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A
Grieving J&J Employee And Cubicle Photos
By Ed Silverman // September 6th, 2011 // 7:03 am
In 2003, Cecelia Mavica Ingraham, an administrative assistant in a marketing
department at Johnson & Johnsons’ Ortho McNeil Pharmaceutical unit,
learned that her teenaged daughter had acute lymphocytic leukemia. By May
2005, her daughter had passed away, but a problem arose in the workplace
for some 18 months, Ingraham continued to openly grieve, and displayed
photos and her daughter’s ballet slippers in her cubicle, allegedly making some
co workers uncomfortable.
And so the head of her department met with Ingraham to say that several complaints had been
lodged and so the pictures and slippers had to be removed, because the cumulative effect was
disrupting the workplace to the point where others would try to avoid speaking with Ingraham. And
the department head, Carl DeStefanis, told her she should “no longer speak of (her) daughter
because she is dead.” In response, she asked him if was telling her to “act (as) if (she) did not exist.”
And he said yes.
“He told me that speaking of her and having her pictures in my cubicle was a disturbance to the
work environment and also that’s why people avoided me,” according to court documents. “You
have to take those pictures down because she’s dead, your daughter is dead, and it bothers people.
They have a problem with it. And you can no longer speak about her…When they come to my
cubicle they’re bothered by it. They’re disturbed by her pictures because she’s dead and he kept on
saying that. Again, I was in shock.”
Ingraham left work that afternoon “crying” and “sobbing,” and never returned. Over the next few
days, she visited her cardiologist for heart palpitations and subsequently was treated with an
angioplasty procedure and medication. She took short term disability leave and eventually resigned
from her job. She later filed a lawsuit claiming the J&J unit caused her to suffer severe emotional
distress.
But last week, a New Jersey appeals court upheld an earlier decision by a state court to dismiss the
lawsuit. “Although plaintiff’s version of the meeting would allow the jury to view DeStefanis as
insensitive and, perhaps negligent of plaintiff’s vulnerability in her continuing bereavement, the
conduct described does not meet the requisite standard to support a claim of intentional infliction
of emotional distress,” the panel wrote.
The evidence was not sufficient to demonstrate that “DeStefanis acted intentionally or recklessly to
cause her severe emotional distress. Nothing in the record would allow a rational jury to find that
DeStefanis intended to cause plaintiff emotional distress…His purpose was to address a workplace
issue of efficiency and co worker relationships.
“To satisfy the element of recklessness, plaintiff must prove that defendant acted “in deliberate
disregard of a high degree of probability that emotional distress will follow…There is no question
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KevinSeptember 6th, 2011
7:16 am
originalindustry insiderSeptember 6th, 2011
9:42 am
ElmoreSeptember 6th, 2011
9:44 am
originalindustry insiderSeptember 6th, 2011
10:18 am
that any reasonable employer should know that telling a grieving mother not to talk about her
deceased daughter might cause emotional distress, but a severe reaction was not a risk that one
should predict. An employer is not charged under tort law with a duty to avoid all emotional distress
to employees, only such distress that is extreme, outrageous, and ‘ utterly intolerable in a civilized
community.’ ”
Here is the ruling.
Comments
Absolutely ridiculous. Even in her own statement, she only described the
manager being “cold” and “insensitive”, yet she is pulling the emotional
distress card. She demanded to know who the complainers were, but her
manager is not obligated to give these names out.
Companies are allowed to regulate cubicle content since they own the
property. Most apply a “reasonableness” standard when it comes to cubicle
decoration. Under such standard a compromise could have been reached. For
example, you can buy picture frames that are glazed in such a way that you
can see the picture if you’re sitting in front of it, but a passerby cannot.
Similar principle to an LCD screen.
