Daily Lessons from Life 16 April 2011 - Death Through Overworking?

"Fri, Apr 15, 2011 - China Daily/Asia News Network: 25-year-old's death raises debate on overwork

SHANGHAI - The death of a 25-year-old female employee with the Shanghai office of PricewaterhouseCoopers on April 10 has led to intense discussions over whether overwork threatens the health of white-collar workers.

Pan Jie, a junior auditor of the company, died on Sunday after contracting a case of acute cerebral meningitis that had developed from a flu virus, according to local media.

On March 31, Pan wrote on her micro blog: "Whenever there's a chance to take a break, a fever comes."

On April 1, she wrote that her white blood cell count had fallen to 1,800 - dangerously low.

There is no clear evidence linking Pan's death to her work at the company - except for her micro blog. Before dying, she had turned to the Internet frequently to complain about feeling tired and about her poor health, conditions she believed resulted from overwork.

Pan's death caused an instant uproar on the Internet, prompting public debate over the greater and greater health risks white-collars workers are subjected to in large Chinese cities like Shanghai and Beijing, where overwork and fatigue commonly lead to various occupational diseases.

More than 60 percent of the white-collar workers in large Chinese cities are faced with a risk of contracting maladies resulting from overwork, according to a survey carried out in 2010 by the Chinese Medical Doctor Association and the Chinese Hospital Association.

Young people have been dying more and more in recent years from sudden onsets of cardiovascular disease, according to Fan Xiaohong, deputy director of the Shanghai Chest Hospital.

She said that apart from heavy workloads and related pressures, many white-collar workers are susceptible to disease because they don't exercise enough and don't manage their health properly."

1st of all my condolences to the family of the deceased. It is always sad to read of a life lost, much less a young one.

There is no clear direct link between her death and overworked as reported. So, hopefully it is not.

Lessons for me are:

1. some professional jobs are time sensitive and highly pressured. It is important for the corporations to facilitate the easing in of their associates into such jobs;

2. it must be a terrible burden to carry if the senior or manager in charge of the deceased felt responsible for the deceased's death, indirectly or otherwise. The firm will need to help these people too;

3. while there were criticism that some of the young professionals are not as hardworking as the baby boomers, this incident showed that responsible young people will always do their best at their work. The question becomes: are they properly prepared for these jobs? could something had been done to ease their pressure adequately and maintain their condition at "flexible but not over-stressed'?

May there be peace and closure here. May all those many hardworking and feeling overworked people seriously consider a thorough check-up and the corporations seriously consider if such 'complaints' or feedback should be taken seriously!!