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.

前一阵子，我在上班时间和一位同事大吵了一架。多年来，这还是第一次发生这种事。我们吵得很凶，声音很大，而且站在办公室中间。起因是件很小的事——吵架这种事通常都是如此。但之后他说我无事生非。我说他试图掩盖事实。我们两个人站在一间大大的开放式办公室中央对骂。他气得脸色发紫，我也一样。

在我看来，他倔强、高傲、完全无法忍受。在他看来（我猜），我孤傲、刻薄、完全不可救药。所以我们吵了一架；然后，气得直发抖的我回到了自己的办公桌前。

传统观点是，在工作中吵架很糟糕，既疯狂又危险。盖洛普(Gallup)在美国进行的一项调查表明，在每5个办公室职员中，就有一个在过去6个月中对另一位同事非常气愤，以至于想把那个人揍一顿。

但实际的情况比这更复杂。吵架有好坏之分。那些总爱生气的人，不可能与其共事。但对于我们其他人而言，偶尔发发脾气（特别是如果以优雅的样子表现出来），则另当别论了。

我发脾气有两个好处。首先，这是送给其他所有人的一份礼物。单调的办公室生活被一场小小的剧目短暂打断了。人们都瞪大了眼睛；顿时，人们有了在咖啡机旁低声私语的内容。这对我也有好处，因为这让我的血液欢快地流过我的血管。

企业在生气问题上陷入了困境。一方面，它们告诉我们对自己的工作要充满激情。另一方面，它们期望我们一直要表现得很专业——意味着压抑我们的负面情绪。对我而言，激情和专业就像一对同床异梦的夫妻。

实际上，我从不赞同在工作中要充满“激情”这个想法。我在字典中查了这个词，它的意思是：强烈的性欲或耶稣受难时的痛苦。这两个解释都不能确切描绘普通白领的情绪。

然而，如果激情意味着专心于工作，我则完全符合。问题是，专心意味着有时当事情没有按计划进行时，你会感觉愤怒。

事实上，对我而言，工作中充满发怒的机会——这次起因是泡茶用的热水机坏了。当然，有一些愤怒管理方法，而专家们通常会作如下建议：

他们的第一个建议是深呼吸。我从没看到深呼吸能有什么大用。它只是让我活下来，仅此而已。

第二个是“正面的自言自语”——压抑你的负面情绪，对另外一方暂作“无罪推定”。这是个不合理的建议。为什么我应该在我高傲的同事显然有错时，却对他“无罪推定”？这种想法让我比之前更生气了。

第三个建议是宽恕。这也没用：我不会宽恕那个饮水机，也不会宽恕我的同事。

这条建议之所以毫无用处，原因是它试图消除愤怒。换言之，我们需要的建议是如何更好地生气。我上周的暴怒本可以有所改进。第一个问题是，我在工作中生气的次数不够多，因此，上次的吵架对我的规律而言太令人震惊了。每10年吵一次架太少了，每10分钟吵一次又太多。理想状态可能是每几个月吵一次。

接下来的问题是，我没有以合理的方式结束这场争吵。随后我到一个爱吵架的同事那里寻求建议。他说我应该发封电邮：“别再像那样和我说话，我需要立即得到道歉。”

我拒绝这么做，因为写这种电邮不是我的风格。我的风格不只是培养一生的嫉恨（并可能就此写篇专栏）。哪种方法更好？显然，那种好斗的方法更好。我的问题是，我是个爱生气的懦弱的人，而且不能坚持到底。

无论到哪里，道歉都是一种结束争吵的好方法。我认识一个非常高层的女士，她经常发脾气，但之后总是说一大堆“对不起”。她认为（她或许是对的），愤怒地大吵一架之后表示道歉，往往会让她的对手比吵架之前稍稍顺从于她。

好的生气还有其它原则。对下属大叫几乎永远不是个好方法。我这次是与平级吵架。第二，无论你多生气，都不要失控。不建议摔电脑键盘，因为这会让你看上去像个白痴，之后，你的电脑坏了，会让你更生气。

如果你个子矮小，而且是位男士，那就不要生气。矮于5英尺7英寸的男士在工作中发怒，就像在上演喜剧。这不公平，但事实就是如此。

让我最担心的人，不是那些爱生气的人，而是从不生气的人。我在十来岁时，曾经认识一位很镇静的男士，他曾经告诉我：永远不要发脾气，这让你看上去很脆弱。在他25岁上下时，他遭遇了一场灾难性的神经崩溃。可怜的人，现在他在亚利桑那州的收容所里。