Anger: The Fifth Food Group

when rage becomes a way of life

“If you really want to be in law enforcement be prepared to constantly be challenged with balancing your life professionally. If you’re not good at balancing, seriously rethink your career choice. This job becomes a way of life.” 

he first time I wrote about anger I was motivated by my work with dispatchers. The Angry Dispatcher: Fact or Fiction remains the most requested article on dr911.com, to date. Since it’s original publication much has changed in the EPS community and as many public safety agencies across the country lurch through sometimes tumultuous, too often painful transitions, the personal and professional lives of those who continue the work are dramatically impacted.

            From the physical and health implications of unresolved anger to the unfortunate manifestations of anger we bear witness to on the road, in the workplace, on the schoolyard and at home, anger is fast becoming one of society’s greatest concerns and most significant problems.  

This chapter attempts to address these unprecedented changes in emergency public safety and the far ranging impact on its members. We will review the facts about anger and its health implications, touch on the personal impact it has on the home front and with the family, and offer suggestions for understanding as well as tools for coping.   

Big News Flash: Times Have Changed 

t doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know, “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Regardless of your rank, job title or employment classification the everyday workplace has changed, and with it the way many professionals are asked to do business. 

Much of what you may remember as a recruit, trainee or new employee bears little resemblance to what we see now. Not unlike corporate America, public legislation and private litigation have transformed the organizational climate, forcing even the secular world of emergency public safety to change.

As can be expected not all changes have gone smoothly, or with regard for its employees. Were we only discussing those responsible for the management of paperclips the transitions might be more palatable to those who must bear the brunt of the changes, but the grim reality is we’re not. We are talking about people whose everyday work life is rarely mundane. The everyday uncertainty regarding life and death, and how close any one of us comes to that invisible line during the course of our workday has a way of bringing even the most minor event into the most extraordinary focus.

In The Broadest Sense 

veryday our senses are flooded with the violence perpetrated by others. The news media, popular television and movies are quick to remind us of the full gamut of human potential, both positive and negative.

For those of us tasked with providing the emergency response to humanities frightening expressions of self, we rarely need the media to serve as a reminder. One day on the job alone is enough to refresh our memories of the horrors people are more than capable of. We see it, hear it and even smell it on any given day we decide to show up for work. We may turn off the television or discontinue the newspaper subscription but the memories are never far from recall.

But is this the only source of our stress? In a random sample of police officers participating in an ongoing research study (Chace, 2001), 4 out of 5 identified work place factors (such as problems with supervisors, and pending complaints) as the primary source of their stress, and consequent anger and frustration.  

“I can deal with emergencies. I can’t handle idiot co-workers and radios that don’t work and dispatch procedures conceived by idiots!” 

The Every Day Reality 

ow easy if the only threat we managed every day was the one we encountered on the street or over the air. How freeing to know that once we hung up the gun belt, took off the headset, turned in the keys, or took off the uniform, life was immeasurably better because we knew at the end of the day it was a job well done: To be supported and rewarded by our organization, treated with respect by our supervisors and colleagues, appreciated by the public we served and loved unconditionally by our friends and family around us; what a wonderful world that would be.   

Few would argue if that were the world most people lived and worked in, but how many of us can say that?  What happened? 

From The Worried Well to Managing Risk 

Even as a psychologist, things have changed. In the beginning of my career the worst situation I generally encountered in my office were tearful and distraught individuals who were unhappy with some aspect of their lives. Occasionally someone expressed suicidal ideation but rarely did someone present with active psychotic symptoms or florid homicidal intent. The vast majority of people I treated were easily categorized as “the worried well;” people who were generally content with their lot in life, functioning fairly well overall but felt some anxiety in specific areas of their lives.

Then a subtle shift occurred and my practice went from treating the worried well to conducting threat assessments on people that rarely looked any different then you or I but were described as “dangerous,” “threatening” and “volatile.”

