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A

Grieving J&J Employee And Cubicle Photos

By Ed Silverman // September 6th, 2011 // 7:03 am

In 2003, Cecelia Mavica Ingraham, an administrative assistant in a marketing

department at Johnson & Johnsons’ Ortho McNeil Pharmaceutical unit,

learned that her teenaged daughter had acute lymphocytic leukemia. By May

2005, her daughter had passed away, but a problem arose in the workplace

for some 18 months, Ingraham continued to openly grieve, and displayed

photos and her daughter’s ballet slippers in her cubicle, allegedly making some

co workers uncomfortable.

And so the head of her department met with Ingraham to say that several complaints had been

lodged and so the pictures and slippers had to be removed, because the cumulative effect was

disrupting the workplace to the point where others would try to avoid speaking with Ingraham. And

the department head, Carl DeStefanis, told her she should “no longer speak of (her) daughter

because she is dead.” In response, she asked him if was telling her to “act (as) if (she) did not exist.”

And he said yes.

“He told me that speaking of her and having her pictures in my cubicle was a disturbance to the

work environment and also that’s why people avoided me,” according to court documents. “You

have to take those pictures down because she’s dead, your daughter is dead, and it bothers people.

They have a problem with it. And you can no longer speak about her…When they come to my

cubicle they’re bothered by it. They’re disturbed by her pictures because she’s dead and he kept on

saying that. Again, I was in shock.”

Ingraham left work that afternoon “crying” and “sobbing,” and never returned. Over the next few

days, she visited her cardiologist for heart palpitations and subsequently was treated with an

angioplasty procedure and medication. She took short term disability leave and eventually resigned

from her job. She later filed a lawsuit claiming the J&J unit caused her to suffer severe emotional

distress.

But last week, a New Jersey appeals court upheld an earlier decision by a state court to dismiss the

lawsuit. “Although plaintiff’s version of the meeting would allow the jury to view DeStefanis as

insensitive and, perhaps negligent of plaintiff’s vulnerability in her continuing bereavement, the

conduct described does not meet the requisite standard to support a claim of intentional infliction

of emotional distress,” the panel wrote.

The evidence was not sufficient to demonstrate that “DeStefanis acted intentionally or recklessly to

cause her severe emotional distress. Nothing in the record would allow a rational jury to find that

DeStefanis intended to cause plaintiff emotional distress…His purpose was to address a workplace

issue of efficiency and co worker relationships.

“To satisfy the element of recklessness, plaintiff must prove that defendant acted “in deliberate

disregard of a high degree of probability that emotional distress will follow…There is no question

of 15A Grieving J&J Employee And Cubicle Photos // Pharmalot

22/9/2011http://www.pharmalot.com/2011/09/a-grieving-jj-employee-and-cubicle-photos/



KevinSeptember 6th, 2011

7:16 am

originalindustry insiderSeptember 6th, 2011

9:42 am

ElmoreSeptember 6th, 2011

9:44 am


10:18 am

that any reasonable employer should know that telling a grieving mother not to talk about her

deceased daughter might cause emotional distress, but a severe reaction was not a risk that one

should predict. An employer is not charged under tort law with a duty to avoid all emotional distress

to employees, only such distress that is extreme, outrageous, and ‘ utterly intolerable in a civilized

community.’ ”

Here is the ruling.

Comments

Absolutely ridiculous. Even in her own statement, she only described the

manager being “cold” and “insensitive”, yet she is pulling the emotional

distress card. She demanded to know who the complainers were, but her

manager is not obligated to give these names out.

Companies are allowed to regulate cubicle content since they own the

property. Most apply a “reasonableness” standard when it comes to cubicle

decoration. Under such standard a compromise could have been reached. For

example, you can buy picture frames that are glazed in such a way that you

can see the picture if you’re sitting in front of it, but a passerby cannot.

Similar principle to an LCD screen.

Unfortunately these things will continue as long as we have a male

dominated pharma culture. Case in point, a male employee in a previous

pharma company had a full sized copy of the famous Farah Fawcett pinup

photo (see below) hung in his cubicle for all to see. It made some of the

female employees uncomfortable, and there were complaints, but while I wasthere the employee was never required to remove it.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B0038YCY5O/ref=dp_image_0?

ie=UTF8&n=1055398&s=home garden

So much for emotional intelligence in the workplace. Does J&J have a

requirement that all photos be of live people? It seems to me the issue wasn’t

photos, but the fact that the mother had built a kind of memorial that people

felt they couldn’t avoid.

