I worked at a company in my early twenties where I had a similar experience. It was a small company owned by a woman who had been married for over 20 years before having her first child. Unfortunately for her, she was in her late 40′s and the hormonal imbalance her pregnancy caused made her an unreasonable person to be around, specifically for the men in the office. The company was located in a renovated historical home which was lovely, but it was tight quarters and voices carried regardless of how hard we all tired to speak using our “inside voices.” Here’s the crazy part, every day the owner would take one of the men into her corner office and scream at them on the top of her lungs, throw objects at them and was known to even physically strike them with a closed fist. This woman absolutely scared the daylights out of me. When I saw the male du jour of her abuse leave her office after her tirade, they looked pale, confused and beaten down. Eventually, she came to the realization that she needed to close her business because she just couldn’t manage her emotions and work-life balance at the same time.

Thank goodness we have labor laws in place today to protect employees.