“I don’t even know if I can handle working again,” said the 54-year-old
Recovering from an extreme episode of workplace
violence — in this case, last week’s mass murder of eight employees and
the suicide of the killer, fellow employee
And experts say it is hard to predict how individual
workers will react when they return to a place they now associate with
fear, terror and loss. Business owners face the challenge of resuming
normal operations while remaining sensitive to the grief and anxiety of
employees.
“Going back to the site of where it happened is a trigger,” said
which is run by the state. “People’s response is not always
predictable. Some will go back and not show visible effects and others
will struggle.”
Zylberman, a 34-year employee of Hartford
Distributors, stood nearby as one of eight co-workers was shot dead by
another employee who later turned the gun on himself. Zylberman has
made an appointment for grief counseling made available to company
employees.
In 1998, Levinson was among the first counselors to aid workers at the
Until last week’s shootings at the beer distribution
warehouse, the Lottery murders were the worst incident of workplace
violence in state history.
Levinson led a team of counselors that, over six
weeks, treated individual employees and groups of them. The toughest
part came at the beginning, he said, as employees continually replayed
the horror of the shootings and their flight into the woods behind the
headquarters’ building.
“In any office where all of a sudden you’re running
through the woods, falling into the mud, it is so far out of the realm
of experience, you’re not prepared for it,” Levinson said.
A similar scene unfolded last week as warehouse employees scattered amid the gunshots in
Levinson said talking about what happened —
individually with a counselor or in a group, or with family and friends
— is probably the best way to work through the trauma.
“Rather than going out and getting bombed, better to sit and talk with people about it,” Levinson said.
Workplace homicide has come to seem freakishly commonplace — it has happened at least three times in
That’s what happened at the
Since Tuesday’s massacre at Hartford Distributors, cafe co-owner
“(They say) ‘Oh, my god, can you imagine that?’ ” he said in an interview at the cafe. “Well, yes, I can.”
Thorndike does not like talking about Justin-Jinich’s death and turned down previous interview requests. After the
Regarding the cafe itself, the most fundamental
question was whether and when to reopen. The surviving full-time staff
wanted to get back to work quickly, according to Thorndike, who viewed
this as a show of loyalty and a determination not to be victimized
further. (All four full-time employees remain with Red & Black
today, he said.) But the group decided to wait.
“It was still too fresh for anyone to really make
that decision,” Thorndike said. “Given the gravity of the situation, it
just didn’t make sense.”
Within a couple of weeks, after consulting
which owns the building where the cafe and a bookstore operate, they
decided to remain closed through the summer and reopen in the fall,
after renovating the cafe space.
It’s not just our livelihood,” Thorndike said. “It’s
the livelihood of our staff. This is where they worked. They’ve already
experienced something so horrific, and they shouldn’t be further
penalized by losing their jobs as well.”
How businesses deal with the work space after killings varies widely.
In 1984, when a gunman killed 21 people at a
In
after the shootings at the Lottery, the area where the killings took
place was sealed off. A few months later, the headquarters was moved to
Hartford Distributors may be faced with a tougher
task. The violence was spread throughout the entire warehouse and
offices as well as the grounds
“Reminders of the situation will be visible for a long time; even if there is remodeling, it will be a reminder,”
Once they return, possibly later this week, employees may cope as a group.
“It’s ‘We will persevere and not let this guy shut down the business,’ ” Albrecht said.
Managers must face the challenge of moving forward
with the business, but being sensitive to how quickly employees can
regain their psychological footing, Albrecht said.
“The trade-off for owners is not to rush back to work, but to respect what happened here,” Albrecht said.
At the
as both a workplace and a retail store open to the public. Altering the
physical environment was intended to spare employees and regular
customers from daily “(reliving) everything exactly the way they saw
it.”
The seating area was reconfigured, booths replaced
some tables and chairs, and the cash register has been moved from its
spot on the day Justin-Jinich fell.
Not that anyone at Red & Black has forgotten what happened, or wanted to forget the person most grievously injured by it.
Some of Justin-Jinich’s closest friends presented
the cafe with a flag from her room at school. It’s in the colors of the
rainbow and it blares one word, in Italian, “PACE,” for peace. Now it
hangs on the wall behind the counter at
Levinson said going back to the original building can actually help the healing process.
“Being exposed to the place over and over again
tends to lessen the impact,” Levinson said. “If you don’t go back that
might not happen.”
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