How absolutely shocking for the young lad to be in a situation where he felt that the only option was to take his own life.
The fact that management chose not to do anything about it sadly does not suprise me.
I had a manager who was a bully, plain and simple. This person surrounded herself with a clique of favourites and the rest of us had to bear the brunt of their behavior. This person would scream abuse at you in front of your colleagues and make deeply offensive personal remarks such as "your getting married at 35?, that's a surprise, i thought you were gay!"
Complaints about this person fell on deaf ears. Other managers chose not to do anything or bizarrely put it down to the manager being passionate about work!
A contributing factor to the situation was a annual appraisal system based on guided distribution which meant any speaking out was viewed as negative behaviour and you would get a 'must improve' in your half yearly or end of year appraisal.
In the end this person got a routine transfer to a regional office. Six months later, for some reason we all had to undergo bullying and harassment training.
I sat in the training sessions and was gobsmacked to see the various managers weeping and wailing and asking how a situation could be allowed to occur. So I stood up and told them that it occurred because they were too self absorbed to sit back and realise what was actually going on!
Arwyn