Unfortunately these things will continue as long as we have a male
dominated pharma culture. Case in point, a male employee in a previous
pharma company had a full sized copy of the famous Farah Fawcett pinup
photo (see below) hung in his cubicle for all to see. It made some of the
female employees uncomfortable, and there were complaints, but while I wasthere the employee was never required to remove it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B0038YCY5O/ref=dp_image_0?
ie=UTF8&n=1055398&s=home garden
So much for emotional intelligence in the workplace. Does J&J have a
requirement that all photos be of live people? It seems to me the issue wasn’t
photos, but the fact that the mother had built a kind of memorial that people
felt they couldn’t avoid.
It could all have been handled so much better. She might have been told that
while her co workers sympathized, they felt uncomfortable with how often
conversations turned from work to her daughter–and then maybe suggest
grief counseling?
As to the photos and shoes, maybe put the shoes in a drawer, while keeping
the photos out, if everyone else was allowed photos.
Elmore, you said it right. A Pfizer friend said that they are now taking
training sessions on ddeveloping emotional intelligence, which is justcoroporate jargon for empathy. Moreover, EI is something you either have or
don’t have, and can’t be taught.
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Steve_McQueenSeptember 6th, 2011
12:04 pm
KevinSeptember 6th, 2011
12:19 pm
Steve_McQueenSeptember 6th, 2011
12:26 pm
ol crankySeptember 6th, 2011
1:11 pm
ChicNotGeekSeptember 6th, 2011
1:43 pm
originalindustry insiderSeptember 6th, 2011
2:25 pm
Can you imagine trying to sue J&J in New Jersey. They essentially own the
F*cking State. She’d have been better off coming to work with a baseball bat
and beating the living sh*t out of her supervisor. Better yet she should have
just taken an automatic weapon and completely leveled the whole floor.
What’s next? Suing a doctor for bringing you the news that your loved one is
sick or dead in a “cold” manner? We might as well begin suing companies for
criticism in a “cold” and “nonconstructive” manner.
Kevin, you sir have senior management written all over you, do me a favor
meet me in my office later today and we can go over your credential and test
your anus for pliability.
My initial reaction to this was a mix of utter disgust (at the manager) and a
sneaking sensation that there had to be much more to the story. If you readpage 3 of the ruling, it seems as though Ms Ingraham’ was constantly
instigating conversations about her daughter and her daughter’s death with
her co workers more than a year after the child’s death. My guess is that the
pictures and ballet slippers were probably used as tools to bring up her child
and starts discussion about her loss with co workers (with the co workers
feeling like they were a captive audience who could not easily escape Ms
Ingraham or the topic of her daughter once Ms Ingraham initiated
discussion/reminiscing of her daughter). Due to the tragic circumstances (I
can’t imagine anything as bad as the loss of a child) the co workers probably
didn’t start voicing complaints until Ms Ingraham’s behavior continued andescalated, instead of subsiding over time. This is far from a case of people just
having a problem with her having a picture and her daughter’s ballet slippers
at her desk or her answering questions about her family/daughter/how she
was doing. It sounds as though Ingraham’s behavior was disruptive and very
likely pathological.
While too much personal conversation of any type is disruptive in the
workplace, douchebags will be douchebags, and they don’t get fired. They get
promoted. I’ll bet that DeStefanis is now EVP.
Agree with cranky. J&J has a very generous Employee Assistance Program.
There is no evidence that she had even tried to use these services, but rather
preferred to act out using the ballet slippers as props. I also wonder how
productive she was with constant grief evoking reminders of her daughter all
around her all the time.
Steve, you sound like you’re advocating the Theodore Streleski mode of
conflict resolution. Mr Streleski was a math graduate student at Stanford
who failed to get his PhD after 19 years of trying. Frustrated and angry at his
advisor, he took a sledge hammer into the advisor’s office one morning and
beat his brains to death. Story below:
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PharmergirlSeptember 6th, 2011
3:27 pm
marcia stoneSeptember 6th, 2011
3:39 pm
ObservantEarthlingSeptember 6th, 2011
4:51 pm
Steve_McQueenSeptember 6th, 2011
4:54 pm
Steve_McQueenSeptember 6th, 2011
4:56 pm
originalindustry insiderSeptember 6th, 2011
6:30 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Streleski
I think Cranky is onto something. It’s pretty creepy that this woman is still
openly grieving some 18 months after the loss of her daughter. I bet it could
have been some sort of pathological ploy to monopolize peoples’ time.