It could all have been handled so much better. She might have been told that

while her co workers sympathized, they felt uncomfortable with how often

conversations turned from work to her daughter–and then maybe suggest

grief counseling?

As to the photos and shoes, maybe put the shoes in a drawer, while keeping

the photos out, if everyone else was allowed photos.

Elmore, you said it right. A Pfizer friend said that they are now taking

training sessions on ddeveloping emotional intelligence, which is justcoroporate jargon for empathy. Moreover, EI is something you either have or

don’t have, and can’t be taught.





Steve_McQueenSeptember 6th, 2011

12:04 pm

KevinSeptember 6th, 2011

12:19 pm


12:26 pm

ol crankySeptember 6th, 2011

1:11 pm

ChicNotGeekSeptember 6th, 2011

1:43 pm


2:25 pm

Can you imagine trying to sue J&J in New Jersey. They essentially own the

F*cking State. She’d have been better off coming to work with a baseball bat

and beating the living sh*t out of her supervisor. Better yet she should have

just taken an automatic weapon and completely leveled the whole floor.

What’s next? Suing a doctor for bringing you the news that your loved one is

sick or dead in a “cold” manner? We might as well begin suing companies for

criticism in a “cold” and “nonconstructive” manner.

Kevin, you sir have senior management written all over you, do me a favor

meet me in my office later today and we can go over your credential and test

your anus for pliability.

My initial reaction to this was a mix of utter disgust (at the manager) and a

sneaking sensation that there had to be much more to the story. If you readpage 3 of the ruling, it seems as though Ms Ingraham’ was constantly

instigating conversations about her daughter and her daughter’s death with

her co workers more than a year after the child’s death. My guess is that the

pictures and ballet slippers were probably used as tools to bring up her child

and starts discussion about her loss with co workers (with the co workers

feeling like they were a captive audience who could not easily escape Ms

Ingraham or the topic of her daughter once Ms Ingraham initiated

discussion/reminiscing of her daughter). Due to the tragic circumstances (I

can’t imagine anything as bad as the loss of a child) the co workers probably

didn’t start voicing complaints until Ms Ingraham’s behavior continued andescalated, instead of subsiding over time. This is far from a case of people just

having a problem with her having a picture and her daughter’s ballet slippers

at her desk or her answering questions about her family/daughter/how she

was doing. It sounds as though Ingraham’s behavior was disruptive and very

likely pathological.

While too much personal conversation of any type is disruptive in the

workplace, douchebags will be douchebags, and they don’t get fired. They get

promoted. I’ll bet that DeStefanis is now EVP.

Agree with cranky. J&J has a very generous Employee Assistance Program.

There is no evidence that she had even tried to use these services, but rather

preferred to act out using the ballet slippers as props. I also wonder how

productive she was with constant grief evoking reminders of her daughter all

around her all the time.

Steve, you sound like you’re advocating the Theodore Streleski mode of

conflict resolution. Mr Streleski was a math graduate student at Stanford

who failed to get his PhD after 19 years of trying. Frustrated and angry at his

advisor, he took a sledge hammer into the advisor’s office one morning and

beat his brains to death. Story below:





PharmergirlSeptember 6th, 2011

3:27 pm

marcia stoneSeptember 6th, 2011

3:39 pm

ObservantEarthlingSeptember 6th, 2011

4:51 pm


4:54 pm


4:56 pm


6:30 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Streleski

I think Cranky is onto something. It’s pretty creepy that this woman is still

openly grieving some 18 months after the loss of her daughter. I bet it could

have been some sort of pathological ploy to monopolize peoples’ time.

Now having said that, what escapes me is how this DeStafanis character

permitted this to persist for so frigging long. Why didn’t he suggest the EAP

for this woman, perhaps arrange for a leave of absence to get some in patient

care, SOMETHING. ANYTHING.

When you think about it, the rest of the office staff probably has a stronger

case against DeStafanis for failing to maintain a work environment that

fostered productivity and cohesiveness and allowed this type of disruption to

fester and evolve into a toxic and hostile environment. I wonder how many of

workers started taking xanax after the curtains went up on the “doom and

gloom” picture show in the Ingraham Cubicle.

I worked with a woman who’d lost a child and never, ever let anyone forget

it. Every conversation was about this child who had a heart transplant paid

for by the pharmaceutical company.

