unbelievably selfish and cruel advice

[crochetmonkey74]

Colleague at work (lovely and really well liked) has had a terrible time recently and lost both her parents within 4 weeks of each other. She is in an awful state As you can imagine, people have flocked round to help and offer real life support in practical ways.
Another colleague has suggested she takes more care when talking to colleagues and getting upset and has said she should say " I'm really upset right now and I was wondering if you had the capacity to talk about it" before she speaks to anyone in case they find it triggering or so it gives them the opportunity to say "hey i'm feeling a little overwhelmed with work right now but I can talk next Wednesday.."
For context, bereaved colleague is in her late 40's - knobhead colleague is 24.
The people bereaved colleague is talking to are friends as well as working together. ALso, bereaved colleague is behaving in an appropriate way- not putting on anyone or taking advantage
I am honestly staggered by this - are there a new generation of people who really, even in these most extreme of situations put themselves first? What will it be like if people have such strong boundaries that they never help anyone else? I have been in a terrible situation before and the idea of someone saying they could fit me in in a weeks time would have seemed impossible. With grief, you are often going hour to hour especially in the first few months.
What do you guys think of it?

How mean. Maybe you should be sent to a box room.

Welcome to mumsnet. Your statement applies to all threads on this forum. Do you ask all posters what they're trying to achieve or just this one? I believe the OP wanted a second opinion on something that happened at her workplace (I know, how dares she!?). Of course no one knows the full story so there's a lot of projection and speculation just like on most MN threads. Big. Deal.

Are you feeling better after that @Sandra1984? You need to chill out and back off.

I’ve not been rude or aggressive so why do you feel the need to have a pop at me for doing exactly what you felt the need to defend the OP about?

There’s an irony in you white knighting on behalf of the OP whilst trying to control how someone else puts into practise exactly what you’ve stated.

So 24 yo heard it in the 'team meeting' despite 24 yo would have nothing to do with bereaved colleague in a work setting? So in same team but nothing to do with each other?
0p (to use mn trope) you clearly don't like this 24 yo very much, and I'm assuming it stems from before this incident?

I don't know the OP from Adam so feel zero need to white knight her, just expressing my opinion.

Well, I’m sure you must feel like a really kind person having offered a very biased view of this 24 year old colleague because now everyone is criticising them. I’m sure that will make your bereaved colleague feel much better too. 🙄

The ageism is quite something and if it were the other way around, there would be far more negative comments to you @crochetmonkey74 . Many younger people have been through far more than people twice their age. I say this as a not young person myself! Your judgment and assumptions about younger colleague say more about you than her.

I can’t say I particularly understand how this colleague is aware of all the cups of tea and “quiet tears” if it is actually private. It may be more overt than you’re letting on but you’re very biased in this scenario, so I cannot see how any of us ok here can give a view. That said, I don’t think the bereaved colleague is acting inappropriately but I do question how private it is in your work space.

There's no way that it isn't being discussed outside the room, people checking on who's doing what etc. Or the 24 year old would only know about the deaths and not everything else. So people aren't checking who is doing what etc so she doesn't get mass cups of tea delivered at once? If she's crying daily at work, she should take time off. My similar aged DD got a bit overwhelmed last year when one staff member's parent died and stuff was going on between staff members. My DD is a person who just deals with things, her Dad had died when she was a child, she's lost GPs and Aunts/half sibling. I think that there should be only so much that you should take into work, others around you don't have the choice no to be there.

She has a point the 24 year old would have gone to school when isolation rooms began. They are the lost bunch.

Just expressing your opinion? But don’t like others expressing theirs? There’s a word for that.

I love people to express their opinions and I'm very glad we live in a country were you can express yours, that doesn't mean I need to agree with you.

Many younger people have been through far more than people twice their age.

Sure, but obviously not in this case. If the younger colleague were so experienced and wise, she wouldn't have thought to lecture the bereaved one about how to behave so as to not ”trigger” others.

@LolaSmilesI agree, I’ve worked in places like that too. I know that it’s really annoying OP but can you not see how it doesn’t make sense that the 24 year has objected to behaviour that is happening but which you maintain she’s not seeing or being affected by?

Exactly this.

How can someone be reacting to a colleague they don't see, grieving they don't see, and support from a team of colleagues/friends who are totally private and it never affects the work environment?