Now having said that, what escapes me is how this DeStafanis character
permitted this to persist for so frigging long. Why didn’t he suggest the EAP
for this woman, perhaps arrange for a leave of absence to get some in patient
care, SOMETHING. ANYTHING.
When you think about it, the rest of the office staff probably has a stronger
case against DeStafanis for failing to maintain a work environment that
fostered productivity and cohesiveness and allowed this type of disruption to
fester and evolve into a toxic and hostile environment. I wonder how many of
workers started taking xanax after the curtains went up on the “doom and
gloom” picture show in the Ingraham Cubicle.
I worked with a woman who’d lost a child and never, ever let anyone forget
it. Every conversation was about this child who had a heart transplant paid
for by the pharmaceutical company.
The older child constantly acted out, even screaming at the mother “Because
of you my sister died!” when he didn’t get his way. If someone avoided her it
was because he or she could deal with her loss. Not true, it was because she
never let up.
Everyone has grief in their lives but work is not group therapy and the people
you work with are not your family. People should have time to grieve but at
some point leave it home.
Another vote for ol cranky regarding his/her suspicions on this issue,
especially after having worked around someone in the past who was in a
situation very similar to Ms. Ingraham’s. It got to the point that we nearly
tiptoed around the individual, trying not to draw his/her attention and for
fear of becoming entangled in long winded (and usually tearful) memorials;
talk about walking on eggshells!
Hey what do I know I’m just a dead movie star. But when I was alive I never
cared much for management. In fact I never liked most people. I’m pretty
sure that Streleski and I shared a beer once in the Mission District.
Yeah Earthling. Everyone in the corporate setting should remain cheerful and
productive. I hope she never missed work to care for her kid. I mean what the
hell. We have drugs to sell and numbers to make.
Steve, I guess old Ted broke the mold. This was followed in succession by a
mass killing at University of Iowa by another academic. Like Ellis Redding
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originalindustry insider
September 6th, 20116:34 pm
Steve_McQueenSeptember 6th, 2011
8:05 pm
Justice in MISeptember 6th, 2011
9:54 pm
Steve_McQueenSeptember 6th, 2011
10:12 pm
Mike S.September 7th, 2011
1:43 am
yoSeptember 7th, 2011
7:45 am
said in The Shawshank Redemption “every man has his breaking point”. PS, I
loved you in Bullitt.
http://articles.latimes.com/1992 06 07/magazine/tm 411_1_lu gang
Steve, I was just thinking, maybe we should tee this one up with the
producers of “The Office”. Would be interesting to see how Michael Scott
would handle this situation. Any ideas?
I like your thinking insider…my guess is that Michael Scott would insist on a
cathartic journey that would somehow purge this poor woman’s misery. I
envision a weekend spent at Dwight Schrute’s farm and perhaps some
peyote. It’s worked in the past.
Back to the episode…
Ed writes: “An employer is not charged under tort law with a duty to avoid all
emotional distress to employees, only such distress that is extreme,
outrageous, and ‘ utterly intolerable in a civilized community.’ ”
Is this New Jersey law specifically?
Anyway, I assume it’s not the distress that is “utterly intolerable in a civilized
community,” but the provoking action.
I’m asking myself what sort of actions would qualify. I’m assuming actions
like sexual harrassment, abusive bullying, or racist slurring are covered by other laws? Or is this a question of civil versus criminal?
Lawyers are next on the list of scumbags to be gutted in the revolution. So
“justice” I suggest you step back and let the regular Americans sort this out.
Violence and good hair are the only this that will save us now.
Oh Ed, this thread is in need of some moderation.
Thanks OII, for the story on Streleski. It was far more fascinating than
reading the court’s opinion on J&J.
BTW Original, do you actually believe it’s the male domination of culture
that’s the problem?