Conducting threat assessments are now routine for most practitioners, and while the “worried well” still find their way to my office, the potential risk factors I’m forced to consider when I’m sitting with someone are staggering.   

Developing systems for evaluating dangerousness has become an extremely lucrative and necessary business but despite elaborate schemes for determining risk factors people are still dying at the hands of others with alarming regularity.

 Grimly we are reminded that systems of evaluation are helpful but offer no guarantees. No one has a crystal ball and regardless of what your technique or method we are not always able to see what can’t be seen.

No matter what you may think you’re heard there really isn’t any exact way to predict someone’s behavior, and the range, intensity and frequency of individuals acting out aggressively in the work place and at home continues to hit new highs.   

“If you want people to like you, become a fireman. Don’t become a cop. Nobody likes cops.”  

Many officers and civilians are angry and frustrated with the changes that have occurred organizationally, in addition to the public's perception of the job they do.  Morale is at an all time low, and everybody knows it. But who is doing anything about it?

On more then one occasion I have listened to the anger and frustration vented by officers towards the department. I’ve heard discussions of the inevitability of workplace violence perpetrated by one of their own toward command staff as though it were already a foregone conclusion; not a question of if but rather when, where and who.

This isn’t just one isolated incident in a department nobody knows. Agencies all over the country are creating training protocols for handling the eventuality of such an event, and again, the general consensus is, ‘We’re not training for whether it will happen. We’re training for when it will happen.’ 

“People keep talking about the department like it’s this living entity, and nothing else matters. It’s as though there really aren’t any people who work there, it’s just “The Department. That’s it. Everyone else is expendable as long as ‘The Department’ keeps going.” 

It is with good reason people are angry, and as one paramedic shared, after her exposure to a homeless indigent infested with ticks left her with Lymes Disease: 

“I was cursed at, yelled at, humiliated at times in front of others by my partner and a few lieutenants. One lieutenant almost hit me in the face with a metal transaction splint.”

Some current practices in the workplace simply don’t make sense, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any easier. 

Nationally 

ore and more Americans are feeling pushed to the breaking point. The American Automobile Association’s Foundation for Traffic Safety says incidents of violently aggressive driving- which some dub “mad driver disease” rose 7% a year in the ‘90s.

Airlines are reporting more outbursts of sky rage. And sideline rage has become widespread: A Pennsylvania kids’ football game ended in a brawl involving more than 100 coaches, players, parents and fans. In a particularly tragic incident that captured national attention, a Massachusetts father- angered over rough play during his son’s hockey practice- beat another father to death as their children watched.

          No one seems immune to the anger epidemic. Women fly off the handle just as often as men, though they are less likely to get physical. Young people may seem more volatile, but even senior citizens have erupted into “line rage” and pushed ahead of others simply because they felt they had “waited long enough” in their lives.

          Violent outbursts are just as likely to occur in the suburbs as they are in the city. “Everyone seems to be hotter under the collar these days,” said Sybil Evans, a conflict resolution expert in New York City, who singles out three primary culprits: time, technology and tension. “Americans are working longer hours than anyone else in the world. The cell phones and pagers that were supposed to make our lives easier have put us on call 24/7/365. Since we’re always running, we’re tense and low on patience. And the less patience we have, the less we monitor what we say to people and how we treat them.”         

Ironically, the fluctuations in our economy seem to have brought out the worst in some people. “Never have so many people with so much been so unhappy,” offers Leslie Charles, author of Why Is Everyone So Cranky? “There are more of us than ever before, all wanting the same space, goods, toys, services or attention. Everyone thinks, ‘me first. I don’t have time to be polite.’ We’ve lost not only our civility but all tolerance for inconvenience.”

          The sheer complexity of our lives has also shortened our fuse. We rely on computers that crash, cell phones that die, drive on roads that gridlock, and place calls to machines that put us on endless hold. “Its not any one thing but lots of little things that make people feel like they don’t have control of their lives,” says Jane Middleton-Moz, a therapist and author. “A sense of helplessness is what triggers rage. Its why people end up kicking ATM machines.” 