The older child constantly acted out, even screaming at the mother “Because

of you my sister died!” when he didn’t get his way. If someone avoided her it

was because he or she could deal with her loss. Not true, it was because she

never let up.

Everyone has grief in their lives but work is not group therapy and the people

you work with are not your family. People should have time to grieve but at

some point leave it home.

Another vote for ol cranky regarding his/her suspicions on this issue,

especially after having worked around someone in the past who was in a

situation very similar to Ms. Ingraham’s. It got to the point that we nearly

tiptoed around the individual, trying not to draw his/her attention and for

fear of becoming entangled in long winded (and usually tearful) memorials;

talk about walking on eggshells!

Hey what do I know I’m just a dead movie star. But when I was alive I never

cared much for management. In fact I never liked most people. I’m pretty

sure that Streleski and I shared a beer once in the Mission District.

Yeah Earthling. Everyone in the corporate setting should remain cheerful and

productive. I hope she never missed work to care for her kid. I mean what the

hell. We have drugs to sell and numbers to make.

Steve, I guess old Ted broke the mold. This was followed in succession by a

mass killing at University of Iowa by another academic. Like Ellis Redding





originalindustry insider

September 6th, 20116:34 pm


8:05 pm

Justice in MISeptember 6th, 2011

9:54 pm


10:12 pm

Mike S.September 7th, 2011

1:43 am

yoSeptember 7th, 2011

7:45 am

said in The Shawshank Redemption “every man has his breaking point”. PS, I

loved you in Bullitt.

http://articles.latimes.com/1992 06 07/magazine/tm 411_1_lu gang

Steve, I was just thinking, maybe we should tee this one up with the

producers of “The Office”. Would be interesting to see how Michael Scott

would handle this situation. Any ideas?

I like your thinking insider…my guess is that Michael Scott would insist on a

cathartic journey that would somehow purge this poor woman’s misery. I

envision a weekend spent at Dwight Schrute’s farm and perhaps some

peyote. It’s worked in the past.

Back to the episode…

Ed writes: “An employer is not charged under tort law with a duty to avoid all

emotional distress to employees, only such distress that is extreme,

outrageous, and ‘ utterly intolerable in a civilized community.’ ”

Is this New Jersey law specifically?

Anyway, I assume it’s not the distress that is “utterly intolerable in a civilized

community,” but the provoking action.

I’m asking myself what sort of actions would qualify. I’m assuming actions

like sexual harrassment, abusive bullying, or racist slurring are covered by other laws? Or is this a question of civil versus criminal?

Lawyers are next on the list of scumbags to be gutted in the revolution. So

“justice” I suggest you step back and let the regular Americans sort this out.

Violence and good hair are the only this that will save us now.

Oh Ed, this thread is in need of some moderation.

Thanks OII, for the story on Streleski. It was far more fascinating than

reading the court’s opinion on J&J.

BTW Original, do you actually believe it’s the male domination of culture

that’s the problem?

What you described is just a sexist context for a different underlying

problem: selective enforcement of rules. That sort of thing isn’t limited by

gender, and I can assure you that there are plenty of female administrators

outside of pharma who routinely exhibit sociopathic behavior far worse than

that.

There is a lot more to this story than is explored in this blog. This woman didindeed suffer a great loss but did she then really upset her coworkers over the

next six months so much so that complaints were lodged against her? Read





ol crankySeptember 7th, 2011

7:51 am

HowardSeptember 7th, 2011

8:26 am


9:05 am


12:32 pm

“ol cranky’s” post above as he indicates there is much more to this story. So

hold off on judgements in either direction.

Now having said that, what escapes me is how this DeStafanis

character permitted this to persist for so frigging long. Why didn’t

he suggest the EAP for this woman, perhaps arrange for a leave of

absence to get some in patient care, SOMETHING. ANYTHING.

@Pharmergirl as someone who’s been in line management, I think I can

shed some light on this. Trying to help direct reports by making even veiled

suggestions of anything they do not want to hear can be a very dangerous

thing for a manager to do. It all too often results in complaints being filed

against the line manager and way too few HR people are willing to respond

appropriately because they just don’t want to have to listen to it (they too

often tend to just placate whoever complains the most/loudest instead of

helping uncover the truth of the situation so it can be resolved

appropriately). A good line manager who tries to intervene [appropriately] tohelp an employee improve performance or suggest assistance to someone

who is obviously in distress can get beaten up by HR when that employee

complains. We work in a culture which allows some very extreme levels of

entitlement and it can bite a good manager who wants to help his/her staff

grow in the ass. That being said, way too many managers prefer to allow

unhealthy office dynamics continue or get worse because they don’t want to

intervene in “inter personal” issues no matter how disruptive they are to the

office.