What you described is just a sexist context for a different underlying
problem: selective enforcement of rules. That sort of thing isn’t limited by
gender, and I can assure you that there are plenty of female administrators
outside of pharma who routinely exhibit sociopathic behavior far worse than
that.
There is a lot more to this story than is explored in this blog. This woman didindeed suffer a great loss but did she then really upset her coworkers over the
next six months so much so that complaints were lodged against her? Read
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ol crankySeptember 7th, 2011
7:51 am
HowardSeptember 7th, 2011
8:26 am
originalindustry insiderSeptember 7th, 2011
9:05 am
Justice in MISeptember 7th, 2011
12:32 pm
“ol cranky’s” post above as he indicates there is much more to this story. So
hold off on judgements in either direction.
Now having said that, what escapes me is how this DeStafanis
character permitted this to persist for so frigging long. Why didn’t
he suggest the EAP for this woman, perhaps arrange for a leave of
absence to get some in patient care, SOMETHING. ANYTHING.
@Pharmergirl as someone who’s been in line management, I think I can
shed some light on this. Trying to help direct reports by making even veiled
suggestions of anything they do not want to hear can be a very dangerous
thing for a manager to do. It all too often results in complaints being filed
against the line manager and way too few HR people are willing to respond
appropriately because they just don’t want to have to listen to it (they too
often tend to just placate whoever complains the most/loudest instead of
helping uncover the truth of the situation so it can be resolved
appropriately). A good line manager who tries to intervene [appropriately] tohelp an employee improve performance or suggest assistance to someone
who is obviously in distress can get beaten up by HR when that employee
complains. We work in a culture which allows some very extreme levels of
entitlement and it can bite a good manager who wants to help his/her staff
grow in the ass. That being said, way too many managers prefer to allow
unhealthy office dynamics continue or get worse because they don’t want to
intervene in “inter personal” issues no matter how disruptive they are to the
office.
I’d like to think that, if this poor woman was grieving inappropriately (if
that’s not an oxymoron), then some sensitive professional counselling was
required, as opposed to an unempathetic sounding boss playing amateur
psychiatrist. I don’t underestimate the importance of business targets but
some of us at least are human beings, not machines.
Tasteful and sensible decoration would be my guiding principle. I would
submit that if your cubicle resembles the Voodoo Shrine Scene from the
movie Major League (see below) you’ve probably gone too far.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85i5CpyBv
Q&feature=player_embedded#!
“McQueen”–I’m not a lawyer, but I know what stinks.
Shame on OII, who has humored your (shared) fascistic fantasies. He/she has
lost what interest in his views I had.
Seems to be more such lunatics here, which will ultimately be the end of
useful participation on Pharmalot.
Shame on anyone who encourages it. And, at a certain point, who does not
condemn it.
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Justice in MISeptember 7th, 2011
12:43 pm
originalindustry insiderSeptember 7th, 2011
1:22 pm
originalindustry insiderSeptember 7th, 2011
1:51 pm
Ed SilvermanSeptember 7th, 2011
2:08 pm
This is serious as hell.
Of course, it could be an attempt at “irony.” Also pitiful, but in a different
way.
Justice, try lightening up a bit. Ninety five percent of my posts on these and
other threads are of a serious nature. The fact is that we have an obviously
pathologically acting out employee, which is so far out of the bell curve of
normal office comportment that the lawsuit is laughable on its face.
Howabout some serious criticism on your part of the plaintiff in this case
who was wasting the legal system’s time. But then again, she won’t be the
last. My shrink friends are getting busy dealing with equally ludicrous “work
related stress” comp cases brought by such people. They know how to
capitalize financially on a legitimate period of difficulty by turininmg it into
short and long term psychiatric disability (with compensation, of course),
lawsuits for “infliction of emotional distress”, etc. There are even chat you
can go to fake a diagnosis of Major Depression when going for your shrink
visit to put in your claim of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because the boss
man crossed his eyes at you one time in the conference room.
