Daily Lessons from Life 16 May 2013 - Ogilvy China employee, 24, dies from 'overwork'

"Ogilvy China employee, 24, dies from 'overwork' - AsiaOne May 16, 2013 Advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather has confirmed that one of its China employees, Li Yuan, has passed away suddenly at the age of 24. Li was working at O&M China's Beijing office on Tuesday when he suffered a heart attack. According to local news reports, the young employee had been working overtime every day for a month. News reports say he did not leave work before 11pm every night. Colleagues who saw Li collapse to the ground had called for an ambulance, which took him to a hospital. He could not be revived. At the time of Li's death, a doctor diagnosed Li to have suffered 'death by sudden cardiac arrest'. Since news of Li's passing, Chinese netizens have flocked to his Weibo page to comment on the latest picture posted on his Weibo page. The picture, believed to have been posted by someone who calls himself Li's 'ge ge' (elder brother), shows Li posing with a salute. It was captioned: "Goodbye to the people I love, goodbye to the world". It has since drawn more than 22,000 comments and has been shared thousands of times." Lessons for me are: 1. it is easy to see that such death is not worth it. Yet, when one is in that situation, can one exercises proper judgement to say: 'Enough is enough?'. I am not sure. Such deaths were reported in Japan originally and they even have a special term for it: 'Karoshi'. At least one case happened at Huawei, the controversial, some may say only to the USA, telecom giants more than 7 years ago, I think. Is this just collateral damages or something one can prevent?; 2. for someone to work so hard, one must be quite devoted and committed to the work. This is great. At the same time, working till the body could not handle the stress and triggered some, hidden or known, body reaction that take away a young productive life, simple does not make sense. Could it be personal commitment and conviction or the pressure exerted by the corporation and the leadership be the reasons? If it is the latter, what are the responsibilities of the corporation and the leadership? Of course, the root cause could be the type of industry one is working in. I know of a good friend who shared his black out moment at the office when working on some projects in an advertising company! Is it the nature of the industry? If so, what can be done?; 3. the important question to ask after sharing the sadness of a young life lost and sending the sincerest condolences to the deceased's family is: what's next? Surely the press and the people will talk about this case. How wasteful it is to lose a precious young life to such circumstances. Corporation and leadership will talk about the need to maintain work-life balance. People will, or may, remind each other to be careful about not working to the point of exhaustion where the natural immunity system breaks down or gives up and trigger some fatal bodily responses - hidden or known. All these will help. Yet, ultimately, the concerned person has to take a stand and make a choice - is enough enough? Rest in peace young man. Rest in peace.