Ever hear of  “desk rage?” It was a new one to me, but there it was, a Reuters news story in Financial Week  (a sister publication of Workforce Management) and it sounded pretty serious.

Here’s what caught my eye: “Anger in the workplace—employees and employers who are grumpy, insulting, short-tempered or worse—is shockingly common and likely growing as Americans cope with woes of rising costs, job uncertainty or overwhelming debt, experts say…Nearly half of U.S. workers in America report yelling and verbal abuse on the job, with roughly a quarter saying it has driven them to tears, research has shown.”

Sounds like a new trend, no? Well to be honest, no. I’m not sure what motivated Reuters, a well-respected news service, to suddenly tout desk rage as a problem as serious as road rage, but this is a “trend” story with no real trend to speak of.

In other words, the Reuters story has no real news event or current evidence to back the conclusion that desk rage is some huge, new workforce problem. There’s no new evidence, survey, poll or specific current incident to peg it to. Everything in the Reuters story is second-hand news—stuff that could have been cited and written last month or last year.

But, summer is a slow time of year, especially in the news business. So, don’t be surprised if you hear about desk rage on the radio, or see it touted on your Yahoo home page, or read about it here, there and everywhere.

As a longtime editor, I see this in the media all the time, and it makes me cringe. There are lots of interpersonal issues that flow through our modern workplace, and a lot of them center on bullying bosses and out-of-control employees.

Violence, both verbal and otherwise, is a huge workplace issue, and that makes me wonder—why do we need to manufacture a bogus trend like “desk rage” to get people to take it seriously?