I know I can’t control how my boss and co-workers treat me but I can control my reactions.

A manager sends four words with no greeting and no full stop, and by lunchtime it has been read six times and given three different meanings, none of them written down anywhere.

Most of what happens after a curt message happens inside you, in a room the sender never enters. That is the part with a door on it.

This is not about deciding not to mind. Minding is information, and often accurate — plenty of workplaces are genuinely badly run.

The control on offer is narrower and more useful than calm. It is what you do in the ninety seconds before you reply.