Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress

I have struggled with extreme anxiety and chronic depression and brushed up against the thought of there being no way forward or out but suicide. During the closest calls, I was making the most I ever had, living in a nice house, etc. It didn't really matter though. I felt a tightness in my chest and a boiling kettle of acid in my stomach from the second I woke up until the second I fell into fitful sleep. I had a Pavlovian response to the sound of email arriving on my phone, to the point where it would be in my nightmares. But it was more than just work; irrational panic and anxiety filled everything facet of my life. I would nearly pass out from panic attacks when flying, or worry that the police I saw were going to arrest or harass me for an unknown crime, or think that any time my family was calling it would be tragic news.

About three months after I most seriously considered suicide, I got a new job, saw a psychiatrist, saw a counselor, and a few years later I was pretty much stable. I did have to detox off benzos, but that wasn't too bad.

It has to be understood that highly motivated, highly intelligent people can be driven to irrational levels of stress from their work. Unfortunately it isn't as easy as just reminding the person that they aren't their job or their career, just like you can't treat depression by telling a depressed person to turn their frown upside-down. This man may still have struggled with stress, anxiety, and depression even if he left Uber for somewhere healthier; what's important now is that people reading this story or these comments realise that there are always so many ways out, and that no matter what there are resources to keep you afloat.

I have worked in toxic environments that depleted and debilitated me to the point that, in two cases, I was psychologically completely incapable of even thinking about finding work for three months after being laid off from one, and quitting the other.

It doesn't even take abusive bosses who don't like you, although that just makes it far worse.

It simply takes being treated like a robotic code monkey who is expected to do everything that is ordered, without question, and micromanaged to the point of insanity, while people in management positions make decisions - and then reverse them - that are so obviously wrong to any competent engineer that it makes Dilbert's PHB look like Einstein in comparison. This is not much of an exaggeration.

This is bad enough for any regular human to endure, but take a skilled engineer who probably suffers from impostor syndrome and the upper end of the Dunning-Kruger effect, and it is a recipe for a breakdown and, quite possibly, suicide.

Those who would glibly criticize such people for not going and getting another job, or just quitting, are out of touch with how badly one's confidence is damaged by that point; it would not be unreasonable to compare the psychology to that of abused spouses who don't leave their abusers.

Also, I could not leave one of the jobs without losing my work visa and being deported (it was back in 2003 before visa portability). Maybe others are in situations that make it harder than expected to move on.

My deepest empathy goes to this engineer, and to all others who suffer in this way, and to their families. We need to pay far more attention to the destruction that is done by quasi-sociopathic managers.

You may only discuss as a private person, stating your own opinion, OR disclose which company/government organization you represent.

If an employer creates an environment which is likely to be detrimental to their employees' mental health, shouldn't they be liable?

I haven't made up my own mind on this to be honest, and could probably argue both sides, but I think it deserves to be thought about instead of dismissed out of hand.