France Télécom suicides

[Clippy]

Caught a snippet of this news at the weekend and can't believe anyone would really try to top themselves over their work.

Perhaps its a cultural thing but never imagined the French were that way inclined - the Japs, maybe.

(Had to try not to laugh at Lea Browns comment after the article).

[scooterscot]

Never underestimate the power of empathy in groups -

[TimberWolf]

Never underestimate the power of empathy in groups -

There's a jumpers spot near me, and the media have agreed not to publicise suicides because of the number of copycat events that occur. The story is that a paper did publish one once and there were something like 12 copycat attempts within a brief period afterwards.

[threaded]

It's quite sad really, but telecoms in france is catching up to the real world. So for many many workers it is a move from craft unions with bosses who know how to wire up a Strowger exchange, to full on post-industrial matrix management by the gel-haired-freak crowd who can barely spell SMS never mind send one.

That many more haven't topped themselves is to me the more interesting story.

[SlimRick]

Having worked with Openreach for a couple of years, I can say that this isn't just limited to France. I was there for 2 years, and know of 3 suicides within 6 months. The most recent one was around August last year when an engineer from Denbigh in North Wales hanged himself in one of the exchanges. None of these events are made public, even though a full investigation takes place.

[eliquant]

I read this from the French Telecom news report and I must say how can anything we call 'work' ever drive people to do such a thing is beyond me....

quote:

"Criticism of France Telecom mounted when Yonnel Dervin, a 49-year-old technician, explained that he had stabbed himself in the stomach during a meeting last week because he was "fed up''.

"I decided to do it just at the moment when they told me I was good for nothing,'' he said, after leaving hospital.

''The night before, my manager had called me into his office to tell me that I no longer had the skills required for my job and that I had to change." "

[cojak]

..and I'm afraid that it's not just telecoms.

It's when the (previously) public/government workforce realise that it is no longer a 'job for life' and that they will be accountable for their own career through performance-related evaluation reviews (amongst other things).

Reviews which aren't always competently or sympathetically performed.

Needless to say, most contractors are exempt from this kind of idiocy.

I feel sorry for permies sometimes...

[the_duderama]

I got the impression that they were dumping staff with out of date skills into low skill jobs like call centre work, instead of retraining them.

[TinTrump]

I've just got back from 10 days working in Chennai and the local paper had several reports of students killing themselves over not getting into their 1st choice university or struggling with a course. 1 article listed 3 such suicides by girls who all burnt themselves to death in the last week .