There was a clear instruction, simple and direct, and my junior had looked at it and apparently decided it was more of a suggestion. He offered no explanation, no apology and no visible sign that he understood there was even a situation to address.
I raised my voice with the kind of conviction that feels like authority at the time and shame about six hours later.
He took it standing and then went quiet for months. The bright, contributing, occasionally-annoying-but-always-engaged person I had known simply withdrew, like a plant that stops growing after a frost. He eventually left and the scar on both of us stayed long after he did.
For a long time, I told myself the outburst was justified. The instruction had been clear. Standards had to be upheld. I cycled through this argument with impressive efficiency every time the memory surfaced.
Then I read the Bhagavad Gita.
BG 16.2 lists ahimsa among the qualities of divine nature and says that any act destroying a person's confidence and halting their evolution is violence. BG 17.15 describes austerity of speech as words that are true, beneficial and inoffensive. I had delivered none of the three.
The Gita gave me the precise word I had been missing for years. What I had done was Himsa. Violence wearing a suit and holding a clipboard. Shouting builds fear, fear builds silence and silence fills organisations with people who have quietly resigned while still showing up every morning.
I was a fool, a well-meaning, standards-upholding, thoroughly convinced FOOL. The good news is I learned it early enough to do something about it. The Gita has a word for verbal abuse in the workplace. It is Himsa. And there is no asterisk after it.