Colleagues make the difference

Care and concern from a co-worker or boss help people get through the rough times

When Charlene Unitan found out that she had breast cancer and needed surgery followed by chemotherapy, the support she received from her workplace helped her dig her way throughthe toughest of tough times.

Her boss told her to take care of herself first. And even though Unitan did not have much sick leave in the bank, her leave time kept growing as co-workers anonymously donated their own.
The logistics taken care of, she now relies on the kind words from her boss and co-workers, some of whom she was not close to before her illness, to perk her up.

"I get e-mails from my boss and co-workers telling me, 'I'm keeping you in my prayers'," said Unitan, an attorney in the general counsel's office at the US Department of Health and Human Services. "I'm letting every religion pray for me. I don't care who it is."

Uplifting words

The words cheer her as she works from home, fighting her fuzzy "chemo brain" and fatigue. "There have been times I've been really down, thinking, 'How am I going to feel halfway human again?' " she said.

Then she receives an e-mail from a co-worker or a supervisor telling her to keep at it, or that they are thinking of her. That's when she thinks, "Oh yeah, I can do this," she said. "It's very uplifting."

Many organisations provide employee assistance programmes designed to guide workers through difficult times. But it's often the more incidental sign of caring and concern from a co-worker or boss that helps people get through the rough times.

"Workplaces, in a way, are like the new neighbourhood," said Dory Hollander, a workplace psychologist and coach. So when co-workers know something's not going well in their cube-mate's life, "it means a tremendous amount, not only in the sense of touching them, but that they're a part of something or that they're appreciated....

If you don't have control over a situation, one of the best things that can help buoy your spirits and restore some sense of equilibrium is feeling connected and being part of a community."

Offices need to be supportive because everybody goes through hardships. And most people need that support at work as well as outside, said Robbie Miller Kaplan, author of How to Say It When You Don't Know What to Say: The Right Words for Difficult Times.

Kaplan said that if it hadn't been for a supportive workplace, she and her husband would have had an even more difficult time getting through them. They lost two babies to a heart defect in one year.

Her husband worked for Fairfax County, Virginia, USA, and the workers advanced him sick leave, came to the funerals, brought food and sent plants, even though he had been there for only three months. He went on to work there for 18 years. "I cannot tell you what a difference it made," Kaplan said.

But there are times, she said, when office mates can make a problem worse. Kaplan heard about a woman whose baby died seven months into her pregnancy. The woman called her supervisor and asked him to e-mail her co-workers so no one would question her when she returned to work.

The supervisor never sent the e-mail. When the woman returned, everyone asked her where she had been. After they heard the news, they were too afraid to approach her. It made an unthinkably hard situation even worse.

Hollander said one mistake managers often make is to tell people to take time off from work.
When Andrea Pedolsky's life partner was diagnosed with liver and stomach cancer a decade ago, she approached her boss to say that she wasn't going to ask for time off but that she would like to work from the hospital sometimes. Her boss gave her permission to do what she felt she had to do.

"I'm generally someone who, if I feel lousy, I keep working because I feel better distracted," said Pedolsky, then a book editor and now an agent with Altair Literary Agency in the District of Columbia. Meanwhile, her co-workers visited and let her cry. Although she wasn't married to her partner, she was given spousal leave.

Easy transition
When she returned, people came into her office and just listened, making the transition a little easier.

Even those who face minor setbacks need a little help from their friends. When Stephanie Barclay suffered a bicycle accident a couple of years ago, she couldn't use one arm for a while. Her co-workers drove her to the San Francisco office of the California attorney general, where she worked at the time as a lawyer.