I’d like to think that, if this poor woman was grieving inappropriately (if

that’s not an oxymoron), then some sensitive professional counselling was

required, as opposed to an unempathetic sounding boss playing amateur

psychiatrist. I don’t underestimate the importance of business targets but

some of us at least are human beings, not machines.

Tasteful and sensible decoration would be my guiding principle. I would

submit that if your cubicle resembles the Voodoo Shrine Scene from the

movie Major League (see below) you’ve probably gone too far.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85i5CpyBv

Q&feature=player_embedded#!

“McQueen”–I’m not a lawyer, but I know what stinks.

Shame on OII, who has humored your (shared) fascistic fantasies. He/she has

lost what interest in his views I had.

Seems to be more such lunatics here, which will ultimately be the end of

useful participation on Pharmalot.

Shame on anyone who encourages it. And, at a certain point, who does not

condemn it.






12:43 pm


1:22 pm


1:51 pm

Ed SilvermanSeptember 7th, 2011

2:08 pm

This is serious as hell.

Of course, it could be an attempt at “irony.” Also pitiful, but in a different

way.

Justice, try lightening up a bit. Ninety five percent of my posts on these and

other threads are of a serious nature. The fact is that we have an obviously

pathologically acting out employee, which is so far out of the bell curve of

normal office comportment that the lawsuit is laughable on its face.

Howabout some serious criticism on your part of the plaintiff in this case

who was wasting the legal system’s time. But then again, she won’t be the

last. My shrink friends are getting busy dealing with equally ludicrous “work

related stress” comp cases brought by such people. They know how to

capitalize financially on a legitimate period of difficulty by turininmg it into

short and long term psychiatric disability (with compensation, of course),

lawsuits for “infliction of emotional distress”, etc. There are even chat you

can go to fake a diagnosis of Major Depression when going for your shrink

visit to put in your claim of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because the boss

man crossed his eyes at you one time in the conference room.

You want to know why the American workplace is going to hell in a

handbasket? Because just like we don’t tell off the schoolyard bully anymore,

which worked great in the past, we tie up the court system with things that

could be resolved on an interpersonal level.

That’s why the story was so ridiculous. You academics really need to get a

sense of humor.

Cranky’s point was so on the mark that it bears repeating, for, as a manager

I’ve also been bitten in that anatomical part after trying to helpfully

intervene.

“A good line manager who tries to intervene [appropriately] to help an

employee improve performance or suggest assistance to someone who is

obviously in distress can get beaten up by HR when that employeecomplains. We work in a culture which allows some very extreme levels of

entitlement and it can bite a good manager who wants to help his/her staff

grow in the ass. That being said, way too many managers prefer to allow

unhealthy office dynamics continue or get worse because they don’t want to

intervene in “inter personal” issues no matter how disruptive they are to the

office.”

I would say “amen bro”, except a similarly worded sign was recently forced to

be removed at a sporting event becausde it was deemed racially insensitive.

Hi Folks,





ObservantEarthlingSeptember 7th, 2011

4:36 pm

originalindustry insiderSeptember 7th, 20116:31 pm


6:46 pm

kerry_zaputzSeptember 7th, 2011

7:17 pm


7:58 pm

@ Steve_McQueen: The incident of which I spoke was actually continuing at

maximum intensity after 22 months; sorry, I still stand by ol cranky’s

thoughts.

Ok, back to the topic, as Ed suggested. I have specific knowledge of how

administrative law judges work in the State of New Jersey, and how workers

try to take advantage of a generous workers compensation program through

physical and mental “disabilities”. The way they game the system is that they

know that these judges, as overwhelmed by these cases and will often grant

some type of financial award to the plaintiff in order to avoid litigation and

keep the cases from clogging up the court.

Thus an undserving plaintiff with a good lawyer can game the system to get

some kind of monetary award. The system is corrupt and needs to be

changed, but for anyone who wonders why the cost of doing business is so

insanely high in this state I’ve just given you one reason.

Here is an other theory, which the above 35 posters, including me have

completely overlooked. This is purely hypothetical since we don’t have the

patient’s medical records.