Is It In The Blood?  

“People no longer hold themselves accountable for bad behavior,” says Doris Wide Helmering, a therapist and author of Sense Ability. “They blame anyone and everything for their anger.”  

When the sales clerk wouldn’t accept the return and give his girlfriend her money back, an Arizona dispatcher became so enraged he ripped the cash register off the counter and threw it across the store. Playing golf, he sometimes became so angry that he threw his clubs 50 feet up the fairway and into the trees and had to get someone to retrieve them. Arguments with his girlfriend usually ended when he pitched most of her belongings out the second story window of their home. He was suspended from work and ordered into anger management classes. 

While some people may seem like they were born angry, few rarely are. As adults they may appear to thrive on conflict and chaos, and may even go out of their way to create it, but as children it is unlikely they started out this way. Anger as a filter through which we see and respond to the world is usually learned behavior. 

            As is the case for most defense mechanisms, in the beginning there was a legitimate reason for their existence. Parents who neglect us, siblings who pick on us, circumstances that overwhelm us; defense mechanisms develop as a means towards helping us cope with our feelings. As more primitive defense mechanisms, (such as blocking and projection), outlive their usefulness they are replaced by more sophisticated defense mechanisms, (such as humor and intellectualization.) With “luck” and good intention we learn from our mistakes.

Many people end up in my office after they’ve insisted on “knocking their heads against the wall” a couple hundred times. They’re adults, they’re professionals, and this is the way they’ve always done things. This is also the way they want to keep doing things, but despite their best efforts it doesn’t seem to work anymore! Anger is typically one of the problems identified. They’re locked into their worldview and they don’t want to change. Give them half a chance and they’ll vent to anyone who will listen but even after doing so nothing seems to get any better.

Venting may make you feel better right now, but it only lasts for a moment. “Catharsis is worse than useless,” says Brad Bushman, a psychology professor at Iowa State University whose research has shown that letting anger out makes people more aggressive, not less. “Many people think of anger as the psychological equivalent of the steam in a pressure cooker: It has to be released, or it will explode. That’s not true. The people who react by hitting, kicking, screaming and swearing just feel more angry.”

 “You Can’t Make Me!”

he destructive effects of anger are well documented. People who are anger prone are much more likely to develop heart disease. 

Studies demonstrate that anger, rage and hostility are particularly damaging to the cardiovascular system and a major risk factor in heart disease at least equal to or perhaps even greater then traditionally recognized risk factors such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure. And for the first time, a study demonstrated a link between how easily a person is angered and early signs of heart disease in young adults.

          In a ground breaking study, 374 men and women ages 18-30 were followed over ten years to determine the factors that might predict the development of coronary heart disease in later life. At the start of the study they completed a 50-item, true false questionnaire designed to measure how often a person becomes angry, how mistrustful a person is, and how aggressive the anger makes them. For example: “I think most people would lie to get ahead.” “It’s safer to trust nobody.” “No one cares much what happens to you.” “I have at times had to be rough with people who were rude to me.”

            Ten years later the same people had a noninvasive heart scan that measured the amount of calcium in the walls of coronary arteries, a sign of early atherosclerosis (narrowing of the arteries). Those with the highest hostility scores were twice as likely to have measurable calcification of the arteries.  The damaging association with hostility persisted even after controlling for age, gender, smoking, body weight, cholesterol and blood pressure. The thirteen volunteers with the highest scores on the hostility test were nine times more likely to have evidence of early atherosclerosis compared to the lowest anger group.

          In another recent study of 13,000 middle-aged men and women, anger-prone people had 2-3 times the incidence of heart attacks, bypass surgery and balloon angioplasty. In this study, anger was measured with a 10-question survey.

ight percent scored in the high-trait anger range, fifty-five percent in the moderate range and thirty-seven percent in the low range. The high-anger subjects with normal blood pressure levels were at much greater risk of heart disease including a fatal heart attack. Interestingly, those people with high blood pressure did not have an increased risk due to anger. One reason may be that those with high blood pressure were taking medications that not only lowers blood pressure but also blunts the harmful effects of anger.

