Suicides in the workplace

[NormanH]

After the terrible account of the teacher who set light to herself in the courtyard of a local Lycée in front of her students,  there is today this, one of the people who worked at our  CPAM who hanged himself yesterday  also in his workplace.

http://www.midilibre.fr/2012/03/01/dma-le-suicide-d-un-agent-de-la-cpam-sur-son-lieu-de-travail,464767.php

Two such tragedies in our town in a short space of time raises all sort of questions.

(There have been other reported in other towns and other businesses, but these two were both here, so I felt them more acutely)

Is there something about the expectations of French workers that makes them less liable to cope with the pressure of performance than their UK counterparts?

Or is it to do with something recent (since I stopped working) Europe-wide?

I could never imagine getting to the stage these poor people were at when they took their lives, but I don't think I would have blamed the job either, which is what choosing the workplace for the final desperate act seems to suggest.

[woolybanana]

Yes, Norman, it is a tragedy, but I think that State service in France has often attracted people who want a PTT (petit travail tranquil) life and who find change and pressure impossible to deal with. This coupled with inadequate management can lead to desperation and the rest.

[cooperlola]

This is a subject which is very close to me.  A family member who eventually succeeded in killing themselves did make a couple of attempts at work.  Whilst I think the pressures of the job (such as they were) were a factor and that a particularly nasty boss was the reason for attempting this at work, it was just one of many problems which this person had.  They eventually managed it at home.[:(]

[pachapapa]

There was also a "défenestration" at Rennes yesterday. Sad.

http://www.francesoir.fr/actualite/faits-divers/la-poste-un-jeune-cadre-de-28-ans-se-defenestre-190290.html

[NormanH]

Extracts of the last email sent have just been published, and they seem to support what wb said above.

I really can't see what the 'enfer' he claims to have lived was..

http://www.midilibre.fr/2012/03/01/suicide-d-un-agent-de-la-cpam-un-mail-bouleversant-et-accablant,464819.php

[Frederick]

It seems from reading that ...  Nobody has learned  anything ......

Given France Telecom's over 60 employee  suicide rate of the past couple of years  caused by  reorganisation ,  It would appear stress in the workplace in France is a huge problem.. One I thought the governement after FT's spate of workplace suicides was  discussed in parliament they were trying to deal with 

[andyh4]

"la conséquence directe de l'enfer psychologique"

I wonder if Psychological issues is soemthing rather French.  I have worked with German, Italian, British and other teams and have come across all sorts of complaints of workload, pressure and stress but only within French groups have I heard the P word used.  Certanly its use tends to cause something of a management stir and usually brings some form of change.  So if as WB says, a the desire for a quite life, were then to extend up the public service chain then maybe managers in that area do not react and problems do not get solved and the psycological pressure (real or perceived, it makes no diference) becomes too great.

 

[cooperlola]

Isn't that just a matter of semantics, though?  Surely stress is a psychological problem, isn't it?

Does the by rote, creativity-crushing education system here perhaps just not set people up well enough for a stressful workplace?  Just a thought.

[andyh4]

Well it may be and there again it may not.

In English if I say I have stress problems it has a very different slant than if I say I have psychological problems.  I am not sure whether that distinction would be so clear in French though.

[cooperlola]

Maybe they are quicker to recognise stress problems as mental ones here and are less inclined to label one in this way elsewhere, I honestly don't know.  I do know that when I had my accident and again when I was diagnosed with cancer, I was immediately refered to a psychologist here in France - indeed they appeared at my bedside within hours of both things.  I don't know if this happens automatically in the UK but I doubt it somehow.

[EmilyA]

I remember talking to some young French friends about credit card debt in the UK and explaining how people took on a new card to pay off the old one and then another to pay off the one before. They said "Do they commit suicide?". I said I didn't think so, but it made me wonder if that is something that happens more here.

[YCCMB]

I'm very hesitant to generalise and trying not to, so please take this contribution as my opinion, however much you disagree with it.

Having worked for a (very) large French company and also a small one, and having spent time as a consultant (hence able to perhaps look at things with different eyes) in a couple of others, I have noticed that quite often there is much more of a "blame culture" in some French companies, and with it a terrible fear of being wrong about things. The latter I do, to an extent, attribute to the education system in France, which seems to place undue emphasis on knowing the "right" answer to questions, whether there is one or not!

