Beyond Professionalism

A bright young man in Kolkata ended his life after he was sacked by his employer. It revealed the ugly side of corporate mechanism. In these times of economic recession, companies cannot escape the responsibility of showing concern to their employees, analyses Nasreen Khan

Twenty five-year-old Atanu, a designer with a national daily, was at his wits end. His newly- married wife was pregnant and he had been handed the pink slip out of the blue. How was he to provide for his yet-to-be born child and his

family? He confessed to a colleague that he felt like committing suicide. Thirty seven-year-old Rashid was based in the UK and was homesick. He wanted to come back home, but he had no job to come back to. His family was telling him to stay put and he was finding it increasingly difficult to stay in an alien country. He took an overdose of drugs. Thankfully it was not fatal. Sharad (22) was devastated when he lost his job at the BPO. From a sudden rise in the economic condition, he was back to square one. It didn’t help to have to answer to his family how he blew up his fat salary treating friends and partying believing that the pay would come every month. He had locked himself up in his room, scaring his family of an impending suicide. These are the less scary stories. But all are not alike.

A bright young engineer, fresh out of college recruited right from the campus to the hallowed house of Infosys, had no reason to be depressed, leave alone commit suicide. But then that’s exactly what he did. Why? Investigations revealed the ugly face of corporate mechanism. A close look reveals that the recruitment, training and dismissal procedures are the whirlpool waiting to engulf many more Abhijit Mukherjees.

When a close friend reacted in anger to his cousins’ only son’s suicide, I wondered why people commit suicide in the first place. The subject of depression or suicide has been discussed enough. According to Freud when anger is turned towards oneself then the person gets suicidal. Science says that lack of certain chemicals in the brain causes a person to commit suicide. Those at risk are mostly the younger lots, usually male, who have no jobs and who indulge in drug abuse or alcoholism.

With recession resulting in job crunches and lost business, the mental scenario is as bad, if not worse, than the financial one. There are various explanations for an individual committing suicide. The psycho analytical explanation is that when aggression is turned inward, the individual may actually target self and cause harm. This could be an impulsive act. The cognitive theory explains suicide as an act out of frustration that results in aggressive expression, which, if blocked by a social authority or personal inadequacy, gets directed towards the self and the individual causes self-harm. This coupled with the feeling of helplessness causes temporary loss of self-control and the individual ends his life.

Then there are individuals who inflict self-harm. They are usually people with strong, intense emotions with a heightened sensitivity to inter personal rejection. Such people just cannot accept failure or rejection of any sort, and cause grievous harm to themselves. There are some attention-seeking individuals who have learned through their act that they can have their way through what laymen usually term emotional blackmailing. They end up committing suicide accidentally. The bio chemical explanation for suicides is reduced serotonergic activity in the brain.

Whatever the theoretical explanation behind suicides is, the socio-psycho situations are to a large extent within our control to help stop such shocking incidents that leave behind deep scars for others to bear. There is a lot one can do to help. Individuals, parents and corporates can play a significant role to thwart instances of suicide. While individuals must learn to accept what is socially termed as failure and come to terms with their strengths and weaknesses, parents play a major role in preparing the children to acquire such traits.

“Parents must identify the abilities within their children,” says neuro-psychiatrist, Dr Sabyasachi Mitra. The nuclear family structure has thrown up units of two or single child on whom the parents shower all their attention and prejudices. Parents want to live their untold stories through their children. “Sometimes parents push their children to do or attain certain things, which could well be beyond their capacities. Most importantly, parents are unaware of different avenues available for their children,” he says. For example, the pressure to study science alone is still very high among the urban population. Lack of formal education is socially not acceptable and so a child, who might be very good at painting or some other activity, will still be expected to do well academically to be acceptable. There is a serious need for placement counseling for the parents as well. Parents should support the strengths of the child and not harp upon the weaknesses and not push the child towards unattainable dreams.

Kolkata-based psycho analyst Paromita Mitra Bhowmick is of the view that in the extreme case of depression chances of suicide are lesser. “It only starts when you are recovering from that phase and that is delicate,” she adds.

In the current scenario, the role of the corporate is very important in protecting individuals from ending their lives. They recruit huge numbers even when they know very well that they cannot possibly accommodate them all. The process of elimination that begins is too harsh and demoralising. “Corporates must identify and understand that they have a social responsibility. They must chew only as much as they can swallow. They must refrain from selling high hopes to candidates,” Mitra elaborates. The process of online exams and the automatically generated letters informing them of their failure lacks human touch. This lack of one-to-one emotion can be very dangerous. The high intensity of emotions that is not expressible, results in rage and helplessness, which could turn an individual suicidal. There is extreme lack of counseling and there are no risk management strategies. It is imperative that corporates provide counseling throughout the process, both before, after as well as during the recruitment. “We cannot just lose these lives. We must nurture them through difficult times,” he stresses.

Fourthly, every recruitment process must make use of psychometric assessment of the candidates to identify the vulnerable individuals and to handle them accordingly. Last, but not the least, the corporate responsibility to give stress management, as is compulsorily provided in the West, must not be ignored. Elaborating on the responsibility of the company in handling stress management, Bhowmick says that there are some companies, which do have such programmes, some of which I myself have attended.” But there indeed is a need for that.

Hopefully, with adequate care and show of concern, we can save lives from being lost in this mad bad world of survival of the fittest.