Society can’t handle grief. Companies especially can’t handle it.
Case in point: A young widow I know had a 1:1 with her manager who said the employee lacked zeal for her work. The woman, an accountant, inquired as to why, since she knew she’d been working hard, meeting deadlines and working overtime during a busy tax season.
The manager replied that she just didn’t seem “chipper enough.”
This took the employee aback, but she quickly responded with a question: “Suzanne, how chipper would you be if your husband died and you found him?”
The young widow said that the manager seemed offended, so she finally told her bluntly, “Look, if my heart wasn’t in it, I wouldn’t be here.”
It hurts so much to see this hard working young woman derided for not being “chipper” in her grief. I told her to convey the 1:1 to HR as she had described it. Being called to task for not being “chipper” while grieving is a society ill that HAS. TO. STOP.
I get it, people are scared of death and they don’t want to confront it. But see, we who grieve confront it 24/7. We can’t look away because it’s our reality and it’s changed our reality.
People also think it shouldn’t last very long and we should just “bounce back.” We will never “bounce back” because our lives have been upended by someone’s death. Especially for widows, everything, and I mean every, single thing in our lives has changed.
Our society needs to learn to better handle death and grieving, and companies* especially need to be supportive of their employees who grieve.
So many seminars on how to be a better employee/manager. So many seminars on time management. So many seminars on diversity and inclusion.
But, where are the seminars that teach people how to help those who grieve? Where are the seminars about coming along side someone in grief? How can companies be more supportive of their grieving employees?
The view from this widow’s window says that the workplace needs a change of heart. It’s not the grief-stricken who must change, it’s the culture of the corporate world.
*For Christian companies this is Scripturally relevant. Consider these three passages.
Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. ~Galatians 6:2
Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow. ~Isaiah 1:17
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. ~James 1:27