You want to know why the American workplace is going to hell in a
handbasket? Because just like we don’t tell off the schoolyard bully anymore,
which worked great in the past, we tie up the court system with things that
could be resolved on an interpersonal level.
That’s why the story was so ridiculous. You academics really need to get a
sense of humor.
Cranky’s point was so on the mark that it bears repeating, for, as a manager
I’ve also been bitten in that anatomical part after trying to helpfully
intervene.
“A good line manager who tries to intervene [appropriately] to help an
employee improve performance or suggest assistance to someone who is
obviously in distress can get beaten up by HR when that employeecomplains. We work in a culture which allows some very extreme levels of
entitlement and it can bite a good manager who wants to help his/her staff
grow in the ass. That being said, way too many managers prefer to allow
unhealthy office dynamics continue or get worse because they don’t want to
intervene in “inter personal” issues no matter how disruptive they are to the
office.”
I would say “amen bro”, except a similarly worded sign was recently forced to
be removed at a sporting event becausde it was deemed racially insensitive.
Hi Folks,
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ObservantEarthlingSeptember 7th, 2011
4:36 pm
originalindustry insiderSeptember 7th, 20116:31 pm
originalindustry insiderSeptember 7th, 2011
6:46 pm
kerry_zaputzSeptember 7th, 2011
7:17 pm
Justice in MISeptember 7th, 2011
7:58 pm
@ Steve_McQueen: The incident of which I spoke was actually continuing at
maximum intensity after 22 months; sorry, I still stand by ol cranky’s
thoughts.
Ok, back to the topic, as Ed suggested. I have specific knowledge of how
administrative law judges work in the State of New Jersey, and how workers
try to take advantage of a generous workers compensation program through
physical and mental “disabilities”. The way they game the system is that they
know that these judges, as overwhelmed by these cases and will often grant
some type of financial award to the plaintiff in order to avoid litigation and
keep the cases from clogging up the court.
Thus an undserving plaintiff with a good lawyer can game the system to get
some kind of monetary award. The system is corrupt and needs to be
changed, but for anyone who wonders why the cost of doing business is so
insanely high in this state I’ve just given you one reason.
Here is an other theory, which the above 35 posters, including me have
completely overlooked. This is purely hypothetical since we don’t have the
patient’s medical records.
Note that soon after the incident with the manager the plaintiff complained
of palpitations and subsequently had an angioplasty. If the plaintiff had a
history of coronary artery disease her health insurance company might have
considered that as a preexisting condition and denied coverage. However, if
she could tie the need for her angioplasty somehow to the “emotionaldistress” precipitated by the incident with thr manager she might be able to
get J&J to pick up the tab for the angioplasty.
As they taught us in Corporate America you have to think outside the box.
There are very odd features to this story. While anyone would have
compassion for this woman who lost a daughter, I can see how the
conversion of a cubicle into a shrine caused her co workers to feel uneasy. It
would be bizarre to display one’s daughter’s ballet slippers at work even if
she was alive; all the more so when she is deceased. The information aboutthe daughter’s acceptance into Cornell must have been part of the plaintiff’s
testimony. I’m not seeing the relevance of Cornell to her grief. Her grief
would be less if her daughter was only accepted into a junior college? Lastly,
if this woman had angioplasty, she had atherosclerosis not an acute
condition caused by stress. I think the verdict was just.
We also don’t know anything whatsover about her personally, despite all the
presumptive conclusions above about manipulative or otherwise pathological
character.
That’s why I suggested that without such direct knowledge, it was all
“blowing wind.”
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Justice in MISeptember 7th, 2011
8:01 pm
Big_Bill_WSeptember 7th, 2011
9:59 pm
ChristopherSeptember 8th, 2011
8:07 am
originalindustry insiderSeptember 8th, 2011
8:45 am
ChristopherSeptember 8th, 2011
9:27 am
originalindustry insiderSeptember 8th, 2011
9:47 am
ChristopherSeptember 8th, 2011
9:59 am
Justice in MISeptember 8th, 2011
1:11 pm
Yo’s suggestion to “hold off on judgment in either direction”–exactly because
of all we don’t know–was probably he wisest and most useful post on this
thread.
