Last week, for the first time in many years, I had a big, shouty, stand-up row with a colleague at work. It started off quite small, as these things often do. But then he accused me of being sloppy. I accused him of trying to cover something up. The two of us stood in the middle of a large, open-plan office and let rip. His complexion was deepest crimson and so was mine.

From my point of view he was intransigent, patronising and utterly insufferable. From his point of view – and I'm guessing here – I was superior, sarcastic and utterly toxic. So we fought for a bit and later, trembling with rage, I returned to my desk.

The conventional view is that rage at work is bad, as well as being mad and dangerous. A Gallup poll in the US showed that one in five office workers has been so furious with a colleague in the past six months that they would have liked to hit the other person.

But the true picture is more complicated than that. There is good rage and bad rage. Someone who gets angry all the time is impossible to work with. But for the rest of us, occasional bursts of anger, especially if performed with panache, have much to be said for them.

My rage attack had two advantages. First, it was a gift to everyone else. Humdrum office life was briefly interrupted with a little drama. Eyes popped, and suddenly there was something to whisper about at the coffee machine. It was also good for me as it got my blood coursing agreeably through my veins.

Companies have got themselves into a muddle over anger. On one hand they tell us to feel passionate about our work. On the other they expect us to be professional at all times – which means keeping our negative emotions under lock and key. Passionate and professional strike me as odd bedfellows.

Actually, I've never really gone along with the idea of passion at work. I've looked the word up in the dictionary and it means: a strong sexual desire or the suffering of Jesus at the crucifixion. Neither of these quite captures the mood of the average white-collar worker.

However, if what passion means is minding about work, I'm all for it. The trouble is that minding means sometimes feeling furious when things don't go according to plan.

Indeed, for me work is one long rage opportunity – starting with the fact that the machine that dispenses hot water for tea is on the blink. Clearly some management of rage is in order, and here is what the experts usually suggest.

Their first tip is to breathe. I've never been able to see what the big deal about breathing is. It keeps me alive, but that's as far as it goes.

Their second is “positive self-talk” – to squash your negative feelings and give the other person the benefit of the doubt. This is dodgy advice. Why should I give my patronising colleague the benefit of the doubt when he was so clearly in the wrong? The very thought makes me much crosser than I was before.

The third tip is forgiveness. Again, no dice: I don't forgive the water machine and I don't forgive my colleague.

The reason this advice is so hopeless is that it is trying to eliminate anger. Instead, what we all need advice on is how to do anger better. My outburst last week could have been improved on. The first problem is that I don't get angry at work often enough, so last week's row was too shocking to my system. Once every 10 years is too little. Once every 10 minutes is too much. The ideal might be about once every couple of months.

The next problem was that I didn't end it properly. Afterwards I sought the advice of a pugnacious colleague. He said I should send an e-mail saying: “Don't ever speak to me like that again, and I demand an apology at once.”

I rejected this because such e-mails are not my style. My style is more to nurse a lifelong grudge (and possibly write a column about it). Which approach is better? Clearly the pugnacious one is. My problem was that I was an anger wimp and didn't follow through.

Apologies all round are a good way of ending it. A fairly senior woman I know often has bad-tempered outbursts but always says a large and generous sorry afterwards. She reckons (and she may be right) that the effect of a furious shout followed by an apology often leaves her victim marginally better disposed to her than before the rage attack.

There are other principles for good anger. It is almost never good to shout at a subordinate. Mine was a row of equals. Second, however angry you are don't let it spill out of control. Throwing the computer keyboard is not advisable as it makes you look an idiot and then your computer doesn't work, making you crosser still.

If you are small and male, anger is to be avoided. A man under 5' 7” who loses it at work just looks comic. This isn't fair, but that's the way it goes.

The people who worry me most at work are not the people who get angry but the ones who never do. A calm man I knew in my teens once told me: never lose your temper, it makes you look weak. He had a catastrophic nervous breakdown in his mid-20s, poor man, and is now in sheltered accommodation in Arizona.

前一陣子，我在上班時(shí)間和一位同事大吵了一架。多年來，這還是第一次發(fā)生這種事。我們吵得很兇，聲音很大，而且站在辦公室中間。起因是件很小的事——吵架這種事通常都是如此。但之后他說我無事生非。我說他試圖掩蓋事實(shí)。我們兩個(gè)人站在一間大大的開放式辦公室中央對(duì)罵。他氣得臉色發(fā)紫，我也一樣。

在我看來，他倔強(qiáng)、高傲、完全無法忍受。在他看來（我猜），我孤傲、刻薄、完全不可救藥。所以我們吵了一架；然后，氣得直發(fā)抖的我回到了自己的辦公桌前。

傳統(tǒng)觀點(diǎn)是，在工作中吵架很糟糕，既瘋狂又危險(xiǎn)。蓋洛普(Gallup)在美國進(jìn)行的一項(xiàng)調(diào)查表明，在每5個(gè)辦公室職員中，就有一個(gè)在過去6個(gè)月中對(duì)另一位同事非常氣憤，以至于想把那個(gè)人揍一頓。