How does hostility harm the heart? Several pathways have been suggested. Hostile people tend to release more stress hormones that can cause blood pressure to surge, heart rhythms to disrupt, and blood platelets to clot blocking an artery.

          Fortunately we can learn to diffuse anger and change hostile patterns of behavior, thoughts, feelings and actions. Patients who have had heart attacks can reduce their risk of recurrence by as much as 50% by learning anger management and relaxation skills and getting social support. 

Emergency Public Safety and Anger 

iffusing anger and changing patterns may be easily accomplished at home with friends and family, or in a controlled study, but how possible is this in emergency public safety when much of what we come into contact with is outside of our control?

 Learning to effectively managing anger on the job is challenging, but it is not impossible. Like that old bad joke about psychologists: How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? One, but it has to want to change.

The Facts 

The pressure on personnel in public safety is enormous and the resultant stress has struck broadly across every rank, level, size and type of organization nationwide. Trained professionals everywhere are leaving their chosen careers and jobs faster then employers can replace them. In law enforcement alone, officers are leaving large once prestigious metropolitan police agencies for smaller agencies, or leaving law enforcement entirely, in unprecedented numbers.

Organizations once considered the pride of policing are in desperate trouble, unable to hold on to tenured officers, and yet unable to successfully recruit new ones. In Los Angeles, where the police have been buffeted with scandal since the Rodney King beating in 1991, there were only 19 recruits in the police academy class in June of 2001. In July Los Angeles canceled the police academy classes because there not enough recruits. Retired officers were offered attractive financial incentives to return to the fold while specialized divisions were dissolved, its staff returned to the streets to work patrol in an effort to find enough warm bodies to police the city.

The New York Times reported that police departments across the nation are facing what some call a personnel crisis, with the number of recruits at record lows, an increasing number of experienced officers turning down promotions to sergeant or lieutenant and many talented senior officers declining offers to become police chiefs, executive recruiters and police officials say.

These problems have come at a time when crime is at its lowest levels since the late 1960’s and morale should be high. But, the experts say, many officers from the lowest to the highest rank are questioning their occupation, tempted by higher pay in the private sector after a decade long economic boom and discouraged by seemingly constant public and news criticism about police brutality and racial profiling.

“When I look at the job I do and what I have done over the years, specifically the last few years, I find it difficult to swallow that jagged little pill. It’s very easy to continue to move through this career on its proverbial ‘roller coaster,’ but its not until one really looks at all the ‘stuff’ they’ve dealt with that it becomes REAL.” 

          There are no nationwide statistics on the problem. But figures from several cities show the magnitude of the drop in applicants for the police examination, the first step to becoming a police officer. In Chicago last year, 5,263 people signed up for the exam, despite months of recruiting at college campuses, military bases and churches throughout the Midwest, said Cmdr. Bill Powers, the head of the Chicago police personnel division. That is down from 10,290 people who signed up in 1997 and 36,211 applicants in 1991. Traditionally, only a small fraction who apply are eventually accepted making a large applicant pool especially important.

In New York City, more than 1,700 officers left the 41,000 member force in 1997 through retirement or resignation, a third more then the year before. The retirement rate is expected to accelerate with concerns about morale and pay taking their toll and with a large portion of the force soon to complete 20 years of service, when officers can retire with a full pension.

The number of captains leaving the New York City Police department tripled in the 2000 fiscal year from the year before, and over the next four years, more than half of the force’s 2,100 captains and lieutenants will be eligible to retire.

In Seattle, the police department is having trouble finding officers to take the sergeants’ examination, and sergeants to take the exam for promotion to lieutenant. Only 86 officers took this years sergeants exam, down from 134 in 1997, and only 10 sergeants took this years’ exam for lieutenant, compared with 33 in 1997, department figures show.

