'I was yelled at today by a male coworker and clapped back. AITA for how I reacted?'

"I was yelled at today by a male co worker and clapped back. AITA?"

I was yelled at today by a male coworker and clapped back. Still unsure if I did the right thing. I'm part of a team of 6 developers and I'm the only woman in the team. We have several teams and I get along well with everyone. I'm usually thought of us as nice to everyone, and joking around etc. I've heard several co workers tell me that they enjoy working with me.

Today I got into an altercation with one of my male coworkers. He is stubborn and is known to have outbursts at people. Especially if we don't do exactly as he wants us to. He seems to struggle with nuances and gets mad at you if you don't solve something code related in the way that pleases him. He has been working at this company for over 10 years, whereas I've been here for a year so there's that.

I've never been micro-managed by someone as much as him and he is not even my manager or boss. In short, the altercation was this: I was handed a document with descriptions of how certain software components in our code base is intended to work.

Some of the descriptions are newly revised, so I have to rewrite code to fit the new description. The descriptions were unclear, so I decided to email the engineer who had written the document. He is very well versed into the system design of these components, we can call him M.

As I was typing my email, my male co worker exploded and was yelling "I KNOW THESE THINGS, YOU SHOULD ASK ME. STOP BOTHERING M". I'm usually cold in these situations and don't really care about his outbursts, but this one really caught me due to his usage of the words "bothering". I was typing a two sentence email, and he made it sound like I was sending M 100 of emails.

I looked back and responded "I'm sorry, are you my boss or something? I'm emailing him because I want his explanation since he has written this document". And he responded by saying "you're so rude, that's so rude of you" and I was like "yeah, then go and cry about it". When I said the last words, the entire landscape went quiet.

Usually no one stands up to this coworker and he is having angry outbursts without anyone stepping in and this is the first time I stood up for myself. Did I do something wrong in this situation? Like, is it normal to have these outbursts at coworkers? I'm second guessing myself all the time but I really feel like he is the unreasonable one.

The internet did not hold back one bit.

lbbl95 wrote:

Everybody saying YTA, please grow a spine will you! OP you did nothing wrong, these people need a reality check once in a while because everybody let’s him get away with his behavior since they are to much of a pushover.

No_Pater8894 wrote:

Okay you aren't TA. He went ballistic and has done it many times before. Telling him to cry about it is definitely not nearly as bad. BUT it wasn't a smart move. Instead what you should do is every time he lashes out, report it. This is the only way he will ever stop or be punished.

If not and it happens to you, then it's insanely clear that you don't want to be in this company. There is plenty of demand for people in IT, and a lot of companies are even desperate for female employees or over the moon to have them. Good luck with this nasty issue.

Taliesen_Chris wrote:

If your description of him is accurate, your team mates just cheered silently. It's going to create some short term drama, but I don't think you did anything major to worry about it. I would log this in a doc somewhere. Probably in a personal account. Email yourself, or what ever you have to do just as a CYA thing.

It sounds like he's the guy who wants to be your supervisor, and probably thinks he's doing it better. Let him go complain that he wanted to break chain of command and supervise you. Enjoy the show.

He will now, however, be incredibly difficult to work with. He's going to slow walk anything you need from him. Stonewall anything he can. And basically just make interactions with him difficult. So give him a chance to do the right thing, but then go over his head when he's holding you up before it completely lands on you.

Dear_Equialent9596 wrote:

NTA. Yelling in the workplace is never OK, no matter who does it. Your comments are nothing to tattle to HR about and they wouldn't care unless this guy has some sort of disability that they already know about. At most, depending in your relationship with your manager, you can mention that you were flippant with the dude who always flips out so they aren't surprised by it if anyone else mentions it.

fancy-kitten wrote:

You are definitely NTA but there may be a reason why nobody else stands up to this bully. Sometimes doing the right thing, that is totally justified, can have unfortunate consequences.

trixceratops wrote:

I find the phrase “can we speak about this later when you are less emotional?” To be quite useful in these situations. It’s also hilarious to use against adult men who scream at people at work.

It sounds polite and like you are trying to deescalate, but it also really points out that you think they are acting unprofessional and childish. NTA because yelling at coworkers is never okay and someone needs to point that out to him.