但實(shí)際的情況比這更復(fù)雜。吵架有好壞之分。那些總愛生氣的人，不可能與其共事。但對(duì)于我們其他人而言，偶爾發(fā)發(fā)脾氣（特別是如果以優(yōu)雅的樣子表現(xiàn)出來），則另當(dāng)別論了。

我發(fā)脾氣有兩個(gè)好處。首先，這是送給其他所有人的一份禮物。單調(diào)的辦公室生活被一場(chǎng)小小的劇目短暫打斷了。人們都瞪大了眼睛；頓時(shí)，人們有了在咖啡機(jī)旁低聲私語的內(nèi)容。這對(duì)我也有好處，因?yàn)檫@讓我的血液歡快地流過我的血管。

企業(yè)在生氣問題上陷入了困境。一方面，它們告訴我們對(duì)自己的工作要充滿激情。另一方面，它們期望我們一直要表現(xiàn)得很專業(yè)——意味著壓抑我們的負(fù)面情緒。對(duì)我而言，激情和專業(yè)就像一對(duì)同床異夢(mèng)的夫妻。

實(shí)際上，我從不贊同在工作中要充滿“激情”這個(gè)想法。我在字典中查了這個(gè)詞，它的意思是：強(qiáng)烈的性欲或耶穌受難時(shí)的痛苦。這兩個(gè)解釋都不能確切描繪普通白領(lǐng)的情緒。

然而，如果激情意味著專心于工作，我則完全符合。問題是，專心意味著有時(shí)當(dāng)事情沒有按計(jì)劃進(jìn)行時(shí)，你會(huì)感覺憤怒。

事實(shí)上，對(duì)我而言，工作中充滿發(fā)怒的機(jī)會(huì)——這次起因是泡茶用的熱水機(jī)壞了。當(dāng)然，有一些憤怒管理方法，而專家們通常會(huì)作如下建議：

他們的第一個(gè)建議是深呼吸。我從沒看到深呼吸能有什么大用。它只是讓我活下來，僅此而已。

第二個(gè)是“正面的自言自語”——壓抑你的負(fù)面情緒，對(duì)另外一方暫作“無罪推定”。這是個(gè)不合理的建議。為什么我應(yīng)該在我高傲的同事顯然有錯(cuò)時(shí)，卻對(duì)他“無罪推定”？這種想法讓我比之前更生氣了。

第三個(gè)建議是寬恕。這也沒用：我不會(huì)寬恕那個(gè)飲水機(jī)，也不會(huì)寬恕我的同事。

這條建議之所以毫無用處，原因是它試圖消除憤怒。換言之，我們需要的建議是如何更好地生氣。我上周的暴怒本可以有所改進(jìn)。第一個(gè)問題是，我在工作中生氣的次數(shù)不夠多，因此，上次的吵架對(duì)我的規(guī)律而言太令人震驚了。每10年吵一次架太少了，每10分鐘吵一次又太多。理想狀態(tài)可能是每幾個(gè)月吵一次。

接下來的問題是，我沒有以合理的方式結(jié)束這場(chǎng)爭(zhēng)吵。隨后我到一個(gè)愛吵架的同事那里尋求建議。他說我應(yīng)該發(fā)封電郵：“別再像那樣和我說話，我需要立即得到道歉。”

我拒絕這么做，因?yàn)閷戇@種電郵不是我的風(fēng)格。我的風(fēng)格不只是培養(yǎng)一生的嫉恨（并可能就此寫篇專欄）。哪種方法更好？顯然，那種好斗的方法更好。我的問題是，我是個(gè)愛生氣的懦弱的人，而且不能堅(jiān)持到底。

無論到哪里，道歉都是一種結(jié)束爭(zhēng)吵的好方法。我認(rèn)識(shí)一個(gè)非常高層的女士，她經(jīng)常發(fā)脾氣，但之后總是說一大堆“對(duì)不起”。她認(rèn)為（她或許是對(duì)的），憤怒地大吵一架之后表示道歉，往往會(huì)讓她的對(duì)手比吵架之前稍稍順從于她。

好的生氣還有其它原則。對(duì)下屬大叫幾乎永遠(yuǎn)不是個(gè)好方法。我這次是與平級(jí)吵架。第二，無論你多生氣，都不要失控。不建議摔電腦鍵盤，因?yàn)檫@會(huì)讓你看上去像個(gè)白癡，之后，你的電腦壞了，會(huì)讓你更生氣。

如果你個(gè)子矮小，而且是位男士，那就不要生氣。矮于5英尺7英寸的男士在工作中發(fā)怒，就像在上演喜劇。這不公平，但事實(shí)就是如此。

讓我最擔(dān)心的人，不是那些愛生氣的人，而是從不生氣的人。我在十來歲時(shí)，曾經(jīng)認(rèn)識(shí)一位很鎮(zhèn)靜的男士，他曾經(jīng)告訴我：永遠(yuǎn)不要發(fā)脾氣，這讓你看上去很脆弱。在他25歲上下時(shí)，他遭遇了一場(chǎng)災(zāi)難性的神經(jīng)崩潰。可憐的人，現(xiàn)在他在亞利桑那州的收容所里。