Perhaps some of the psychological pressure that causes such terrible events is due to the above?  So many French companies seem to promote or advance people based solely on seniority or length of service, rather than being meritocracies, that managers may be less well-equipped to manage people than some of their counterparts in other countries.

If you're badly managed and in fairly constant fear of being blamed or found to be wrong about something, maybe even having been promoted above your abilities on the grounds of length of tenure rather than aptitude, the combination of these factors would quite possibly contribute to huge pressure, especially if someone was particularly susceptible.

To some extent, the idea of a blame culture is somewhat borne out by the choice to commit suicide at work. As has been said, there is an implied blame simply through the choice of venue.

[Chancer]

I know several French people who are very ill with workplace stress, I am a good listener and have talked (listened) at length with them on the subject, their bosses dont appear to be any worse than others, in fact they seem more stressed, from what I can see they are unable to adapt as well as their colleagues and to faire face à changes in the workplace or market, which to me, and it does make me sound unsympathetic to say it, are relatively minor in the scheme of things, the workplace in France as a whole has to face far greater change in the very near future, that which other EU countries have already lived through for decades.

The sort of destabilisation that is bouleversing these guys (sorry for the French terms I cant find the words in English) is what I have lived with from my very first day as an apprentice in 1975 so I dont see it as anything out of the ordinary, however back then I was told I could look forward a job for life which actually horrified me, but every week someone retired with 50 years service, come the first round of redundancies a couple of years later the guys forced into early retirement and it was only 6 months, max 2 years would often drop dead a few weeks later.

I am attending the funeral of a friend from way back, he was in his early 50's and took his own life, its the second one in less than a year, both of these guys were the life and sould of the party, attractive, very pouplar with the girls, I can see comparisons with the football manager or whoever he was that committed suicide some time back and realise that often their is a certain desperation behind these charismatic people.

[cooperlola]

I do get the impression, Betty, that the idea that there might be a correct answer to everything does not make one very adaptable.  Thus, Chancer, I suspect that the prospect of having to start again could indeed fill one with horror rather than pleasure at the prospect of getting out of a rut.

[NormanH]

That is very interesting. I also notice among lots of young French people who have asked me to help prepare a CV in English a very high expectation of what the job will give them.

Rather the opposite of the Kennedy phrase 'ask what you can do for America'  A bit bizarrely for those of us who have had to write our own CVs and applications in the last few years they often write of what they are looking for, rather than what they can give.  Perhaps this is because the French version is called a 'Lettre de motivation',  but any way they are difficult to put into English, because the basic standpoints aren't the same.

I want a job that will stimulate me

I want to be able to use my capacity to ..

I want to 's'épanouir' m'éclater' 'm'investir'

Intégrer votre groupe me permettrait d'acquérir une expérience professionnelle de qualité.

Votre poste de directeur commercial m'offrirait en outre la possibilité de mettre en oeuvre mes compétences

I seriously think that there is a self-centeredness in the consciousness, which partly explains the terrible service Brits often complain of here, since it is neither the customer nor the business that is number 1, it is the employee.

I have some sympathy with this as I think things have gone far too  far in the opposite direction  in some large organisations in Britain and the USA, but I also think that sometimes these young people are looking for the sort of satisfaction from a job that most of us might find in family or an absorbing hobby.

There is also a greater readiness to articulate 'how I feel disappointed/frustrated/unappreciated/disturbed'

Perhaps putting all this together with Betty's point a bout a blame culture goes a little way to understanding the roots..

[Gardian]

[quote user="NormanH"]I seriously think that there is a self-centeredness in the consciousness, which partly explains the terrible service Brits often complain of here, since it is neither the customer nor the business that is number 1, it is the employee.
[/quote]

I think that you've hit the nail on the head Norman. The only thing I'd say is that my impression is that things are improving.  

 

[EmilyA]

It reminds me of the article in the local paper about Sunday opening, where a small shopkeeper said "Customers have got to learn that they cannot have everything they want..."

[NormanH]

Exactly[:)]

What I think is called supply-lead economics as opposed to demand-lead..

We do it  our way