Many officers with seniority do not want to start over in a higher rank, risking having to work weekends, officers say. And some sergeants do not want the promotion because lieutenants, unlike sergeants, do not get overtime pay. 

“So why would a detective want to give up that work schedule when they have a family,” he asked, “in order to be a lieutenant without seniority and face working nights and week ends?” 

Attrition is a growing problem from New York to Los Angeles. In Detroit, where the police department is under a federal investigation for charges that the police routinely violated citizens’ civil rights, 600 to 700 officers have resigned in the last five years, many to take better-paying jobs in suburban forces. In addition, more than 1,000 other officers have retired in the last five years, and 1,000 more are eligible to retire in the next two years, a large proportion of Detroit’s 4,000-member department. Low pay is often a factor. In Detroit, the starting salary for a police officer is $28,865; in Houston, it is $26,000.

In Miami, the police department has only 883 officers; well below it’s authorized strength of 1,045 officers. “Because of the economy, people are not really interested in law enforcement as a career,” said Sgt. David Ramras of the Miami police-recruiting unit.

Sgt. John Rivera, the president of the Miami-Dade Police Benevolent Association, offered another explanation. “This is increasingly becoming a more miserable job by the day,” Sergeant Rivera said. It has not helped, he said, that the Miami police have been stung by accusations of abuse, corruption and cover-ups, and the department is under investigation by federal prosecutors. Most officers are good people, he said, “so to risk your life for increasingly ungrateful people isn’t worth it.”

Mr. Oldani, president of the Oldani Group, an executive search firm in Bellevue, Washington, offered this example. Last month, Chief Kerlikowske went out for a run from police headquarters and came across a crowd surrounding a woman who had passed out- from a heroin overdose, it turned out. The chief, in his jogging gear, stopped to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, then, when she began to breathe again, took her to the hospital. Later, Chief Kerlikowske had to go to the hospital himself, for hepatitis B shots.

But, on the evening news, Mr. Oldani said, the chief’s good deed merited just a few seconds. The major item, he said, was about the police chase of a stolen car, which struck a pedestrian, and the criticism that the police were to blame for the injured pedestrian. “It’s a good example of what’s wrong,” Mr. Oldani said. “He was being a good cop, and that just got lost.” 

Today’s Climate 

          “There’s been a big change in the culture of policing in the past few years, as lifestyle becomes more important then the sense of public service,” said Carroll Buracker, the head of a management and consulting firm in Harrisburg, Va., and a former police chief in Fairfax County, Va.

Those who choose to remain are forced to do more with less, working under a far greater, less forgiving microscope, and without many of the past rewards, like unflagging departmental support and family like camaraderie. Many now are so busy doing the job they lose sight of themselves and the impact the work is having on their lives, and relationships, until they are directly asked to reflect, or they are forced to look by circumstances such as when a marriage dissolves, a health crisis occurs or a department complaint is initiated. Then they have no choice, and they are not always happy with the results.

“I’ve changed. For many years I’ve been able to separate my job from my personal life. I was able to deal with chaos and not let things get to me emotionally. I am less able to keep my feelings down with calls. The walls are coming down. As of now I’m frequently tearful, even less sociable, and have even more difficulty trusting people. I find it more and more difficult to go to work each day, but I have bills to pay.”

Although dispatchers are often identified as the “angry” ones in the public safety family, the professionals most known for their difficult personality styles, they are not the only ones who are angry.  

“I am bitter and snappy at my wife and children. When I stop to think about what happened I get real moody.” 

John

The first time I met John was during a holiday party for the department. He seemed friendly enough but after only a few minutes of general conversation, the “real” John emerged, or at least the one he had become after “losing” the job he loved. He wasted no time telling me that after 16 years on the job he was angry and bitter about how he’d been demoted and reassigned to “the rubber gun squad” after a chief disagreed with a decision he’d made. Assigned inside to a desk in a division he hated, he counted the days until retirement.  

“I have a common cop fantasy now. I want a cabin in the mountains where there are no people. I don’t like people anymore. I just want to be alone.” 

