This happened few years ago. I was working with an IT company as business unit HR. I got a call on my cell, I sensed that something was wrong because normally I don't get calls after office hours. When I answered the phone, never did I expect that it would be such a horrible news. One of my associate who was working in Sydney committed suicide, he jumped off from the harbor and drowned to death. I could not move for next few minutes and was very shocked to hear the news. He was just 25-26 years old and he decided to take his own life at a very depressing time of his life. The reason for his suicide is unknown, there was no note or letter written. And it confounds me every time I think how it could have been prevented.
Emotional well being is very important and is directly related to the overall health of a person. The residual effect of one's personal problems will crawl its way into the employee who is at work as well. An average employee spends around 9 hours of his quality time in office. This is apart from the time spend for commutation, work done from home, discussing office matters with spouse or friends etc. That is more than 80% of your time. Now imagine if you are going through personal problems like:-
- Relationship issues - break up, divorce and legal battles related to it, parenting struggles
- Financial struggles like mortgage, huge loan, struggle to maintain a certain lifestyle
- Health related issues to self or near and dear ones
- Other problems which includes but not limited to sense of loneliness, depression, addictions, emotional baggage, substance abuse etc.
How does one person deal with such problems in life especially when you are spending majority of your time at office? You will never know what your colleague is going through unless you pay close attention to them. Nature has provided us with fight or flight response as a self defense mechanism. Some people hide away their problem and pretend to be jolly good even when they are crying for help inside. That is a flight response. Others may withdraw from everything trying to fight the battle on their own and they seldom win. Sometimes all one need is little bit of your time. Active listening, recognition and appreciation can be considered as the CPR which can literally resuscitate a person who has hit rock bottom.
Ted Bauer is a blogger and a well known twitter figure especially in the HR circle. Below is his one of his tweet which caught my attention:-
A kind word or a gesture can really make a difference no matter how irrelevant you might think it is.The single word 'Matters' at the end of the above tweet proves it. I know this because I have been there myself. A kind housekeeping staff in my previous office said "ellaam sheriyakum madam" (everything will be alright) when I was on verge of bursting into tears inside the restroom. It meant a lot to me because at that point I felt that no one appreciates what I do and I felt invisible. But this lady who was part of my Spoken English training class (a CSR initiative) noticed me and she said "excuse me ,good morning madam, elaam sheriyakum" we were teaching to exchange pleasantries and she was using the words she learned in the class. She told me that her kids and husband were so surprised that she has started using English words in their daily conversation. I made a difference, the whole volunteers of that CSR initiative has made a difference in that woman's life. That was all the motivation I needed that day.
It also make me wonder if somebody had said this same sentence to the 25 year old boy who committed suicide maybe he would be alive today. All he needed was someone to tell him like Aibileen said to Mae Mobly in the book The Help by Kathryn Stockett,
"You is kind, you is smart, you is IMPORTANT"
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