I do not appreciate any whining, mournful, women clerks in my company
taking my cubicle space up with their ballet slippers. J&J is not a dance studio
or a cancer cluster. Sure, my stock stinks and pipeline sux. But do not take up
my time with your problems. Now get back to work!!!! NOW!!!
These posts from Big_Bill_W are offensive, unfunny and indecent. Sad person
should be blocked.
Christopher, a blog by definition is an open forum, and censorship would be
antithetical to the concept. I believe it to be a self correcting mechanism that
actually works if you look at the history of these threads over the years. Ieven get tired of my own bloviation at times, which prompts me to move on.
OII: I disagree with two of your three sentences. I’m not even sure about the
third, but I do believe that these comments simply cross the line of
acceptability. I have been a reader and occasional contributor here since the
beginning, and believe the tone is generally civil and ususally constructive.
These comments are neither but are ugly and hurtful, and would and should
get the ‘ author’ thrown out of the garden party.
Christopher, here’s what crosses the line, to use your terminology: yelling
“fire” in a crowded theater when there is no actual fire. That might endanger
people. There is no endangerment here. Read your US Constitution. It’s
called Freedom of Fpeech. If Ed were to start censoring posts, he would lose a
lot of posters, and not just the ones posting comments in poor taste. He
would lose those posters who, like I believe in the principle of Freedom of
Speech. I’ll go for exclusion of George Carlin’s seven dirty words, but not
much else.
Again, to use your phraseology, even at garden party you will find a fewoverripe tomatoes. Analagous with the self correcting mechanism of these
blogs such fruit usually doesn’t hang around very long.
OII: Endangerment never entered into my thinking; regardless, I am
unconvinced by your argument but that’s neither here nor there. Ed has used
the garden party analogy for years including yesterday. I think that says it
all.
Interesting that a post about a grieving woman and her lawsuit has provokedso much.
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JaTSeptember 8th, 2011
1:46 pm
originalindustry insiderSeptember 8th, 2011
2:01 pm
RandDChemistSeptember 9th, 2011
8:13 am
Lynn MSeptember 9th, 2011
12:07 pm
For what it’s worth, I assumed Big Bill was being a caricature of a certain
attitude rather than actually believing it. But who knows?
Perhaps the ambiguities of written communication is another reason to take
particular care with what one says and how one says it.
So that doesn’t sound “humorless,” I would contribute a grape joke now, but
probably few here remember grape jokes.
Not only a heartless move by J&J but none too smart.
It would have been more fair and compassionate to impose a rule about not
displaying family items or discussing family in the work place.
Is the company less responsible for preventing Cecelia’s distress than the
distress of the employees who complained? Discrimination does not play well
in court. I think her lawyers blew it.
JaT, once you start imposing rules about what can and can’t be displayed in a
cube you wind up with something similar to the situation when companies
went business casual. There were such outrageous examples of what people
considered “casual” that companies resorted to devising arbitrary lists of
what management considered appropriate attire. We’re in the business of
making drugs, and we’re not in the business of arbitrating what should be
considered appropriate in terms of personal attire or cube decoration.
We as managers thought we could rely on common sense to prevail, but we
were only fooling ourselves.
p.s. does anyone consider Spandex and cargo pants proper office attire? We
had a plethora of that until we had to resort to making those lists.
This situation is complex and no mere story can do it merit and cover it to
the level of detail needed to decide what went wrong.
It’s easy to blame one side or the other, but I suspect both sides did not
handle it well.
There is at least one study that suggests that cubicle decor can be distracting
at a certain point, even though it seems heavy handed.
To me, if she was grieving at a significant level after several months she
clearly needed more help. If she chose not to get/receive that help, well then
she became a major issue and needed to move on for everyone’s benefit
(especially hers). The grieving will never go away, but time does heal if the
process is an overall healthy one.
