How to repair your reputation at work after crying or losing control
Uncontrollable emotional outbursts and burnout at work damage how colleagues perceive you and create deep professional anxiety. When these moments cross professional boundaries, it leaves people unsure how to face their team the next day or rebuild trust with management.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- The most recent one is from September 2026.
- It is not one crowd: 5 people on Reddit and 1 on Stack Exchange ran into the same thing.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1leaving the incident in the past and not mentioning it againDid this help you?
- 2letting others cover a bit more of the workload to reduce stressDid this help you?
- 3venting frustrations to friends outside of work instead of coworkersDid this help you?
- 4starting therapy to manage burnout and emotionsDid this help you?
- 5seeking help from school mental health personnel or counselorsDid this help you?
- 6utilizing the school system's Employee Assistance Plan (EAP) or health insurance for therapyDid this help you?
- 7talking to administration to explain past history and steps being taken to handle itDid this help you?
- 8leaving the room to regain composureDid this help you?
- 9telling oneself not to take the behavior personallyDid this help you?
- 10relying on colleagues for peer support and shared experiencesDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Just sharing now that I’ve cooled off from the day and have some perspective that this career is an absolute bear.”source ↗
“For me, it was being cursed at by a student who I taught all last year and thought we had a solid relationship.”source ↗
“I had to leave the room to get myself together, I was so shaken by it.”source ↗
“Please be kind I am really struggling today.”source ↗
“A huge trigger for me is bullying. I witnessed a boy bully a girl in first period. Wrote him up, but I felt so heartbroken I didn’t know what to do.”source ↗
“In between second and third I tell myself I’ll have a little cry and move on. But the tears just won’t stop. I become hysterical. I just cannot stop crying.”source ↗
“Girl these teenagers. I cried today too!”source ↗
“I remember a student burped in my face at the front of the class and that really shocked me. So much so that I actually left the class as the tears came out of no where.”source ↗
“I cried the other day too- I was already feeling sick, and definitely should have called out. I can normally brush off attitude, but I had a student snap at me, and I just broke down.”source ↗
“For a while I have been feeling burnt out and overwhelmed at work. I feel like this is affecting me personally and how I'm perceived in the office.”source ↗
“It was unprofessional for me to have confided this, and I believe that this conversation likely got back to my boss. Is there a way I can recover from this professionally, make wiser choices, and also manage my burnout better?”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 6How to get back to work after a toxic job destroyed your confidence
- 5How to recover mentally after shutting down a business
- 3How to fix credit damage after fleeing domestic abuse
- 4Why do I have to confess my mistakes at work?
- 3How to restart your career after a long gap
- 2How do I recover my career after working in a small HR role?