            If John only had himself to be concerned with, I suppose living in an isolated cabin high in the mountains wouldn’t be much of an issue, if that were his choice. The problem was John wasn’t alone. He was married and had been for 6 years. It was his second marriage and her first. Even more problematic then moving off to the wilderness was the fact that his wife, Christine, worked for the department, too, and she enjoyed her job. It was his wife who came into my office seeking help. 

 Christine         

Christine was a tall, attractive woman who dressed well, stayed fit and was roughly 10 years younger than John. They’d met on the job where she worked in the Communications Center. She was far from ready for retirement and still had many plans for herself and her future. Although her current job was adequate, she said, she longed to become a police officer. Since John’s demotion, however, his personality had changed dramatically.  

 “I feel like I’m walking on eggshells all the time. Since my husband’s demotion, he’s clinically depressed and angry all the time. I never know what will set him off. I can’t talk about anything, and I especially can’t talk about anything related to work. I’m afraid one day he’ll explode. I don’t know if he’ll ever get over being demoted, and if he doesn’t, I can’t live like this.” 

Look Around You 

          Many professionals in emergency public safety feel stressed out to the maximum.  

“I began to think about how my life and attitude had changed since that event and how for two years I couldn’t stop thinking about it every day. I would get a sense of dread and not know why. Then it hit me. I was one of several people I had seen a few times throughout my career, a burned out cop… Within two months of finishing the crime scene investigation I had my gall bladder out and was also diagnosed with an ulcer and gerd. Six months after that I was feeling like dirt, sleepy and lethargic and couldn’t concentrate. I was sent to a neurologist who in turn sent me to a sleep lab. I was diagnosed as having severe sleep apnea and had surgery for that. I think now that some, if not most of those ailments were in some way caused by stress.”             

The impact can be enormous, and most times you are not the only one affected.  

“I had too high a workload, too few resources and too many areas of responsibility. I withdrew emotionally from everyone, but my old partner. Eventually this lead to a divorce from my wife.” 

Deputy Jimmy Hart 

“Growing up I heard about officers killing themselves due to the stress of the “job.” But I still wanted to do this job as a kid. Once I entered law enforcement I quickly realized that the stress was not from doing your job. The stress came from the administration. Constant Internal Affairs complaints and the threat of losing your job are overwhelming.” 

Deputy Hart’s words were becoming uncomfortably familiar. He’d joined the department because he’d always dreamt of being a cop and now, when he was finally doing the job he’d wanted since he was a small boy growing up on a farm in Indiana, he was desperately afraid of losing it. Why? How could this happen?

I was asked to see this young handsome officer, who took obvious pride in his uniform, because he and his partner had exchanged shots with members of a local gang the night before. Lured into a vehicle pursuit in what turned out to be a highly orchestrated and planned event, the officers responded to a radio broadcast of a ‘car jacking’ when they were ambushed in an area known for heavy gang affiliation. Snipers shot round after round at the trapped officers with AK47s as they called desperately for backup and returned fire. A heated gun battle ensued until finally backup arrived.   In the end, several suspects were arrested. One gang member was shot and killed in the exchange. Miraculously the officers were not wounded.

What startled me most about this particular debriefing was that the officer who sat across from me, who was alive today only by the grace of God, wasn’t crying because he was distraught and traumatized by the shooting experience. He was crying because he was consumed by fear about the department’s response. Would they blame him? What would the shooting team find on this case? Would the family members of the slain suspect sue him? Would the department back him up, or would it do what it had done in so many other cases, suspend him pending the results of an investigation? Would he lose his job and be unable to support his wife and small child? Would he be disgraced?

Already a veteran of the department’s justice system a year earlier, he knew what could happen. During that internal affairs investigation, the fact that the complaint was bogus or his record was spotless was irrelevant; he was treated in “typical” department fashion, “Guilty until proven innocent.” 

