Revenge Is a Dish Best Not Served at All

Editor's note: If you have a pressing business-etiquette question for Miss Conduct, please send her an email.

No fewer than three major studio films this fall focus on revenge -- The Brave One, Reservation Road and Death Sentence -- but in post-9/11 America, we don't have to look to fiction to see how easily a sense of powerlessness can become pathological.

Now, vendetta is an Italian word, and as the Corleone clan knows, revenge is a dish best served cold.

That chilling wisdom might seem counterintuitive, because revenge even at work is such a hot pursuit. Unfortunately, this heat means that when we channel Clint Eastwood, we shoot first, usually from the hip, and ask questions later. This rarely works, though, because a sloppy response rebounds far worse upon the vengeful than upon the target. (Plus, you sound stupid saying "make my day" constantly in an office setting.) ...