But the fact that even considering the situation might have ripples in the workplace is enough for the OP to want to repeatedly bang their head off a desk suggests there's probably little point considering that there might be another perspective other than "random 24 year old approached a colleague that has nothing to do with them, totally out the blue, because they're simultaneously aware of the person's situation but also totally and utterly separate from the group of colleagues who are rallying round, and they have commented on a situation that they've not observed or been affected by in any way".

It doesn't make the comments ok. Like many others I think it was a mix of rude, naive, and poorly expressed. But the OP seems utterly unwilling to accept that a friendship circle in a workplace can influence a working environment.

If the 24 year old doesn't like how clicky her work place is. Maybe the job isn't for her. If I don't like a set up and it's too clicky then I move on. It's not their fault or mine it's just how it goes.

I don’t want to agree with you, I don’t care that much about what you’re posting.

I just don’t understand how you’re reconciling your free speech protests with feeling moved enough to try and police how I’m posting whilst ‘educating’ me on how MN and the internet works (apparently).

It’s struck me as an interesting juxtaposition but you clearly don’t have a comment on that so whatever really.

Yes spot on

But all that is just fluff and has nothing to do with what the young colleague said which is what the thread is about. The words and entitlement to existing in your own special bubble that is never bitten by the reality of life is both an untenable position and spectacularly self absorbed! Everyone has gone, goes through shit but that is something you have to deal with, you can't control others and you especially can't control how someone grieves! Stop buying in to this perfect life mantra and think for yourself, read a book that isn't a self help guide, it might remind you how humans actually are with all their faults and real attributes!

What's the statistics on this statement, how many young people have gone through a lot more than older people? And because you are older that somehow serves to validate your nonsense statement.

But all that is just fluff and has nothing to do with what the young colleague said which is what the thread is about.
It does when the claim is that the colleague has become aware enough of what is going on enough to comment, but also they have no idea how the colleague because everything is super private and in no way has filtered into the work environment.

It seems unlikely that a colleague who has nothing to do with the bereaved colleague, who only knows about their situation due to a team meeting, would out of nowhere, for no reason, come out with what they did.
The words and entitlement to existing in your own special bubble that is never bitten by the reality of life is both an untenable position and spectacularly self absorbed! Everyone has gone, goes through shit but that is something you have to deal with, you can't control others and you especially can't control how someone grieves! Stop buying in to this perfect life mantra and think for yourself, read a book that isn't a self help guide, it might remind you how humans actually are with all their faults and real attributes!
Not sure that this has to do with me to be honest. I've not said anything about controlling how people grieve, perfect lives, self help crap.😕

Like I've said a couple of times on the thread, I don't think what they said was ok and was probably a mixture of rude, misjudged and naive. It's entirely possible though that when a friendship group is wrapped up in a personal situation that it does ripple out into the workplace and start to affect other colleagues.

It's possible for more than one person to be unreasonable in a situation, and for what it's worth I don't think the person being unreasonable is the grieving colleague.

It doesn't seem unlikely at all, in fact it seems very probable, if some of the replies on this thread are to go by!

But expecting to control your environment and context so that you are never bothered by others misfortune or negative experiences, is echoing the mantra of the permanently positive, boundary setting brigade, hence the references to the self help guides!

Anything to go by, not 'go by"

But expecting to control your environment and context so that you are never bothered by others misfortune or negative experiences, is echoing the mantra of the permanently positive, boundary setting brigade, hence the references to the self help guides!

I think people should be able to reasonably expect to go to the office and have a reasonably stable environment to be able to work. I don’t think anyone here is suggesting the level of control that you’re alluding to, and I don’t know what the permanently positive boundary setting brigade even is, nor what self help guides have to do with it!

Well that’s a huge assumption on your part. I’ve more than experienced grief and trauma and I still think 24 has a point.

Why would her being 24 matter to whether she would want her colleagues (so not strangers!) support?? You assume she has friends and family. I didn’t have any of the latter and few of the former at 24. You make 24 sound like an alien species not a young woman!

I'm really upset right now and I was wondering if you had the capacity to talk about it"

Really? You think this advice is a reasonable response to someone who has lost both parents within 4 weeks?

You're not the only one I make it habit not to talk my business to anyone. If the 24 year old wanted to share her business she would. Too many nosey buggers out there who think they are helping but they're not.