Note that soon after the incident with the manager the plaintiff complained

of palpitations and subsequently had an angioplasty. If the plaintiff had a

history of coronary artery disease her health insurance company might have

considered that as a preexisting condition and denied coverage. However, if

she could tie the need for her angioplasty somehow to the “emotionaldistress” precipitated by the incident with thr manager she might be able to

get J&J to pick up the tab for the angioplasty.

As they taught us in Corporate America you have to think outside the box.

There are very odd features to this story. While anyone would have

compassion for this woman who lost a daughter, I can see how the

conversion of a cubicle into a shrine caused her co workers to feel uneasy. It

would be bizarre to display one’s daughter’s ballet slippers at work even if

she was alive; all the more so when she is deceased. The information aboutthe daughter’s acceptance into Cornell must have been part of the plaintiff’s

testimony. I’m not seeing the relevance of Cornell to her grief. Her grief

would be less if her daughter was only accepted into a junior college? Lastly,

if this woman had angioplasty, she had atherosclerosis not an acute

condition caused by stress. I think the verdict was just.

We also don’t know anything whatsover about her personally, despite all the

presumptive conclusions above about manipulative or otherwise pathological

character.

That’s why I suggested that without such direct knowledge, it was all

“blowing wind.”






8:01 pm

Big_Bill_WSeptember 7th, 2011

9:59 pm

ChristopherSeptember 8th, 2011

8:07 am


8:45 am


9:27 am


9:47 am


9:59 am


1:11 pm

Yo’s suggestion to “hold off on judgment in either direction”–exactly because

of all we don’t know–was probably he wisest and most useful post on this

thread.

I do not appreciate any whining, mournful, women clerks in my company

taking my cubicle space up with their ballet slippers. J&J is not a dance studio

or a cancer cluster. Sure, my stock stinks and pipeline sux. But do not take up

my time with your problems. Now get back to work!!!! NOW!!!

These posts from Big_Bill_W are offensive, unfunny and indecent. Sad person

should be blocked.

Christopher, a blog by definition is an open forum, and censorship would be

antithetical to the concept. I believe it to be a self correcting mechanism that

actually works if you look at the history of these threads over the years. Ieven get tired of my own bloviation at times, which prompts me to move on.

OII: I disagree with two of your three sentences. I’m not even sure about the

third, but I do believe that these comments simply cross the line of

acceptability. I have been a reader and occasional contributor here since the

beginning, and believe the tone is generally civil and ususally constructive.

These comments are neither but are ugly and hurtful, and would and should

get the ‘ author’ thrown out of the garden party.

Christopher, here’s what crosses the line, to use your terminology: yelling

“fire” in a crowded theater when there is no actual fire. That might endanger

people. There is no endangerment here. Read your US Constitution. It’s

called Freedom of Fpeech. If Ed were to start censoring posts, he would lose a

lot of posters, and not just the ones posting comments in poor taste. He

would lose those posters who, like I believe in the principle of Freedom of

Speech. I’ll go for exclusion of George Carlin’s seven dirty words, but not

much else.

Again, to use your phraseology, even at garden party you will find a fewoverripe tomatoes. Analagous with the self correcting mechanism of these

blogs such fruit usually doesn’t hang around very long.

OII: Endangerment never entered into my thinking; regardless, I am

unconvinced by your argument but that’s neither here nor there. Ed has used

the garden party analogy for years including yesterday. I think that says it

all.

Interesting that a post about a grieving woman and her lawsuit has provokedso much.





JaTSeptember 8th, 2011

1:46 pm


2:01 pm

RandDChemistSeptember 9th, 2011

8:13 am

Lynn MSeptember 9th, 2011

12:07 pm

For what it’s worth, I assumed Big Bill was being a caricature of a certain

attitude rather than actually believing it. But who knows?

Perhaps the ambiguities of written communication is another reason to take

particular care with what one says and how one says it.

So that doesn’t sound “humorless,” I would contribute a grape joke now, but

probably few here remember grape jokes.

Not only a heartless move by J&J but none too smart.

It would have been more fair and compassionate to impose a rule about not

displaying family items or discussing family in the work place.

Is the company less responsible for preventing Cecelia’s distress than the

distress of the employees who complained? Discrimination does not play well

in court. I think her lawyers blew it.

