MSFT managers and suicide awareness
I’m over this, but just want some feedback. After retiring from the military after over 20 years was fortunate to get hired my MSFT. I went though a bad PTSD period last Fall and attempted to end my life.. thank goodness it didn’t work out. I then went to my manager and told him what I was going through and my attempt and he gaffed me off and we just talked about work. I had to go through six months of therapy to get back on my feet and a couple weeks ago I confronted him and told him how the aforementioned meeting with him made me feel. His answer, “I didn’t know what to do”. And it was the end of that. I have no personal remorse towards him but is this the normal sentiment in our company with managers? I’m already looking for other roles outside of MSFT. Thoughts?
I doubt that is atypical anywhere. I think that was a poor response on his part, but just as with any managerial action, it’s more dependent on the manager himself than the company. Is your relationship with him good otherwise? Irrespective you might look for an internal role to which you could transfer. I doubt going somewhere else will increase the odds of a thoughtful response in any case, wherever it is will come down specifically to the manager so unless you already know and have worked with that person there are no guarantees in my experience. As a company, I think Microsoft is more “thoughtful” (or it makes the motions) than many other places I’ve been. YMMV.
Sorry you had to go through this, obviously you're manager didn't handle this well. I'm honestly not sure that many managers would be equipped to deal with that conversation in the moment, but should at least know to talk to hr immediately and suggest the employee assistance program to you. I'm a manager and your post is directly making me think of how I might handle that kind of situation. Not all managers are like the one you experienced, but also a lot of my friends are in management and it can be tough to know how to handle all situations in the moment. No excuses though, your manager should have done better.
The person (manager) is matters more then the company. I don't think that is a Microsoft problem. It's a problem with our society in general.
Sorry to hear this happened. What were you expecting the manager to do or say in response? If I were a manger I would have been at a loss for what to say back about such a personal and awkward thing.
Understand. Again, nothing personal towards him. Maybe coming from a long career in the military I “expected” some kind of guidance to find help. I know now it was a cry for help, literally because I thought that my team was sort of a “family”. As a people manager for over 20 years, I firmly believe that people make the company.. not the company. Thank you for your response. I can convey this now, but a couple months ago I was a wreck.
As a veteran myself I can understand wanting to keep your manager informed since the military encourages a paternalistic style of management. But to be fair, a manager is not a licensed therapist or social worker. In the private sector, managers don’t go through suicide-prevention training every week. In the end I think your manager was insensitive, and that you’re right to try to find another team, but I just wanted to offer a different perspective.
Sorry to hear this happened to you, God Bless you and your family. PM me, Navy Federal has great opportunities and we take care of our people. This would never happen to you here. We are hiring all across our organization and our competitive with Big Tech/Finance.
IMO you are over dialing and implying that no one in tech/ finance has empathy towards such situations.
I’m not over dialing or implying that no one in Tech/Finance has empathy to such situations. I am saying that it wouldn’t happen in my organization and because we were founded for the sole purpose of serving members of the military and they’re families our organization is is uniquely prepared to handle these kinds of things.
Manager should have recommended you go on FMLA. He should have worked on a plan to transition your work to other people or finish up any remaining and easy tasks and told you to apply for FMLA. Your manager is a moron.
Op so sorry about your experience. Here is waht happened with me when at msft. My coworker had anger issues, and would verbally abuse me. Get angry, fight. Then one day it escalated to physical violence. He hit me. Threw things at me. I went to my manager, told him the whole thing, said I don't want to do a HR complaint as it will ruin my co-workers career, and he was a good engineer. So I told my manager to move me to a different assignment as I wanted to avoid physical abuse. His response, man up dudeand he said I was pretty haps provoking the incident and I should ' a step back'. A few days later my abusive colleague got promoted, I couldn't take it anymore, quit msft
Stay strong and seek help. Fuck that dude.
Wow why didn’t you report to HR? What about police report? If you didn’t do anything, he would do it more and worse. He will eventually hurt someone else even harder as he learned they don’t do anything.
^ what he said
I blame this person's manager then. If he really wasn't trained on what to do, the blame belongs to the their manager. I'm pretty sure MSFT gives training to managers on this stuff. I'm so sorry to hear about this. You didn't deserve that. I'm sure not all managers are like this, but in your future roles whether in MSFT or not, I'd ask them if they have had this training just to keep your mind at rest if you were to ever have these thoughts in the future.