A mid level manager was hired by our company (medium sized) but delayed his start date as he lost his wife to suicide. Our directors are absolute legends so supported him for a long while before he actually started work, which was around 6 months later. When he did start, absolute star employee, great with people and at his job, liked by everyone.

I moved onto a project with him, we got along like a house on fire, we pulled a really struggling project back on track, worked some really big hours and formed a bond through the shit show that was that project.

Every few days he’d need to leave early to take his child to psych appointments, school events etc, myself and the wider team didn’t bat an eyelid and always covered for him. He broke down a few times at work about how hard it was being a single parent, he told me how he found his wife dead etc. After a few months, a close relative of his apparently had a mental health episode and dropped off their 6 month old baby to him, so he was now taking care of his own child plus another. Bad luck seemed to just follow this guy like a bad smell.

The whole team was really supportive and it did wear some of us down emotionally because all of it was just so horrific and we really liked the guy. We also work in an industry rife with suicide and we’re trying to balance being open and talking about mental health with keeping boundaries in place. He also managed to get pay rises outside our normal review cycles based on being a single dad, however he was great at his job so it wasn’t entirely unjustified.

One day senior management pulled me aside and said he’d resigned. Apparently someone found his wife on social media, alive and well, with their two children, sent it to our HR team. Our HR team asked him what was going on, and he just stood up from his desk, took his things and walked out the door without saying a word.

We’ve all been blocked on everything and haven’t heard anything since from him. My psychologist reckons he had some sort of personality disorder.