JaT, once you start imposing rules about what can and can’t be displayed in a

cube you wind up with something similar to the situation when companies

went business casual. There were such outrageous examples of what people

considered “casual” that companies resorted to devising arbitrary lists of

what management considered appropriate attire. We’re in the business of

making drugs, and we’re not in the business of arbitrating what should be

considered appropriate in terms of personal attire or cube decoration.

We as managers thought we could rely on common sense to prevail, but we

were only fooling ourselves.

p.s. does anyone consider Spandex and cargo pants proper office attire? We

had a plethora of that until we had to resort to making those lists.

This situation is complex and no mere story can do it merit and cover it to

the level of detail needed to decide what went wrong.

It’s easy to blame one side or the other, but I suspect both sides did not

handle it well.

There is at least one study that suggests that cubicle decor can be distracting

at a certain point, even though it seems heavy handed.

To me, if she was grieving at a significant level after several months she

clearly needed more help. If she chose not to get/receive that help, well then

she became a major issue and needed to move on for everyone’s benefit

(especially hers). The grieving will never go away, but time does heal if the

process is an overall healthy one.

Mental health care in the US has improved, but it still has a long way to go.





ExpertTestimoneySeptember 10th, 2011

1:56 am


9:53 am

Paula MarieSeptember 12th, 2011

9:03 am

Former PharmaDirectorSeptember 12th, 2011

9:52 am

I say this as someone who lost a 17 year old niece that I helped raise (and who

was my favorite)and as a citizen of NJ: I carry the day of her death in my

heart as a pain that never heals but teaches me wisdom. Ms Ingraham strikes

me as someone badly in need of compassion but she didn’t deserve to win

that case. Pictures, and yes even the ballet shoes, are one thing. I keep a

prom picture of my niece at my desk. Constant discussion of the grief

however, after a few months, is distruptive of the work place. My brother andhis wife ran a business, so they had to manage their grief in order to survive.

And they did. Their office was filled with reminders of their daughter, but

they kept discussion of their grief to a minimum in the work environment

and only spoke of it to outsiders when asked.

Having said that, the manager should have worked with HR early on to try

and find a way to mitigate the situation. And saying “just get over it, she’s

dead” is never constructive.

This story has been picked up by the national media. Add this to the piss

poor oversight the company has displayed in just about every facet of their

business and their overpaid incompetent CEO and you have a recipe for

disaster. This is a PR nightmare for a struggling, yes struggling, once great

American company. You can bet that there are people who will avoid J&J

products in the future. Count me as one.

Don’t count me as one. J&J still makes the best baby powder. I can just see

the headline in the NY Post: “Extra, extra, read all about it. Grieving cube

mom sues bandaid maker for emotional distress!”.

Can’t wait for the paper to hit my doorstep.

I am coming up on the 5th anniversary of my 21 year old son’s death, and I

can relate that the pain does not go away. The pain caused by the loss of your

child, no matter the age or circumstance, is unimaginable, and learning to

manage the grief is difficult and different for everyone. Most people cannot

relate to the suffering. Companies should offer through HR some type of grief

counseling prior to returning to work, and should also offer “sensitivity

training”, which covers many different circumstances including loss, a new

child, divorce, etc. I’ve worked for the same small R&D company for over 20 years, and only one of my coworkers came to my son’s wake or funeral; I’m

trying to accept the fact that they cannot relate to my loss. A parent will

never “get over” or “move on” from the loss of their child and their child’s

future.

Paula, companies offer help through EAP’s for these situations. Personally I

would recommend avoiding them. You don’t get referred to a board certified

psychiatrist. You get to see a clinical psychologist who may know about rats

in mazes but not much else. If you need an antidepressant, which one may

well need in such grief situations, the psychologist will then ping pong you toa shrink who will follow you with 15 minute medication checks for a defined

period, but no psychotherapy, as that is the province of the rat doctor.





Working momSeptember 12th, 2011

10:36 am


12:10 pm

Connnie ReaderSeptember 12th, 2011

6:10 pm

Moreover, the frat doctor and the shrink usually never talk to each other

although they are supposed to corrdinate your therapy. Plus depending on

your plan you are limited to a finite number of sessions.

If you can afford it do yourself a favor in such situation. Avoid the EAP

altogether and seek the servicves of a competent MD psychiatrist.

