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?

*untrained as in not trained therapists/ counsellors

This would be a non-issue if there was better mental-health care available for bereaved people.

99% of people’s parents die before they do, there wouldn’t be enough counsellors for this.

They also believe that every feeling they have is justified and must be respected. Somehow we stopped saying to people 'uh no...you're being unreasonable and ridiculous - wind your neck in'.

In the same way people are saying older colleagues feelings must be respected and never questioned?

There is a whiff of 'I'm just too caring and sensitive a person to handle other people's grief' about this. Sounds like an excuse for doing fuck all to support other people to me. If our friends need us, they need us and we should try and suck it up. People don't have terrible life events on our schedule and at a time when we perfectly can handle it. Life's just not like that.

Why does it have to be an either/or situation? That is that one is “right” and the other is “wrong”? It is not necessary to set this up as a competition. It is not the case that Either bereaved coworker gets to dominate the workspace or 24 year old gets to choose how to be in involved. Just let each of them manage what they can manage.

It is also not the case that the bereaved worker is the only person who knows what grief ir need is. Youth does not mean that the younger worker has not suffered catastrophic losses already.

I lost both parents within a week and 3 hours of each other 6 weeks ago.

I work with actual grown adults. ALL of whom have been amazing. Which has allowed me NOT to need to take leave for stress.. and able to function and work thanks to their support.

If some knob had mentioned being 'triggered' (surely the most overused word in the English language at the moment) .. I might of actually stabbed him with a blunt spoon and scooped out his liver for lunch while I was at it .

Give him no thought .

I cannot believe I have read this. So people should access professional services and not bother their families, friends or work colleagues with their feelings or God forbid, their grief. I don't want to live in your world....

Me too. Fortunately when my dad died I was working with a number of people who had experienced the loss of a parent. They were so kind and supportive to me. They’d have put this naive 24 year old back in their box in the blink of an eye. Perhaps your more compassionate colleagues could do the same @crochetmonkey74?

The only thing new or different about what the younger woman said, was the words she used.

She's basically just saying the older colleague should say, "Do you mind me talking about it?"

And I think that's what most people would say in the workplace isn't it?

@Offthexmaslist 💐 How are you still standing? So very sorry.

It isn't a question of age. It's a question of being a supercilious, insensitive knobend. And I speak as one who doesn't like bringing personal issues to the workplace or talking about myself in that environment.

Assuming the authority to speak on others' behalf would be too much even from a Line Manager. The only exception is in the very specific circumstances of Bereaved Colleague proving so disruptive an influence on productivity that others had complained, or that work flow was being seriously affected. And in this case, were I LM I'd be having a quiet word with Bereaved Colleague about taking some compassionate leave and getting support to deal with her grief.

To any other colleague, this is not their place. If you don't like it, the correct thing to do is get the hell on with your own job, and if you don't want to listen to them talk about their circumstances, tell them so.

Other people can draw their own boundaries if necessary. This isn't in other colleagues' remit. Supercilious Colleague has stepped far out of line, and again, were I LM, he would be spoken to quietly about basic respect for others.

People like Supercilious Colleague are usually the first to demand consideration for their own mental health. Unfortunately, if all workplaces were to adopt his own unofficial policy, he'd be very unlikely to get it. Doesn't hurt to bear in mind that one day, the person in need could be us.

Hahaha nail on the head!

But where does that end? If one of my children died, should I not be able to grieve in front of dear friend because she couldn't have any children? Life is long and we all have good times and bad times, things that floor us and things we need help and support for. I think if we had to run through a list of the people we might trigger or upset before we express an emotion then that is surely itself very unhealthy. We should be sensitive to a point but it is outrageous to suggest that this poor woman should take her colleagues relationships (or otherwise) with their parents into account before she expresses her grief.

This

Before turning 24 I had lost my father, my uncle who was more like a brother to me as I was practically raised by my grandfather, who also dies before I was 24, at 21 in fact. I’d been through 4 years of domestic abuse, had a miscarriage through domestic abuse, dealt with domestic abuse & sexual abuse from step father. Attempted suicide. Was a single mum after leaving my abusive partner, was a single mum going through uni living alone with no support, graduated from uni & worked in a management role for two years. but no one that young could ever go through anything significant…

All the ageist crap from older women in regards to young people is absolutely disgusting. None of my colleagues knew what was going on because I dealt with it privately & if I had to see someone crying in the office day in & day out with people constantly talking about it I honestly don’t think I’d be here, I think my mental health would have suffered too much after seeing someone else constantly crying in the office. No one has any idea what others have been through/are going through & age is absolutely no indicator whatsoever. I’ve lost two people to suicide just this year & both were male & under 25

"Alex, next time you wish to speak about the support offered to a colleague can I suggest that you first announce it? You see, some people might find it triggering to be told by you to whom they may speak and when. It would provide us with the opportunity to tell you that we didn't have the capacity to listen to you at present, as we're tied up with work. Providing a little support to our highly valued colleague in a one off situation is our priority for our limited downtime right now, but we could maybe schedule to listen to you in a week or so."

Well I would imagine not.

I would say the people who say they're very private, don't think it's right to offload in public and think the 24 year old is entirely in the right would absolutely be the people to say they don't owe anyone their time.

I must admit that I do find those people who need trigger warnings for everything a bit tiresome. The OP has made it very clear the colleague is not offloading onto unwilling participants or emoting in the open plan, so there's a lot of projecting on this thread.

And I find people who speak for others or are offended on their behalf even more tiresome. Speak for your bloody self.

I agree.
Ironically the people whinging the most about the coworker being ‘triggered’ seem to actually be triggered by the language used.
It’s not different from saying something that or ‘do you have time to have a chat?’

Possibly, though if someone experiences hearing someone else's grief as "dumping" it more often than not reveals something about them, not the person expressing grief. And of course someone in severe grief isn't usually able to "manage" how they express it.

You'd have to be feeling relatively ok to be able to ask that, though.

I have said similar to my family and DH before. For example, when they come in the door ranting at me about their day and go down a negative spiral without asking how I am or checking that I can actually deal with that. I have only said it when I have genuinely felt out of resources for my own mental health and cannot take on other peoples issues…. HOWEVER, I would absolutely not say this to someone who is recently bereaved. I just couldn’t do it.

I am a big believer in boundaries and ‘not being able to pour from an empty cup’ but in extreme events like this you just have to shut up and support people.

Exactly right. There seems to be no sense of proportion anymore. Because someone is grieving their dead gerbil, we are supposed to equate that to someone losing a parent, with the whole 'who are you to say which grief is worse, blah blah nonsense'. Losing both parents in a very short space of time has got to be right up there with traumatic life events, is just objectively shit and worthy of sensitivity and compassion and some other people accepting feeling a bit uncomfortable or even triggered by it for reasons of their own. Feelings do not always have to be expressed. This fool of a man can go home and offload to someone else if he feels that strongly about it, at work he should be supportive or just shut up..

Oh God the younger colleague sounds like one of those “I’m desperate to be offended on someone else’s behalf” types

This could apply to many contributions to this thread.

Exactly.
Also age is irrelevant, what with all the career changes and stuff a younger colleague may be more senior,
How exactly do you know this OP? Did you hear it first-hand?
I highly doubt that the youngling chose to tell your older colleague off in public out of the blue, with no context whatsoever.

some other people accepting feeling a bit uncomfortable or even triggered by it for reasons of their own

if it is just feeling a bit shit, then maybe, but the truth is you, me and the OP have literally no idea what ‘triggering’ might mean in this context. I wouldn’t want support at the expense of someone else’s mental health.