One quiet midday in the office, just as everyone was dozing with eyes closed, a thunderous shout erupted: "Shut up!" To everyone's surprise, it wasn't the CEO but a usually gentle female colleague.Listening closely, it turned out she was ranting at the courier company on the phone—the urgent package promised for yesterday afternoon hadn't reached the client yet. "Do you even have any integrity?!"Shut the hell up! When will your lies ever end? Shit! How can companies like yours even exist in this world... At that moment, colleagues who had been resting their eyes perked up to listen. When the rant seamlessly switched between Chinese and English, suppressed laughter began to quietly spread. Honestly, hearing her rant made everyone feel a lot better.It wasn't that I lacked basic sympathy for that poor courier guy. It was more that after months of high-pressure work, emotions had built up too much. We desperately needed an outlet to vent our frustrations. Even if we couldn't blow up ourselves, listening to someone else do it was a kind of release. In this sea of cubicles, everyone wore polite smiles, striving to maintain professional decorum. Even taking a personal call meant consciously lowering your voice to a whisper.An occasional outburst makes you seem genuine, even endearing. But if you lash out indiscriminately and frequently, you might need to see a therapist. My former boss vented his frustrations by smoking. With a team of gentle, capable white-collar workers under him, he couldn't bring himself to yell at them, so he relied on chemicals to dissipate his irritation.My former-former boss excelled at slamming phones. He'd storm past desks in a rage, snatch someone's phone, and smash it onto the desk while hurling insults—then return to work as if nothing happened. The broken phone? Not his problem. Bosses venting? Fair game. After all, they decide who gets bonuses.Yet in real workplaces, subordinates occasionally pull off their own "heroic" outbursts against superiors. Take that same phone-smashing former boss, who encountered a feisty new subordinate. This employee spent tens of thousands on a marketing campaign without submitting budget details to his superior beforehand. When he walked into the boss's office with a reimbursement slip totaling fifty thousand, the boss's eyes widened.After a heated argument, the boss declared, "You've broken the rules. I can't approve this expense." The subordinate exploded, blurting out, "Damn it! I spent this money for the company's campaign! What right do you have to deny it?" The result? Both men were fuming, locked in a stalemate. Only after higher-level management intervened was the matter finally resolved.Fortunately, this company wasn't owned by that former boss, or else the new subordinate might have been fired on the spot. For a long time afterward, the two ignored each other, yet their superior-subordinate relationship persisted, and work had to continue. The bitter taste of that situation was probably known only to those involved. Why do people lose their temper?Psychologists suggest that as living costs soar, workplace tempers are growing increasingly volatile. Venting anger at others becomes a form of self-comfort, allowing individuals to convince themselves that their suffering stems from others' selfishness or the company's incompetence. From this perspective, frequent outbursts aren't signs of workplace ineptitude—they may be a tactic to highlight one's own diligence while belittling others' shortcomings.In fact, high performers are more prone to emotional outbursts because they hold others to the same exacting standards they set for themselves. Is venting ever justified? There are no absolutes—it depends entirely on whether it achieves the desired outcome or resolves the problem.When timed and directed appropriately, outbursts can sometimes be an effective path to victory. For senior professionals, measured outbursts can help establish authority. If a new subordinate is uncooperative, a "selective outburst" might be the quickest solution. If you're a new hire, though, forget it—even venting at the courier service isn't your place.