A Grieving J&J Employee And Cubicle Photos
67 CommentsBy 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 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.’ ”
Kevin
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.
original industry insider
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 was there 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
Elmore
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.
original industry insider
Elmore, you said it right. A Pfizer friend said that they are now taking training sessions on ddeveloping emotional intelligence, which is just coroporate jargon for empathy. Moreover, EI is something you either have or don’t have, and can’t be taught.
Steve_McQueen
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.
Kevin
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.
Steve_McQueen
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.
ol cranky
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 read page 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 and escalated, 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.
ChicNotGeek
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.
original industry insider
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:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Streleski
Pharmergirl
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.
marcia stone
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.
Observant Earthling
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!
Steve_McQueen
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.
Steve_McQueen
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.
original industry insider
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 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
original industry insider
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?
Steve_McQueen
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.
Justice in MI
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?
Steve_McQueen
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.
Mike S.
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.
yo
There is a lot more to this story than is explored in this blog. This woman did indeed 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 “ol cranky’s” post above as he indicates there is much more to this story. So hold off on judgements in either direction.
ol cranky
@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] to help 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.
Howard
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.
original industry insider
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#!
Justice in MI
“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.
This is serious as hell.
Justice in MI
Of course, it could be an attempt at “irony.” Also pitiful, but in a different way.
original industry insider
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.
original industry insider
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 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 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.
Ed Silverman
Hi Folks,
Just a quick note to remind everyone that it would be appreciated if we all could stick to the topic and, importantly, use appropriate language.
Although some may have missed this analogy, in the past, I have mentioned that the site should be viewed as a large garden party, where one is free to mingle and flit among different groups. But using invective is the equivalent of tossing a wine glass or chair.
Thanks
ed
Justice in MI
OII,
Wow. A lot of my friends (including those here) would be surprised to read you’re suggesting a sense of humor to _me_!
Anyway, as far as the plaintiff, I have no frigging idea what was going on beyond what has been reported. Anyone without such direct knowledge is purely blowing wind.
That’s why I asked about the law–something we can actually know about.
Christopher
JiM,
I think your fears are unfounded. There are thousands of Pharmalot readers, only a fraction of whom bother to comment. I suspect that most will weed out and ignore the exhibitionists.
This article created good discussion too though, as well as the sideshow you are concerned about.
I think it’s unfortunate that the individuals concerned are named and consequently judged in publicut that’s the way it goes. In this case we are told what happened but not how it happened. I think the ‘what’ is correct and entirely appropriate. ‘How’ it was done remans unknown yet I think that is a key element. Whether knowing the ‘how’ would discourage some of the more extreme, anonymous comments, I doubt very much.
Christopher
OII and Cranky - I agree with the risk but have by involving HR first (legal too if necessary) - before intervening - there is a significantly better outcome. Depends on the quality of your HR people and your relationship but if you’re a line manager it makes sense to be prepared before you are called on to act.
Justice in MI
Chris,
I appreciate what you say. What I think would be helpful–which most folks do–is just to ignore the loons rather than get in the bin to play with them.
Your last point sounds like what I meant above–a more modest appreciation of what we don’t know. But perhaps you are right that suggeting that to the wind is, well, suggesting it to the wind.
Observant Earthling
@ 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.
original industry insider
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.
original industry insider
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 “emotional distress” 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.
kerry_zaputz
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 about the 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.
Justice in MI
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.”
Justice in MI
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.
Big_Bill_W
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!!!
Christopher
These posts from Big_Bill_W are offensive, unfunny and indecent. Sad person - should be blocked.
original industry insider
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. I even get tired of my own bloviation at times, which prompts me to move on.
Christopher
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.
original industry insider
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 few overripe tomatoes. Analagous with the self-correcting mechanism of these blogs such fruit usually doesn’t hang around very long.
Christopher
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.
Justice in MI
Interesting that a post about a grieving woman and her lawsuit has provoked so much.
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.
JaT
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.
original industry insider
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.
RandDChemist
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.
Lynn M
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 and his 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.
Expert Testimoney
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.
original industry insider
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.
Paula Marie
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.
Former Pharma Director
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 to a 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. 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.
Working mom
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, including several 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.
original industry insider
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.
Connnie Reader
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:
. . . 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 few overripe tomatoes. Analagous with the self-correcting mechanism of these blogs such fruit usually doesn’t hang around very long.
original industry insider
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.
J&J'er
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.
original industry insider
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 next review 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.
Former Pharma Insider
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.
original industry insider
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 that it is exactly the opposite of fear-based management, which I agree is bad, as it keeps the employee in a perpetual state of uncertainty.
Former Pharma Insider
Yes, OII, I utilized many PIPs in my day and occasionally had success, but it usually was the first step to dismissal. Let’s be honest, when you get to that point the decision is made and it just becomes paperwork and CYA for most companies. You can deny it, but those of us who are true insiders know this to be the case. Most employees fire themselves so I have no sympathy for those who don’t work or take advantage of kind-hearted, well meaning bosses, but I believe this supervisor blew it. She was grieving her child and it never should have made it to court. They should have gotten real help for all parties. The supervisor was insensitive and so were her coworkers. I don’t care if this person was already a problem, you don’t kick someone who is so vulnerable. It’s bad for morale, company image, and it’s just plain wrong.
original industry insider
Former PI I think that PIPs cut both ways. I agree that most of the time they don’t work, but on rare occassions they do. What concerns me more, however, is the modern day misuse of PIP’s as a prelude to a layoff, and thus may be done purely for CYA purposes, as you state. It is common knowledge that once you’ve been PIP’d you automatically go to the head of the pink slip line, which really defeats thew puprpose of the PIP in the first place if you think about it.
John English
When this post was new, I heard a radio spot related to it - but didn’t write it down. Yesterday, I heard it again:
‘Still mourning a loss ….You may be suffering from complicated grief. This afflicts one in 10 people after a loss.
You may be eligible to participate in a clinical trial sponsored by NIH. you may be recieve a trial medication or talk therapy…” It then gave the name of a researcher from Columbia and a New York city (212-area code) direct dial.
The point is that there is more to this than I personaly had first thought.
original industry insider
As managers we need to be more compassionate when we give a poor performance review. Here is the story of a guy who killed himself in Minnesota after receiving a poor review.
http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2011/10/01/minn-man-kills-self-in-his-car-after-losing-job/