I guess you all are so distracted by the “psychotic loon” in the next cubicle

who is mourning over her dead child that you simply cannot work and must

instead write about those things of which you clearly know nothing. I would

think a company like J&J would require all employees to undergo annual

sensitivity training, which convers everything from grief to a new child to

divorce, and that a visit with an in house psychologist would be “suggested”

and perhaps required before returning to work. I get the feeling that none of

you have children, and certainly none of you have lost one, or you would

know that “time does not heal all wounds” and a grieving parent never simply

“moves on”. I have many photos of my children in my work area, includingseveral of my deceased 21 yr old. I never “flaunt it” in front of my coworkers,

and instead I carry a very large chip on my shoulder because none of them

attended his wake or funeral even though we’ve worked together for over 20

years. Perhaps they should be taking Xanax, as one of you recommended, so

that none of them will see or feel it coming. When it comes to their kids,

mothers can lift cars. The woman in question clearly needed help early on,

and shame on her colleagues for not stepping up. I hope you all die alone.

Where does all the sensitivity training begin and end? My school taxes are

already high because of all of the so called “specialists” in the school system.

So if a group of underage high school cheerleaders chooses to goe on a

drinking binge and get killed in an MVA do we need to immediately summon

the “grief counselors” into the classroom the next day? Maybe we should

include grief counseling as part of working mom’s proposed mandatory

“sensitivity” training. When I was in Big Pharma we wound up having to

spend so many hours in diversity and sensitivity training there was barely

enough time to do our work.

When did grieving go from being a private moment to a public spectacle?

Someone tell me. I know what your one word answer will be: Columbinne.

original industry insider in confusing Freedom from Government Censorship

of Speech with Freedom to Get Away with being Insulting, Stupid, or

Dishonest in the Company of others — a mistake made more commonly by

Tea Party Candidates.

Seeing as Ed is not the Federal Government controlling speech in the

metaphorical Public Square, he can set the standards he wants for a

discussion group in space he controls.

OII said:






6:46 pm

J&J'erSeptember 19th, 2011

2:13 pm


6:19 pm

Former PharmaInsiderSeptember 21st, 2011

10:08 am

originalindustry insiderSeptember 21st, 2011

1:04 pm

. . . Read your US Constitution. It’s called Freedom of Fpeech. If Ed were to

start censoring posts, he would lose a lot of posters, and not just the ones

posting comments in poor taste. He would lose those posters who, like I

believe in the principle of Freedom of Speech. I’ll go for exclusion of George

Carlin’s seven dirty words, but not much else.

Again, to use your phraseology, even at garden party you will find a fewoverripe tomatoes. Analagous with the self correcting mechanism of these

blogs such fruit usually doesn’t hang around very long.

Connie, freedom of speech also applies to written speech, as exemplified by

posters who cannot manage to string together a coherent set of paragraphs.

Only so many hours in the school day for writing classes, I suppose, with all

of that extra required time needed for extraneous subjects that I mentioned

above.

People are forgetting that its the woman who walked out of her job and sued

J&J. What’s the poor manager to do when other employees are complaining

to him. Its very hard trying to deal with a emotional woman where

performance became a problem. I had to this couple of times in my career

(divorce in one case; an affair gone wrong with another). Both were not

pleasant.

Agree 100% with J&Jer. In the old days I would have referred the employee to

the EAP program and given her a performance warning on her quarterly

review. If the situation didn’t improve I would have PIP’d her at her nextreview and put her on performance probation, end of story. Today if I were to

PIP the same employee I would make damn sure that I checked with Legal

first to make sure that my backside was covered. Like I said our job as

managers is to crank out the drugs, not manage a day care center.

If you look at this objectively,the company was well within its rights to

address the concerns of other employees. The issue is how poorly trained her

supervisor was. This emotionally distraught woman needed professional

help, not cold callous company first attitudes. While I respect the opinions of

others, when you say “our job is to crank our drugs, not baby sit”, you resort

to fear based management styles that never worked. If you take care of your

employees, they will, in turn, take care of customers and growth happens. If

you abuse employees, they abuse or ignore customers. It’s pretty basic.

Former PI, as you know Performance Improvement Programs (PIPS)are one

outcome of a poor performance review, at least in all of the companies I’ve

worked for. They actually help the employee by outlining a program that sets

specific goals for improvement so that the PIP’d employee knows exactly

where they stand, and HR is on board, maybe even legal. I would argue thatit is exactly the opposite of fear based management, which I agree is bad, as

it keeps the employee in a perpetual state of uncertainty.





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