Ms. Berry's article was interesting, but inaccurate re: tears in the workplace. If Ms. Berry was a middle manager in a corporate setting, she would see that tears happen instead of dialogue when "team members" don't want to play fair with others. I have seen women ( my teams have been predominately female) employ tears when they have been confronted with a valid response to unprofessional behavior on their part. Tears becomes a replacement for a valid discussion of differences and different approaches to problems that may arise in the workplace. When dealing with productivity standards and expectations that are gender-blind, women cannot resort to tears because there is no valid explanation for the lack of action or unprofessional behavior.

Ms. Berry writes: "Public tears feel liberating, an act of defiance against those who would subdue me with decorum and logic."

As a shameless defense of self-indulgence, emotional manipulation, and just plain rudeness, this essay convinced me that what we need more than anything in our society right now is a lot more decorum and logic.

It would have been all well and good if CB treated crying like spitting out gum in front of a colleague. it's over lets move on whats next on the agenda? The slimy implication throughout the article is that crying entitles you to additional doses of sympathy/understanding/perception of normalcy simply because you are the exhibitionist humanist type. And how in the name of all things Salon does a boss tearing up a memo equate to Katrina. The universal reaction of people crying during the act is "I am crying. Treat me differently as long as I continue to cry. I cannot be expected to work normally during this period of emotional upheaval" It is perhaps true that the emotions of the few are tainted by the manipulations of the many. If the muslims can live with it, so can the bonafide cryers.

Rarely have I read worse career advice than that encountered in Cecelie Berry's piece "Cheers for Tears". Crying in the workplace, except under extraordinary circumstances (i.e., you just found out your mother died), is completely uncalled for and inappropriate. This is just as true for men as it is for women (I have known more than my share of weepy male office mates, thank you). The reason is simple: work isn't about you. It's not where you go to let it all hang out. It's where you go to get things done, and help others get things done as well. This fact has a very powerful corrollary: your emotionality may prevent others from doing their best work, so keep a lid on it.

All of this goes double if you are a manager or a team lead. Your people will be monitoring your every mood swing for clues as to the health of the company, the security of their jobs, etc. If you are blubbering all over the place just because you feel blue, you will not only lose the confidence of your employees, but you will greatly upset them as well because they will provide their own dire interpretations for your tears. Being calm and composed in all circumstances is what helps your employees in turn weather the storms of corporat life. Not to see that is pure selfishness.

Berry comes at the question from a completely self-centered perspective, seeing the ban on crying in the workplace as an affront to her free expression of the endless wonder that is her personal emotional life. It never seems to enter her mind that in the workplace you have to think about others, not just yourself, and that you're not being paid to embark on a program of self-realization. May I suggest a nice long Joni Mitchell playlist on your iPod, and silence in the cubicle.

-Niall Lynch

Los Angeles, CA

I fully support Cecelie Berry's opinion that crying should be allowed in the workplace--so long as she feels it permissible that men express the intense emotions we sometimes feel in the way it comes natural to us. That would include (but not be limited to) shouting, cursing, punching walls or furniture, or even hitting someone when they really screw up. Sexual banter would be tolerated and even expected, as well as the occasional advance. After all, why limit our natural outbursts of emotions to one form? Or a form accepted by just one gender?

If this modest proposal causes her or other women to squirm in discomfort, so be it, because the alternative is a double standard as unacceptable in the workplace as the actions listed above. I'm not talking about crying on hearing of a death or accident, but using it as a negotiating tool. As a business owner, I can tell you that I could not accept a female employee bursting into tears to justify a bad sales quarter or sloppy work habits any more than I could accept that from a male counterpart. It embarasses co-workers and illustrates poor self-control. So, if Ms. Berry plans to work for herself, she can express all the range of emotions as she sees fit, but so long as women have to work with men a line between what is acceptable and unacceptable by the group must be drawn.

Whoa! Well from a theatre perspective I must completely disagree with this writers theory on the crying game.

The first emotions any young actor can honest express usually are anger and sadness. Crocodile tears flow quickly from young thespians. But as they mature in their craft what becomes evident is that these are merely surface and are usually just masking a deeper reality.

The crier does not need to listen to others. They are trapped in their own heads. They are just giving. Sometime I would like to say pitching, and the pitcher is only as good as their catcher. It is only if their supporting actors work very hard that an emotional crying scene moves the audience. In short crying is easy. Listening to someone crying is much more difficult.

Ultimately, crying is a selfish emotion and most workplace environments involve varying degrees of teamwork. Crying in the workplace dismisses the essential point that you are sharing an experience with a team. Instead of sharing the highs and lows the crier is selfishly taking the entire company "on their shoulders".

I not advocating that we suppress our feeling from our peers but I feel that the writer came from an extremely narcissistic position. Although an office full of Vince Gallo types characters would be interesting I do not believe it would work?

The reason I don't cry in certain environments is not because I am holding back my emotions but because I am comfortable enough to realize that crying is ego driven.

Essentially I would be selfishly creating drama for others to pick up the pieces. Maybe it�s our television culture. This artificial screen-to-screen talking head news and talk show formats that makes us all forget sometimes that it takes two to tango.

The subtext of "Cheers for Tears" was it is all about me. To hell with my peers. They must appreciate my talent.