First Post: Anger

What's your relationship with anger?  

I feel like I don't get angry incredibly often but when I do, it's usually for particular reasons.
When I was growing up, I definitely held my feelings in when I got angry because I wanted to keep the peace and not "stir the pot".
I do remember various times in school when I would get in trouble for getting in fights with other kids in school, sometimes in physical altercations. I think I was letting my feelings boiling over into an eventual fist fight, and that doesn't seem healthy. I was bullied a lot in school, especially in middle school. I started meeting with a therapist in middle school, and talking my issues out helped me transition out of the cycle that I was causing by bottling up my emotions.
When high school started, it seemed that most of my classmates had matured to the point where most of the bullying had stopped. I even slowly became friends with some kids that I had problems with before, and the situation only got better as we got closer to graduation.
I still think that I was largely non-confrontational when it came to how I dealt with my anger.

When I entered college, I had a lot more freedom of choosing what people I was exposed to and the activities I did. I'll admit that I probably focused too much on my social activities and not enough on my school work. I eventually took a break from school and started working a job in food service, and that's where a major change in how I deal with anger changed.
In my food service job, I suddenly had to deal with a large amount of people with a varying range of temperaments. I could rely on my managers to deal with particularly challenging customers, but I lost that resource when I moved up the ranks at my store and became a manager myself.
I had only been working at the store for about six months, so many of the employees that I was then in charge of had been working there longer than me. I had to take control of the store and show that I was in control, while still working in a professional manner. It was also important to me that I always showed respect to my employees. 
Working this job taught me a lot of skills that I have carried over into theatre. Not only do I have more experiences in dealing with an array of personalities, I learned that I have to choose when to make my needs important, including if I make my anger known to those around me.

I can think to a situation about a week ago where I was in a group of friends, gossiping. Someone in the group made a big deal about telling me in particular that I should keep my mouth shut, and "if they hear that I told anyone about this", etc. I had an internal conversation with myself: "Why am I being singled out?", "Am I untrustworthy?", "I am not untrustworthy, and have no recollection of being that way!", "Should I be mad about this?", "Yes, I'm mad. I'm going to do something about it." 
I calmly called my accuser out. I asked them why they were singling me out. I asked them to give me an example of the last time I was untrustworthy. They were unable to think of a reason why they singled me out and apologized. I was no longer angry.

I usually get angry when someone I know isn't doing their job to the best of their abilities. If a person has every resource and reason to succeed and doesn't due to laziness or a similar reason, I'm not happy. 
I also don't like when people belittle something just because they don't fully understand. Of course there are other little things that get on my nerves just like everyone else, but sometimes you have to ask yourself if those things are getting mad about.
I usually deal with my anger towards lazy people by being that much more of a professional, hard worker towards them and around them. I passive aggressively hope that they notice how shitty of a job they are doing in comparison, and will shape up.

I feel pretty good about how I deal with my anger, and am glad I have a great outlet like theatre to help work out issues or at least distract me from them.