Mental health care in the US has improved, but it still has a long way to go.
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ExpertTestimoneySeptember 10th, 2011
1:56 am
originalindustry insiderSeptember 10th, 2011
9:53 am
Paula MarieSeptember 12th, 2011
9:03 am
Former PharmaDirectorSeptember 12th, 2011
9:52 am
I say this as someone who lost a 17 year old niece that I helped raise (and who
was my favorite)and as a citizen of NJ: I carry the day of her death in my
heart as a pain that never heals but teaches me wisdom. Ms Ingraham strikes
me as someone badly in need of compassion but she didn’t deserve to win
that case. Pictures, and yes even the ballet shoes, are one thing. I keep a
prom picture of my niece at my desk. Constant discussion of the grief
however, after a few months, is distruptive of the work place. My brother andhis wife ran a business, so they had to manage their grief in order to survive.
And they did. Their office was filled with reminders of their daughter, but
they kept discussion of their grief to a minimum in the work environment
and only spoke of it to outsiders when asked.
Having said that, the manager should have worked with HR early on to try
and find a way to mitigate the situation. And saying “just get over it, she’s
dead” is never constructive.
This story has been picked up by the national media. Add this to the piss
poor oversight the company has displayed in just about every facet of their
business and their overpaid incompetent CEO and you have a recipe for
disaster. This is a PR nightmare for a struggling, yes struggling, once great
American company. You can bet that there are people who will avoid J&J
products in the future. Count me as one.
Don’t count me as one. J&J still makes the best baby powder. I can just see
the headline in the NY Post: “Extra, extra, read all about it. Grieving cube
mom sues bandaid maker for emotional distress!”.
Can’t wait for the paper to hit my doorstep.
I am coming up on the 5th anniversary of my 21 year old son’s death, and I
can relate that the pain does not go away. The pain caused by the loss of your
child, no matter the age or circumstance, is unimaginable, and learning to
manage the grief is difficult and different for everyone. Most people cannot
relate to the suffering. Companies should offer through HR some type of grief
counseling prior to returning to work, and should also offer “sensitivity
training”, which covers many different circumstances including loss, a new
child, divorce, etc. I’ve worked for the same small R&D company for over 20 years, and only one of my coworkers came to my son’s wake or funeral; I’m
trying to accept the fact that they cannot relate to my loss. A parent will
never “get over” or “move on” from the loss of their child and their child’s
future.
Paula, companies offer help through EAP’s for these situations. Personally I
would recommend avoiding them. You don’t get referred to a board certified
psychiatrist. You get to see a clinical psychologist who may know about rats
in mazes but not much else. If you need an antidepressant, which one may
well need in such grief situations, the psychologist will then ping pong you toa shrink who will follow you with 15 minute medication checks for a defined
period, but no psychotherapy, as that is the province of the rat doctor.
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Working momSeptember 12th, 2011
10:36 am
originalindustry insiderSeptember 12th, 2011
12:10 pm
Connnie ReaderSeptember 12th, 2011
6:10 pm
Moreover, the frat doctor and the shrink usually never talk to each other
although they are supposed to corrdinate your therapy. Plus depending on
your plan you are limited to a finite number of sessions.
If you can afford it do yourself a favor in such situation. Avoid the EAP
altogether and seek the servicves of a competent MD psychiatrist.
I guess you all are so distracted by the “psychotic loon” in the next cubicle
who is mourning over her dead child that you simply cannot work and must
instead write about those things of which you clearly know nothing. I would
think a company like J&J would require all employees to undergo annual
sensitivity training, which convers everything from grief to a new child to
divorce, and that a visit with an in house psychologist would be “suggested”
and perhaps required before returning to work. I get the feeling that none of
you have children, and certainly none of you have lost one, or you would
know that “time does not heal all wounds” and a grieving parent never simply
“moves on”. I have many photos of my children in my work area, includingseveral of my deceased 21 yr old. I never “flaunt it” in front of my coworkers,
and instead I carry a very large chip on my shoulder because none of them
attended his wake or funeral even though we’ve worked together for over 20
years. Perhaps they should be taking Xanax, as one of you recommended, so
that none of them will see or feel it coming. When it comes to their kids,
mothers can lift cars. The woman in question clearly needed help early on,
and shame on her colleagues for not stepping up. I hope you all die alone.
