my grand-boss.

      1. I just want to work somewhere normal*

        I hear you. I work somewhere where upper management really does expect us to absorb, absorb, absorb to death. I have absorbed until I can absorb no more, and when my usually cheerful and optimistic demeanor started to crack after I took on significant responsibilities from people who quit my horrible employer and were not replaced, I was told I better put my game face back on. My direct reports are amazing and we all know we work for a raging dumpster fire. If I started feigning calm in order to create confidence in upper management, they’d lose all confidence in me. I try to be the best buffer between them and upper management that I can be, and most days my natural optimism helps me keep morale up, but sometimes all I can do is be straight with them – it’s as bad as they think it is, and I feel it too.

      2. TechWorker*

        I had similar RE: not being able to delegate, in my case because my reports were all very new/junior and could not do the level of work required. A couple years on the team is much more balanced (plus those new people got more experience) but it was a grim time where my own health suffered a lot. I think the logic, bizarrely, was that as a new manager I’d do better if I didn’t have lots of senior people challenging my authority – I would much much rather have had that than ‘no-one to delegate to’.

  13. Pink Dahlia*

    This is going to sound flippant, but I’m being earnest: every manager I’ve worked with in your type of job has been basically dead inside, so the fact that you emote at all is possibly throwing people off kilter.

    In my food service days, I had a manager who didn’t even blink when the catering owner asked why he needed the day off to see his mom in the hospital, since “she’s unconscious anyway”.

  14. serene*

    I am a relatively calm and not stressed out person – and not by nature, but after lots of therapy. When my boss is visibly very stressed out I wonder if I need to similarly seem stressed out to be dedicated in my work, or like I should make allowances for them, neither of which seems fair. I also work in a difficult environment, and I feel like the stress of work is just part and parcel of the deal. I don’t think as a manager you need to be a robot, but you need your level of visible stress to be commensurate with how bad the situation actually is the scheme of things, and what you can do about it.

  15. Three Flowers*

    I’ve been there in my previous work life–young, underpaid, first-time supervisor overseeing (with no real authority) dozens of seasonal staff with very little time off and potentially high-consequence decisions to be made. The icing on the cake was that some of the staff were good friends of mine as well. I actually read this letter and thought it might be from past me, as I also have no facial expression filter and worked in a place where everyone else was a very caring nurturer/yes personality and I am not (part of my job was literally to identify bad/unsafe ideas and say no, so…inevitable). I really feel for you.

    In retrospect, I was good at what they needed me to do, and experienced impostor syndrome because I was not like my supervisory-level colleagues. My advice would be to draw some boundaries–not to be “the stressed one”, but to figure out if there are ways that you can support your staff by collaborating with colleagues who are less stressed. Also try having an open door for supporting them in ways you *do* feel comfortable with and good at. Are you great at giving supportive and constructive feedback? Listening to other people’s suggestions and ideas? Go for that, rather than trying to hide your stress and project an artificially sunny or extroverted persona. And take some deep breaths. You are not the only new manager who has ever had to figure this out.

  16. Princess Flying Hedgehog*

    “On the other end of the spectrum, I have another employee who apologizes every time she interrupts my work with a (completely valid!) question.” – It’s possible that this one is nothing to with the OP. Some people are conditioned to apologize every time they “bother” someone, either because it seems more polite to begin an interaction that way, or they have been in situations where they were scolded for asking valid questions.

    But as someone who is currently working for a VERY visibly stressed out manager, it’s a really awful situation to be in.

  17. L*

    My manager is this way and it made me feel like I couldn’t talk to her about any concerns or questions without bothering her and making her even more stressed. I almost quit because of some minor things that just kept building up because I felt I had no ability to have a dialogue about them.

    Thankfully, it didn’t come to that, but it definitely is a problem. Honestly it’s still an issue but now I just ask away and try not to worry about if she has time to deal with it or not.

  18. I edit everything*

    Is it possible OP is shouldering too much of the burden? Overworked and six-day weeks sounds like OP’s workplace is understaffed or OP might be able to delegate something. Managing stress—addressing the cause of appearing super stressed—might be the fundamental solution, if it’s possible (it might not be).

    1. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd (ENTP)*

      Sounds like OP can’t really delegate much as they are supervising primarily “a regularly shifting staff of seasonal employees”. As such I expect no-one really sticks around long enough to be able to take on more than the ‘initial’ duties of whatever their job is, rather than the more advanced tasks.

  19. Ray Gillete*

    Well, this sure is relevant. I capped my PTO (which is hard to do at my organization) months ago and still haven’t been able to take time off because more things that have to be done urgently and can’t be delegated keep getting added to my plate. Under normal circumstances I’m pretty approachable but I’m badly burned out and dropping balls as a result. I don’t want to be that manager who doesn’t do anything about problems, but sometimes there are just not enough hours in the day. I never take it out directly on my team and always do my best to make time for them when they need something that I can provide, but I hate being a bottleneck.

  20. Pam*

    With the ‘are you okay’ touchy-feely person, that may be a them issue. While it could be the same with the interrupter, you might want to make sure you are looking pleasant when responding- It’s ‘hang on a minute while I finish this’; not ‘What?’

  21. azvlr*

    My manager strikes a good balance between taking on all the crap rolling down hill upon himself and giving me insight into what or who is causing it.
    Not it a gossipy way, but more like this is what we have to deal with, or be aware that this person has a certain agenda. It’s helped me manage the situation when that person complains about things outside of my control. I can avoid getting sucked in.
    So as a manager, THAT is the stuff that’s useful to communicate. It would stress me out if he were to shared all the reasons he disagreed with his bosses. And I would question his judgment.

  22. rubble*

    can anyone else not see the answer in the article? all I can see is the first paragraph of the question.

  23. TPS reporter*

    I’m a manager of a pretty large team and often get comments about seeming very calm and relaxed (incredulous comments because sometimes our business is truly insane). At the same time, I also have some people who are constantly asking me if I’m okay and probing me to tell them what’s wrong or saying how sorry they feel for me. I’m fairly young for my role and a woman. Some part of the treatment could be subconscious sexism or ageism. I also do tell my co workers if I’m frustrated about something but I try to do in a dispassionate way, so they know I’m human and can see reality but that I’m also handling it. Still I feel like I get a lot more pity than my male counterparts.

    This for me kind of ties into the prior letter where it was discussed how women tend to feel like they should just be grateful to have a job where men feel like they earn what they get. And that framework influences how female managers are treated by employees- they see the female manager as toiling away miserably, someone sticks around in an job that is high stress and thankless because she doesn’t feel confident enough in herself to demand better. But a man in the same high stress job would not be looked at the same way. They’re seen as not that delicate, more able to brush off the constant annoyances.

    It’s okay then to support or acknowledge the woman’s stress because they need protection. You cannot however insinuate a man is stressed because that would be offensive and undermine his authority.

  24. I Coulda Been a Lawyer*

    I’m following a new (to me) blogger who always ends with “I hope you have a good day. But if you can’t, don’t ruin someone else’s.” It’s my new mantra.

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