Pending the completion of the Internal Affairs investigation he was assigned to a desk in his division. The investigation took nearly a year to complete during which time other officers shunned him. Supervisors checked up him constantly and without clear reason. Even the Captain took time out to tell him, “I won’t put up with officers like you!” In the end, the complaint was unfounded and all charges were dropped. He was returned to patrol like nothing had ever happened, and he was expected to get over it. Now this. Because there was a fatality, and it made the news he expected the worse. He was ready to resign before they fired him and while he could still get another job. He’d been publicly humiliated once. He couldn’t put himself or his family through that again.

How had we managed to get to the point where someone who narrowly survived a terrifying near death experience, like an ambush, was more concerned about the possible punitive measures that might be taken by his employer then the sanctity of his own life? Is this what we have come to?  

“As much as I always wanted to do this job, I wish I never did. A businessman could be fired today and working tomorrow. A businessman would not have to discuss why he was fired or the circumstances involved. If a police officer is fired, and it doesn’t matter if you are a 30 year veteran or two weeks out of the academy, your law enforcement career is over.”

As a psychologist I’ve listened to many people. Some of the stories I’ve heard are true and some of the stories I know are far from the truth. I’ve never seen it as my particular responsibility to investigate the veracity of someone’s story. The very fact that someone may come to me and intentionally fabricate a story, for whatever reason, is itself a problem and reason enough to be seen in therapy.

I’ve also worked in the field long enough to know that some people come in to see therapists just to cover their bases. They’re in trouble and if they’re asked in court or at a Board of Rights, they want to be able to say that they’ve been in to see me. They’re looking for a reliable witness to support their story. But, I give most people the benefit of the doubt and I try, at a minimum, to be open to their experience of the situation regardless of the facts.

Most people, I do believe, tell me the truth and want help. More times then not, however, I see good men and women who are desperately looking for a way to understand what has happened, and who feel horribly betrayed by an organization they were once willing to give their lives for. 

“ My police association turned their backs on me. I fought for my job and won. Now everybody’s all buddy-buddy again. I haven’t forgot.”  

          In the very beginning of my career I’d attributed much of what I’d heard to individual variables. In other words, I believed that what I saw and listened to had more to do with the person and how they lived their lives, then the organization they worked for. If there was a problem or a conflict I looked to see what the person was doing, or not doing, as opposed to necessarily what the organizational system might be creating or perpetuating by it’s response or lack thereof. Until I began to notice certain undeniable similarities, and a common theme, if you will, that seemed to predominate certain environments and career fields.

Initially these similarities seemed to exist, and thrive, primarily in dispatch and communications divisions, and certainly many people were more then happy to point the finger there for examples of persistent interpersonal conflicts and overtly angry employees. But, as the public pendulum began swinging in a new less tolerant, even less forgiving direction many department policies and attitudes changed to match. Soon the voices I listened were no longer from Communications Division alone. People were angry, and many with apparent good cause.

How To Tame Your Anger

“Being fired. I wish I could put it behind me and move on. I was eventually re-instated, but to know that my department would fire me over bullshit, and use me to show another department that they won’t tolerate an officer like me…it saddens me. I will never forget it.” 

Clearly, the reasons for the rage we are now seeing in the world and in the workplace are more numerous and complex than maybe even you imagined, but I’ve tried to give you a short tour of what is out there. Where we go from here is really up to you.

On an organizational level it is unlikely we will see any big changes coming any time soon. Predictions as to when the pendulum will swing back in a favorable direction are extraordinarily difficult to make. The troubles we see are not just one person, or one organization. They are driven by our culture, our society, our organizational systems, our technology and our very way of life.  

Before things will change we have to decide that we don’t want to live life this way anymore, and that doesn’t seem to be the case yet.  I’m not sure what will have to happen before enough people decide this is true for them. In the meantime, what you do have control over is you.

The following information represents a range of possibilities. Maybe none of them will appeal to you or work for you and the only answer, in your case, is resignation. You may not want to hear this, or want to know this, and in the end you may not even choose it. Despite your anger and unhappiness you may doggedly stay until you reach retirement. I hope, for your sake, that at a minimum you at least attempt to let go of the anger and focus on staying healthy.

