For some time, veterinary professionals have been hooked on venting, the process of blowing off steam to a coworker. But venting is counterproductive, habit-forming, and revealing of much deeper personal and professional issues that should command your attention. Here are some things to consider the next time you want to air out your inner gasbag.

If It’s So Bad, Why Does It Feel So Good?

Venting is often a much-needed release of tension, frustration, anger, and worry that has been building up for hours, days, months or years. It’s like a deep breathing exercise, but with volume and withering commentary. Done right (see below), it can be an effective de-stressor; but done incorrectly, as is usually the case, it comes with what the army calls collateral damage, harm done to nearby innocents. It’s the equivalent of trying to explain your pain to another by giving her a swift kick in the leg, a kind of, “See how it feels?”

You Don’t Want To Vent, You Want Reassurance

Though venters usually sound powerful and in control, they are really afraid, insecure, and…don’t vomit in your mouths… probably in need of a hug.  The urge to vent is a cry from those who feel as though things are slipping beyond their control, or who feel that their safety (or that of others) is caught up in some runaway current. Their ranting sounds mad and powerful; it may even be insightful and eloquent, but at the center of it all is anxiousness and a need to be understood. Venting may work in the short terms to exhaust the tension you are feeling, but in the absence of getting to the real root of things, the tension is likely to return, and soon you’ll be right back to trying to sound like you know what you’re yelling about.

It’s Usually Based On Fiction

The things that work us into a lather are often all inside our head. The printer goes down, Joanne your coworker goes MIA, three clients stack up at the desk, and all lights on the phone start to blink at once. You need to vent, not because you have failed, but because you feel as though you will fail.  But that’s all just defeatist talk. This scenario is every bit as much a chance to prove your fabulousness, as it is a chance to be revealed a flop. Venting, in this case, isn’t alleviating you of anything; it’s just supporting a fake narrative that you will bomb. If you must vent in cases like these, choose a person that will reassure you that you will triumph, not tank.

It May Be A Sign Of Laziness

Many of us need to vent because the system in which we work is broken. Again and again, it sets us up for failure and we feel like we need to fly off the handle. But venting about such a predicament may be just your way of sidestepping your responsibility to step up, step in, and fix things on a more global scale.

It Can Backfire

Those that don’t care about you don’t want to hear you complain. They want you to get to work, preferably with your mouth closed.  Venting to people that don’t care about what you’re going through can leave you feeling more alienated and alone than when you started.

It Can Make Things Worse

What if you actually have the courage to vent to the person that’s the source of your frustration? “Do you have to be such a jerk all the time, Dr. Gibbons, or do you just save it up for when I’m on the schedule?”  If Dr. Gibbons is sitting on his own powder keg of anxiety, venting to Dr. Gibbons isn’t going to make you better; it’s going to make you unemployed.

It’s Probably A Warning Sign You Need Help

You’re not really crying about the latest callout, the nasty look that Dr. Watson gave you in treatment, or what your supervisor said to you in the break room. You were ready to cry long before you set foot in this building and this isn’t the first time you’ve decided to loosen up by losing it. Your fuse was lit and sparking when you filled out the application for employment. Get help. You are thinking, acting, feeling, and responding based on all kinds of subconscious urges and neuroses.  We all are!  Explore what they are with an experienced therapist, sort through them, and take responsibility for your happiness.

Vent For Help and Perspective

I get it. You’re not a raving lunatic. You may need to vent because you find yourself in an-honest-to-goodness pickle and you don’t know what to do, but make mental-healthy choices.  Don’t seek out someone that is going to agree that the world is conspiring to make your life miserable.  Look for someone that can bring perspective and problem solving to the situation.  Use venting as a route to a solution, not just a chance to smolder. Remember what Yoda told you on your first day of Jedi training, “Anger…A path to the dark side of the Force, it is.”

Insightful Leadership Can Help

Most of us don’t work at our jobs; we work at trying to make our jobs work.  That is to say the workflow, tools, team members (sometimes), facility, schedule and process by which we try to get the already-nearly-impossible job of veterinary medicine done are a hindrance, not a help.  Leaders should recognize that one reason why employees are so often ready to blow is because our work systems also blow.

Veterinary practice teams can usually be put into two silos: those that focus on client and patient care, and those that focus on how to care for clients and patients.  Protocols, paperwork, chart audits, and sign-offs have their place in safe, great medicine, but when paperwork starts to supersede patient care, we risk disengagement, cheat our team members of work that’s more fulfilling, and prime them for the need to vent.

There is empirical evidence that team members who are allowed to care directly for clients and patients are happier, turn over less, are more successful at their jobs, earn their employers more money, have better health, and have higher job security.  Yes, venting, when done right, can have a positive impact on your life, but there are richer ores to be mined in reducing roadblocks to great patient care, to healthy team member interaction, and to one’s own personal responsibility for good mental health.

Additional Reading

Difficult Conversations

I Heard Your Approach To Gossip Sucks

Venting is Bad. Here’s Why.