A nasty piece of work

IT was an otherwise quiet, sunlit morning in the office. Papers rustled, keyboards clacked, the coffee machine bubbled. Suddenly, like a small bomb, the boss exploded from his office.

"For ****'s sake, I've never heard of anything so ****ing incompetent," he screamed. Wrestling with his office door, he barked to his next in charge: "And I bloody well thought I asked you to manage next week's customer visit properly."

Without waiting for an answer, he strode through the office, banging into chairs and the mail table before exiting the office.

There was a stunned silence.

A few people cracked weak jokes, but others were visibly shaken.

After a few minutes, the keyboards started clattering again - quieter this time - and no one left their chairs to get the now-brewed coffee.

If anecdotal evidence is anything to go by, this example of desk rage will ring true for many who have witnessed a co-worker "lose it".

Whether it is the mechanic who throws his tools down and lets off a barrage of abuse, the heated phone call that gets louder and louder until everyone knows what it's about, or the boardroom executive who sweeps the papers from his desk and rants at his personal assistant for half an hour, desk rage is surprisingly common.

So what causes it and how can people be helped to stop what is essentially abusive, upsetting and disruptive behaviour?

Megan Baker-Smith and Chris Swan, directors of corporate communications company Peoplecoach, say desk rage signals a loss of self-control. The most common reasons people lose it are the incompetence or perceived incompetence of a co-worker or employee, personal problems, or - no surprise here - frustration with technology.

Baker-Smith says Peoplecoach is sometimes asked to work with desk-ragers in the hope they will realise they are responsible for their own behaviour.

"Most people won't own up to desk rage, but if you do get to talk with them it's almost always about other people not doing their job or about the individual feeling out of control," Swan says.

A lot of desk rage is the result of personal problems and small issues not being dealt with as they arise. "Two demanding careers together with young children - I see a lot of problems caused by that. When one partner travels and the other has to organise the kids, get them to school and then get to work ... well, if something then happens at work they can just explode."

Baker-Smith says that when it comes to technology, everyone has heard the one about the person who threw a monitor through the window.

"I have seen someone throw a monitor on the floor and others who bang their keyboards or throw their phones," she says.

Other examples include an Auckland company director who, in a fit of rage, threw his $13,000 laptop from the second-storey deck of a Grafton building into the car park.

Later, he tossed a mobile phone from a moving car because he hit a poor coverage area and lost his call.

Swan and Baker-Smith say men have a bigger struggle with desk rage than women.

"Women are not afraid to talk through problems.

"Men see that as a weakness. When we ask men how they feel, they say: " 'What do you mean, how do I feel? I know what I think.'

"They're also more competitive," Swan says. "They take on more work because they want to be seen to be getting ahead."

Phillipa Reid, chief executive of the Equal Employment Opportunity Trust, says technology-induced desk rage is more common than people think.

"It could be worse for the generation that hasn't grown up with computers. The expectation is that we are all very, very familiar with technology, whereas senior workers may really struggle with it."

Understaffing can also be behind desk rage.

Baker-Smith says Peoplecoach has worked with three different private and public hospitals and with accident and emergency nurses.

"Understaffing causes huge pressure. Workplaces such as hospitals have been established as a hierarchical system, which affects the degree of control people feel they have."

So how should desk rage be dealt with? What are the rights of an employee or employer with dangerously simmering co-workers?

While employees have a number of organisations they can turn to for help and action, the actions employers can take are limited.

It is quite difficult for employers to get the resolution they want.

"The individual causing the problem can just say they have been under a lot of stress with work which puts the onus back on the employer," Baker-Smith says.

Reid says that shifting a dogged desk-rager requires the employer to witnesses the desk rage first-hand and then prove it is serious misconduct.

But that can be worth the effort. "If an employer is aware of a situation like that and not deal with it, then the organisation can become liable," Reid says.

However, Reid, Swan and Baker-Smith all agree that getting rid of a desk-rager should be a last resort.

"People who are angry often get to a stage where they are just not aware of the effect they are having on others," Reid says.

Swan says Peoplecoach helps such individuals by administering programmes like the "360" - psychometric tests which provide feedback to an individual from across, above and below the organisation's hierarchy. Swan says the feedback each desk rager gets is often a wake up call.

"They have to realise the impact of their behaviour on their work colleagues. A lot of them are quite shocked that there is any impact at all."

She says that although rage develops for a reason, the angry individual has to sit down and develop a clear plan and coping mechanism.

And for those who feel they are excellent communicators in no need of improvement, Baker-Smith has a word of warning: "Most people assume that because they can speak, they can speak well. This is assuming too much."


How to handle those outbursts

For the rager:

* Realise your outbursts are not quickly forgotten by everyone, even if they are by you.

* Realise desk rage can cause emotional stress for others - and that some people become severely upset or even depressed by it.

* If you are angry with an individual, you have a responsibility to address the problem directly and privately with the person concerned.

* If you are furious over a technology problem, walk away, calm down, and then seek IT help. Don't damage company property - that's a written-warning offence.

For employers:

* Develop a business culture where questions can be asked without people fearing that they will be made to feel stupid for asking.

* Consider whether the rager has the proper levels of staffing and a fair workload. If they are under-resourced and overworked, desk rage can follow as a result of stress.

* Ensure IT staff give other employees early and repeated warnings of scheduled network downtime. Ensure technologies are capable of supporting workers and the workload you expect of them.

* Use a consultant to develop a feedback system where employees, colleagues and peers can give anonymous feedback to a desk-raging individual.

For employees:

* Respectfully tell the person directly how their behaviour is affecting you. They may have no idea.

* If your request for changed behaviour is ignored, or if you are subsequently victimised for speaking out, approach the senior management of the company.

* If senior management is the problem, seek employment advice from an employment lawyer, Citizens Advice Bureau or health and safety agency.