Sean Goedecke wrote a good essay called You Should Never Be Angry at Work. The strategic core is right, and I agree with most of it. But there’s a gap in it that I keep running into, and I think it’s worth naming: the advice assumes anger is a choice. For a lot of us, it isn’t.
Let me start with the parts I agree with, because they’re genuinely good.
The strategy is sound
The “networks route around damage” framing is the most useful thing in the essay. An angry colleague becomes a problem to be managed, not a professional helping you manage problems. And it’s a self-reinforcing spiral: angry engineers get left out of decisions, which makes them angrier, which pushes them further from the spaces where decisions happen.
That’s real. I’ve seen it. I’ve been it.
And the “caring as a vertical tube” model — too little caring drains out and you become a useless coaster, too much overflows and you become the angry engineer everyone routes around — that’s a genuinely useful mental framework. The sweet spot is real, and finding it makes you both more effective and more pleasant to work with.
The “anger is a local maximum” insight is the best part. Anger feels like proof that you’re working on something that matters. It feels like you’re the one who cares, surrounded by coasters. But it’s only a local maximum — you get more done, and have more real impact, when you’re not emotionally volatile.
All of that is right. Here’s where it breaks down.
The advice assumes anger is voluntary
Goedecke’s solution is to “care the exact right amount” — have hobbies, a family, perspective. Or to “care about different things” — align your interests with the organization’s.
That’s a great plan for a neurotypical brain that can dial emotional investment up and down like a volume knob.
I have autism and ADHD. My brain does not work that way.
Rejection sensitivity is not a choice. The ADHD brain doesn’t calmly decide to feel a sting when it’s dismissed, overruled, or ignored. It reacts — before cognition, before any rational “this doesn’t matter in the grand scheme” reframe can kick in. The anger isn’t a considered response to a technical disagreement. It’s a nervous system firing before the thinking part of the brain even gets a say.
Justice sensitivity is not a choice either. When I’ve decided something is wrong — a bad call, an unfair process, a technical decision that’s going to bite us — I can’t just decide to care less about it. Hyperfocus locks onto it. The “care about different things” lever Goedecke suggests isn’t one I can pull on command. It’s not that I won’t let go; it’s that the grip isn’t voluntary.
So when the essay says “you should never be angry at work,” my honest reaction is: I’d love to. My brain had other plans.
The version that actually works for me
Here’s the reframe I’ve landed on, and it’s the part I’d add to the essay:
You can’t always control the feeling. You can control the expression.
The strategic advice — don’t show anger, keep your value visible through output not emotion, don’t get routed around — is still right. That part is actionable for everyone, including me. The mistake is thinking I have to not feel the anger to follow it. I don’t. I have to not display it in ways that get me excluded from the rooms where decisions happen.
That’s a meaningful difference. It means:
- I don’t have to gaslight myself into “I don’t care about this.” I can care a lot — I just can’t show it in a meeting.
- I can feel the spike of rejection sensitivity and let it pass without acting on it. The feeling is information, not an instruction.
- I can save the actual anger for a written, considered response later — where it comes out as a sharp argument instead of a blowup.
Goedecke actually gestures at this with his “a little bit of professional anger” section — you can show frustration deliberately if you can drop back to friendly mode at will. The difference for me is that “drop back to friendly mode at will” isn’t a toggle I have. So I don’t play that game. I just don’t show it, and I write the sharp version down instead.
The bottom line
The essay is right that anger at work is toxic and that you should manage it. Where it falls short is treating anger as something you can simply choose to stop feeling — which presumes a level of emotional control that isn’t equally available to everyone.
For me, the honest version of the advice is: you can’t always stop the anger. You can stop the damage. Care as much as you want — just don’t let it leak out in the rooms where it gets you routed around. Save it for the written word, where it becomes your sharpest tool instead of your biggest liability.
That’s a version of “never be angry at work” I can actually follow.