I’ve recently had multiple people tell me that things at work have gotten so bad that they’ve cried on the job. This breaks my heart. It kills me to hear about twenty-something year-olds who really want to care, but are already giving up hope. It breaks my heart to hear about grown men whose jobs cause them so much pain they can barely get out of bed in the morning. It makes me sad to hear about competent, hard-working women being spoken to in ways that are unprofessional and frankly, inappropriate.

It breaks my heart, because I know what it feels like. I distinctly remember when a month into a former job, a colleague showed me where her “crying spot” was. At the time I found this odd and disconcerting, but I soon adopted the hiding spot myself. I was on a difficult project that made every single person on the team cry, including my boss. It was a toxic situation and even though it was many years ago, I’ve never really forgotten it.

Just last week, I had lunch with my former boss and he brought it up. I was amazed that it had stuck with him as well. He apologized about how awful it was and said “I know it felt personal at the time, but it wasn’t. It was circumstantial and painful for everyone.” He was absolutely right. While workplace culture is something that tends to play a role in these types of situations, it’s not why I share this story. I share this story because I think we need to remember that we’re all human and in a lot of ways work does feel personal.

Our jobs shouldn’t make us cry, but sometimes they do. I hope that maybe we can all be a little less hard on each other and on ourselves. Maybe we can even be a little bit kinder. Should you be in the unfortunate situation where your job does make you cry, here are few tips for handling those moments:

• Put down the work and take a walk; maybe treat yourself to some frozen yogurt
• Get some perspective; remember that nothing is permanent
• Try not to react – give conflict space so that when you respond you can do so in a way that’s constructive and in a way that you’ll feel good about later
• Remember that the other person is human – they might be scared, insecure or maybe something bigger is going on that you’re not aware of
• Manage your state – exercise or rest or do both
• Do something nice for someone else – even a compliment or a thank you will do the trick
• Put on your headphones and play ridiculous music or get in your car, blast your music and just drive yourself home