Horrible work situation

[valleymana]

So I have a friend who works for the same company as me. We were friends before we worked together. I am much more senior than him, and he isn’t one of my direct reports or anything, as he is in a different team. Anyway, he is now facing disciplinary action. It is a fairly big company and i do not know any details of what he is accused of but I have been told by someone very senior who knows we are mates, not to speak to him about it and if he tries to speak to me about it, even as a friend, I must say we can’t discuss it, as there is an investigation ongoing. Neither of us have spoken to each other about it, in fact we haven’t spoken at all, which is strange as we are pretty close, but I would feel weird to talk about something unrelated knowing that this is happening so I haven’t said any at all to him and neither has he.

However, I am getting increasingly worried about him. He looked dreadful when last saw him and now he is off work sick. I am actually worried about his mental state. I am assuming that work is checking in on him from a wellbeing point of view but I am not certain of this.

What would you do in this situation? Contact him myself when I have been expressly told not to? Share with work that I am concerned about his welfare? Ask a mutual friend to check in?

I have NC for this.

I have been in a similar situation and to be completely honest I’d never felt more alone and isolated in my whole life - I’d also lost my dad in the past 12 months which didn’t help either. My mental health was massively impacted and to not be able to talk to anyone at work about it was incredibly hard. I had done nothing wrong btw and eventually I was told the grievance was being dropped and I worked as normal as if nothing was happening or had happened but it wasn’t pleasant. He will know that you know what he is going through because of your managerial position and yes I’m sure he might be distancing himself from you because he doesn’t want to put you in an awkward position. Or have you not considered that he now sees you as someone not on his side, maybe he thinks ‘I bet they think I’m guilty’ and that is why he is refraining from speaking to you? Work can’t tell you to not speak to him so you can message if you wanted to reach out just so he knows you care. Obviously he won’t be allowed to speak to anyone at work about the investigation as he will have been told that it would make things worse for him if they found out he had discussed it with colleagues - this is standard procedure. So this what they are referring to when they told you not to discuss this with him. If it was me I would message, ‘I just wanted you to know, what ever you are going through right now, I will always be here for you on the other side. I know that you probably feel like you can’t speak to me right now, but please make sure you are talking to someone, as I can only imagine how hard this must be for you atm. Also regarding HR - based on my experience of working in a corporate company in the past, they only make things worse for employees that they think have done something wrong. It happened to a friend of mine who was investigated. She ended up suicidal and having a breakdown over it and in the end sued them for loss of earnings as she couldn’t work for months after she lost her job due to the mental impact of the whole investigation - HR basically told her to wait until the disciplinary outcome before resigning and they sacked her anyway after months of investigation. It was brutal, she lost so much weight and barely spoke to anyone for a year. Eventually antidepressants helped but that time has always stayed with her - just like mine has. So I do completely empathise with your friend’s situation.