Where does all the sensitivity training begin and end? My school taxes are
already high because of all of the so called “specialists” in the school system.
So if a group of underage high school cheerleaders chooses to goe on a
drinking binge and get killed in an MVA do we need to immediately summon
the “grief counselors” into the classroom the next day? Maybe we should
include grief counseling as part of working mom’s proposed mandatory
“sensitivity” training. When I was in Big Pharma we wound up having to
spend so many hours in diversity and sensitivity training there was barely
enough time to do our work.
When did grieving go from being a private moment to a public spectacle?
Someone tell me. I know what your one word answer will be: Columbinne.
original industry insider in confusing Freedom from Government Censorship
of Speech with Freedom to Get Away with being Insulting, Stupid, or
Dishonest in the Company of others — a mistake made more commonly by
Tea Party Candidates.
Seeing as Ed is not the Federal Government controlling speech in the
metaphorical Public Square, he can set the standards he wants for a
discussion group in space he controls.
OII said:
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originalindustry insiderSeptember 12th, 2011
6:46 pm
J&J'erSeptember 19th, 2011
2:13 pm
originalindustry insiderSeptember 19th, 2011
6:19 pm
Former PharmaInsiderSeptember 21st, 2011
10:08 am
originalindustry insiderSeptember 21st, 2011
1:04 pm
. . . Read your US Constitution. It’s called Freedom of Fpeech. If Ed were to
start censoring posts, he would lose a lot of posters, and not just the ones
posting comments in poor taste. He would lose those posters who, like I
believe in the principle of Freedom of Speech. I’ll go for exclusion of George
Carlin’s seven dirty words, but not much else.
Again, to use your phraseology, even at garden party you will find a fewoverripe tomatoes. Analagous with the self correcting mechanism of these
blogs such fruit usually doesn’t hang around very long.
Connie, freedom of speech also applies to written speech, as exemplified by
posters who cannot manage to string together a coherent set of paragraphs.
Only so many hours in the school day for writing classes, I suppose, with all
of that extra required time needed for extraneous subjects that I mentioned
above.
People are forgetting that its the woman who walked out of her job and sued
J&J. What’s the poor manager to do when other employees are complaining
to him. Its very hard trying to deal with a emotional woman where
performance became a problem. I had to this couple of times in my career
(divorce in one case; an affair gone wrong with another). Both were not
pleasant.
Agree 100% with J&Jer. In the old days I would have referred the employee to
the EAP program and given her a performance warning on her quarterly
review. If the situation didn’t improve I would have PIP’d her at her nextreview and put her on performance probation, end of story. Today if I were to
PIP the same employee I would make damn sure that I checked with Legal
first to make sure that my backside was covered. Like I said our job as
managers is to crank out the drugs, not manage a day care center.
If you look at this objectively,the company was well within its rights to
address the concerns of other employees. The issue is how poorly trained her
supervisor was. This emotionally distraught woman needed professional
help, not cold callous company first attitudes. While I respect the opinions of
others, when you say “our job is to crank our drugs, not baby sit”, you resort
to fear based management styles that never worked. If you take care of your
employees, they will, in turn, take care of customers and growth happens. If
you abuse employees, they abuse or ignore customers. It’s pretty basic.
Former PI, as you know Performance Improvement Programs (PIPS)are one
outcome of a poor performance review, at least in all of the companies I’ve
worked for. They actually help the employee by outlining a program that sets
specific goals for improvement so that the PIP’d employee knows exactly
where they stand, and HR is on board, maybe even legal. I would argue thatit is exactly the opposite of fear based management, which I agree is bad, as
it keeps the employee in a perpetual state of uncertainty.
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