Suicide at Uber: Is this Tantamount to Murder or Manslaughter?

Before he went to work for Uber, Joseph Thomas was described as “the smartest guy in the room,” a hard-driving and ambitious engineer with a warm heart who gave up a job at Apple to work for Uber. But according to the San Francisco Chronicle, after he started working at the ride-share company, he began to change.

His family told reporter Carolyn Said that he began to struggle for the first time. He was working long hours under acute stress and frightened he’d lose his job. Then the panic attacks began, along with constant anxiety and lack of mental focus. Visits to a psychiatrist didn’t help, nor did pleas that he quit Uber. His wife reported that his personality changed and he kept insisting that he couldn’t do anything right. Thomas was one of the less than 1 percent of African-American managers at the company and given previous reports of bullying and harassment, it is very likely that racism played a role in his decline.

In August 2016 Joseph Thomas took his own life. He left behind a wife and two young sons who are being denied a worker’s compensation claim because he had only worked for the company for five months. His wife is looking to hold Uber accountable for Joseph’s mental decline. “If you put a hard-driving person on unrealistic tasks, it puts them in failure mode. It makes them burn themselves out; like driving a Lamborghini in first gear,” Thomas’ father told the Chronicle.

I’ve written a lot about suicide brought on by bullying at work, and given the 120,000 annual deaths attributable to workplace stress according to a joint study at Harvard Business School, it’s not a surprise that not enough is being done to address the cause of this terrible epidemic. I devoted an entire section of my book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire to preventing this sort of tragedy. The Faas Foundation has been working to address the issue of mental health in the workplace with Mental Health America with the same goal.

It is eminently clear that the toxic workplace culture at Uber is having a horrendous impact on its people. In February I wrote about how a former female employee of Uber was driven out by sexual harassment that human resources did nothing to stop. It’s gotten so bad that two of the company’s original investors penned an open letter to the board about the egregious culture of the place.

If it is found that the toxic environment was the main factor in Thomas’ suicide, Uber must be held accountable for what is tantamount to murder—or at least manslaughter.  

Photo credit: Contract Magazine

The Silent Workplace Epidemic that Endangers Millennials

Millennial employees get a bad rap—often chastised as being lazy and self-involved, they are actually the largest current generation and swiftly eclipsing baby boomers in the workforce. While they bring plenty to the table—innovation, creativity, technological know-how, inclusiveness—they are also vulnerable to toxic workplaces. The medical journal Pediatrics reports that not only are they more likely to become clinically depressed than any other generation, more young women are struggling with the disease. Clearly they need psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplaces to make the most of their potential and maintain their physical and mental health.

Not meeting this standard has dire consequences for individuals as well as the nation. This is why I’m working with Mental Health America (MHA) to improve psychological health in America’s workplaces. MHA has studied this problem and found that mental health issues cost $51 billion per year in absenteeism and lost productivity and $26 billion in direct treatment costs.

My fear is that the current atmosphere of divisiveness, bigotry and bullying promoted by the current administration will compound the problem of mental health in the workplace. Adult bullying in the workplace can cause even more havoc on a person’s well-being than school bullying—many adults need their jobs so they and their families can survive. In a tough economy they may have no other option, so they are forced to endure negative treatment, which gone unchecked can lead to physical and mental illness and even suicide. With one in five Americans afflicted with a mental health issue at any given time, this is a serious consequence. For more information on how to create psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplaces and maximize the potential of millennials—and all employees—see my book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire.

If you have coworkers—especially millennials—who are suffering, I urge you to reach out to them. As I indicated in recent articles about suicide resulting from workplace bullying and living with a person with mental illness, no one has to go this alone. There are resources for help. Choose to be an ally and advocate instead of a bystander. You can make a difference in someone’s life.

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