Recently, I had this weird experience for the first time at the workplace. The fire alarm went off, and specifically it didn't ring at my side of the building; as a result, I was unaware of any incident happening. I stayed while everyone had gone out of the building in the meantime. My supervisor couldn't see me in the team, and he came out after the thing was sorted. He came angry and asked me why I hadn't come out with a straight confrontation: "You always do things your way. Why didn't you follow the procedure?" Previously, if something like that happened, I would be the first one to respond to the team. And I told what had happened, and he just came straight at me. Later, it felt like a showoff pulled being responsible, but it was more of a pressure of authenticity built around his work persona. Totally understandable.
In simple terms, I responded with, "You can't shout at me." I was right; the fire alarm system was broken in the building. Also during the other fire alarm, "he was the last one to come," because he couldn't listen to the fire alarm. How ironic.
I understand in a workforce, people go through perceived circumstances that burst the anger based on the hierarchical pressure that I could be unaware of. So, when the problem is indicated, in a professional setting, it comes from an obligatory condition to react to the circumstances. That would imply 'taking care of things.' But at what cost?
Letting a cool-off period was important; I think it does come into practice when something like that happens. And my only line of reaction was not to be reactive in a professional setting. During that bully, I took him in the corner and discussed and confronted him for his shouting. Later, the manager came in for a discussion, and I sorted it out with him.
The way of mitigating the reaction to such a response is to initiate a formal process because shouting doesn't reflect a true solution in its essence. I could have gone a bit further with the HR team, but when things cooled off when I was aware of the situation, I refrained from taking any bold actions.
It's good now. I realized the best response to such incidents is as little reaction as possible, just to pass out the information to the right authority. It didn't shrink my self-respect but gained more.
what would you have done under such circumstances, or have you faced similar incidents?