Others of you are at least willing to consider the possibilities. This really is your life as you know, and it really is up to you to decide how to live it.

If being in emergency public safety as a cop, or a dispatcher, or an EMT, is that important to you and you’re willing to endure the changes regardless of the changing climate, then go for it, but be healthy about it. Some things truly are outside of your hands. Accept it for what it is.

No matter how angry you are with the department or department policy, unless you plan on becoming Chief one day you are unlikely to sway department policy. Influence someone, maybe, impact your supervisors or subordinates by your behavior, also maybe, change public opinion beyond one person at a time, doubtful but affect your own health and well-being and the quality of your life by what decisions you make today, absolutely. 

Choose your own life and be accountable for it. You’ll be a far happier person for it.

When Confronted With A Situation That Might Trigger An Angry Response: 

he following represents Quick Steps for managing your anger when confronted by a situation that may trigger it. These are most useful for more immediate needs and are not meant to be the magic pill for more complex situations.

More in-depth methods will be found in Maintaining Morale In The Workplace, and Mindfulness and Stress Management.

Be aware that sometimes the deeper work needs to be done before the simple steps can be taken, but starting some place is better than not starting at all. A stand-alone checklist of Quick Steps will be found in the appendix. 

Reason With Yourself

What’s really making you angry?

     Usually getting cutoff on the freeway is the just the last straw that breaks the camels back, providing a convenient target for you to unleash your anger about a more difficult issue you may feel unable to resolve, like a failing relationship or the initiation of a complaint against you. Put the anger where it belongs and not on someone or something that isn’t even remotely related.

Is this really important enough to get angry about?

     If you suspend all judgment and just let yourself rip, regardless of the consequences, you might as well say to the universe, “Do with me what you will. I’m yours. I don’t care what happens to me or anyone else.” Anything can happen, and sometimes it will. Is losing your temper worth everything in your life, as you know it?

Am I justified in getting angry?

     Sometimes anger is more then justified, but to use an old expression, it’s important to “pick your battle.” If its that important to you, then by all means go for it and go all the way down to the mat if you need to but remember, not everything is worth going down to the mat for, and no matter how angry you are you can still express yourself respectfully, appropriately and with a measure of decorum.

Will getting angry really make a difference?

     If nothing is to be gained from your anger other than an opportunity to vent, think again. Reconsider your decision. Venting may only fuel the fire and make yourself feel worse.

Are you feeling early signs of exhaustion or overload?

        While stress alone doesn’t cause a blow-up, it makes you more vulnerable to over-reacting. If you’re tired or overloaded, take a break, chill out, get some rest, eat some dinner, whatever and then after you’re more rested, readdress your initial concerns. If you still have feelings about the person or the situation, then take time to deal with it.  

Chill Out 

If you’re still feeling angry here are some ways to cool off 

1.  Distract yourself.

2.  Breathe : Take slow deep breaths, counting “One” with each successive breath. 

3.  Withdraw :  Sometimes the best solution is to take a time out. Remove yourself from the situation, distance yourself from the person, temporarily, until you have time to cool off, change your perspective, review your frame of reference, think more clearly and rationally. 

4.  Exercise: Doing physical exercise can be a great release for stress and anger.

5.  Laugh at yourself: Not every situation is life or death. Sometimes what we choose to rage about today can seem fairly silly tomorrow, yet at the time we were willing to lose everything over it. Give yourself permission to laugh at yourself, or to change your mind, if you will, at what you are so angry about. Turn arguments into opportunities to laugh with someone else about life’s little absurdities and remember what’s really important to you both. Most times you’ll find its not who forgot to pick up the dry cleaning. 

If you’re still feeling tempted to let one rip the next time someone cuts you off on the freeway, ask yourself this: “Why should I let someone I’m never going to see again control my mood and ruin my whole day?”