Threatened Suicide

lhill

We have an ee who has just been terminated because he could not/would not come to work on time. No excuses, he just didn't get in a hurry in the mornings. Poor job performance also. We terminated him this morning, and when word got out, several employees said (not to me, to a co-worker) that the ee said that if he got fired he would kill himself. This man has been warned for months, verbally and in writing. He just wouldn't take it seriously. Now what? I tend to think it's emotional blackmail, but I sure wouldn't want anything bad to happen. By the time I heard all this, he had packed up his office and left the premises. What would you do if anything?

Thanks for your input, and have a great Thanksgiving!

Down_the_Middle

These are scary threats, but I'd suggest doing this:
See if one of your current employees (former co-worker of his) would check in with him to see how things are going. If it looks as tho he's distraught and "at risk", contact your local crisis line people, EAP or social services staff to see what assistance they might be able to provide him. If you offer an EAP for employees, make it available to him. While you might not normally do this for term'd employees, I use this approach on occasion and EAP intervenes nicely. While my experience has been that threats like this are usually spur of the moment, very emotional and generally not serious, I've never chosen to roll the dice for this type of thing. I generally approach it as a cry for help and offer some sort of assistance. While he's now a former employee, he's still a member of your community and worthy of getting some help if it's needed. Good luck........ I hope his threats are not serious and he can move on to other issues.

Don D

Great Advice!!

LindaE

VERY good advice, and more compassionate than my knee-jerk response would've been. Please let us know how this turns out! Linda

Crout

I'm more of a cold blooded SOB, so I think that if you did right by him while he was in your employ you are not now obligated to "intervene." The thing I would be most concerned about is security at your place of work. Often times the folks who say "I'll kill myself" really mean "suicide by cop" AFTER they shoot a few of the people who they feel are resposible for the termination.

HRinNH

As much as I like and would hope Down-the-middle's advice would be taken seriously, Crout's sceario would be more of the thing I'd worry about. Offer him help if you can but heighten security in your own facility.

zen

There is often a fine line between suicide and homicide. I would not send another employee to physically visit with the term'd ee. I would make a telephone call. If you choose to go the EAP route and the ee agrees, great...however, if the term'd ee is truly disturbed and continues to threaten suicide and resists the EAP, I would call the police and report the situation.

zen

I guess I should qualify why my opinion is a bit different. I worked for over 20 years in public safety and was responsible for responding to many, many suicide calls that turned into homicides as well.

slm

I read this forum regularly and rarely post, but I just have to relay this incident:

Ten months ago, an employee come to my desk and told me he was contemplating suicide. This came from out of the blue, from someone I would have never expected it from; my first thought was that he was making a joke. To make a long story, short - I drove him to the hospital, he was admitted for observation and ultimately treated for depression. He has since returned to work and is, once again, a productive employee.

Talk or "threats" of suicide should never be ignored or taken lightly. As suggested by others, you should absolutely increase security for your current employees. And, although you may not be "obligated" to intervene, do what you can to help this man. If you can't talk to him, talk to his family and friends, make them aware. You may just save a life.

- Sharon

lhill

I've been out of town, but I want to thank all of you for your responses. For those who wanted to know how this came out, the ee is alive and well; however, he took some important papers from his office that should have been filed with the State over a month ago for a water district, and this has really put us in a bad situation. Several ee's have called him, but he won't return our calls. Now what? How can we get these papers returned? He also deleted a number of files from his computer that will make our task more difficult.

marc

Theft and destruction of property can become criminal charges very quickly. How bad do you want the documents?

MaryHR

If the documents are something vital, I would have your attorney draft a letter to him and see if he responds to that. That is also why when we fire someone, that person is supervised while cleaning out their personal items and are NOT under any circumstances allowed on their computer.

Balloonman1

That is why when you give notice, if you are smart you have already made copies of anything you need! x:D

When I left the meat plant.......long story but it was a nightmare....they were even regularly scheduling training on Saturdays so we could not interview.
After giving notice, the plant manager said "When did you have time to....." and then stopped confirmed my suspicion about preventing us from interviewing.
Then he said "Well you know as policy, if you are removing boxes or anything we may have to check it, I know you would not steal but..."
My response was "Oh don't worry I have already copied and removed anything I would have wanted already" The look on his face was .....priceless. I then smiled and walked off.
My $0.02 worth,
DJ The Balloonman