https://www.wsj.com/business/greg-becketts-life-seemed-to-be-going-well-then-he-ended-it-at-work-e9417662
Greg Beckett texted his girlfriend one Thursday evening in January. He was working late, he told her—eat dinner without him.
“I was told to ‘not leave if possible,’” he wrote. His girlfriend went about her routine.
A few hours later, the 46-year-old Wells Fargo employee jumped to his death from the 14th floor of the bank’s Wilmington, Del., building.
He left no note. His final messages betray no obvious signs of distress. His brother, Dave Beckett, said he was gossiping with high-school buddies by text message minutes before his death. Months later, his family and colleagues are still struggling to piece together how things went so wrong.
A few hundred people end their lives at work each year, a small but noteworthy number that has mostly risen alongside U.S. su----e deaths. Many of these acts are violent and shocking. They leave family and colleagues without answers.
That has put companies on the front lines of what health officials consider to be a mental-health crisis. Nearly 50,000 Americans died by su----e last year, a 2.6% annual increase, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Much of the public remains unaware of mental-health resources, such as the 988 Su----e & Crisis Lifeline.
The number of workplace su----es fell during the pandemic, when people were working from home. But as people returned to the office, there were some high-profile examples.
They include a software engineer at Google’s New York office in May and an airport worker on a tarmac in San Antonio in June. Thomas H. Lee, a private-equity investor, died by a self-inflicted g-nshot wound in his office in February. Workplace su----es have also taken place over the past decade at banks including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America.
Employers, especially in September, su----e prevention month, have increasingly urged workers to look out for signs that their peers are struggling. But the signs someone is considering su----e can be subtle, and the reasons elusive.
Some people might end their lives at work to spare their loved ones from having to discover the body. Others might do so to send a message about how they felt that they were mistreated at work, said Larry Barton, a behavioral scientist who works with companies in the wake of workplace su----es. He said calls to his practice from companies working through mental-health challenges or su----es are up by a third so far this year.
Companies face a wrenching task in responding. Executives must demonstrate compassion for workers and the victim’s family without broadcasting too much detail on how the person died, Barton said. Workers’ personal matters are typically referred to the company’s employee assistance programs.
“We’re deeply saddened by the loss of our colleague,” a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo said in a statement for this article. “Greg was a valued member of our team. As we all know, it’s virtually impossible to identify a reason when a tragedy like this occurs. There is nothing more important to all of us at Wells Fargo than our colleagues’ well being.”
Dave Beckett, 54, said he was surprised no senior executives represented Wells Fargo at his brother’s memorial service. Some of Greg Beckett’s colleagues attended. Wells Fargo sent flowers.
When a human-resources worker contacted Dave Beckett with information about his brother’s life insurance and where to send his last paycheck, she hadn’t been briefed on how he died. When Dave Beckett informed her, she gasped and quickly ended the call, he said.
“He had personal accountability to that place, and that place had no accountability to him,” Dave Beckett said.
Wells Fargo, which has been nudging workers back to the office, told its Wilmington-based employees that they didn’t need to be in the office the week after Greg Beckett’s death. It paused monitoring of those swiping their badges to enter the building, but the memo saying so didn’t go out until workers were already coming in, people familiar with the matter said.
On their way into the building on the Monday of that week, workers noticed the conference-room window he had jumped from was boarded up.
Scott Powell, the chief operating officer at Wells Fargo, said that the bank’s top executives were made aware of Greg Beckett’s death and that the company communicated with employees about it. Senior human-resources people were on site to meet with employees.
At a companywide meeting in May, which is mental health awareness month, Chief Executive Charlie Scharf spoke about managing work stress and mental health. He relayed personal stories and talked about the importance of open communication.
Greg Beckett worked on Wells Fargo’s internal controls, which are meant to protect the bank from risk. It is in the middle of an intensive effort to revamp them. In the fall of last year, hours got longer for him and his colleagues. Around mid-December, he became more noticeably stressed, his loved ones said.
Sometimes, he would break for dinner and then log back in. He took meetings as late as 11 p.m. One planning call would be interrupted by instant messages telling him to hop to another, and another, Greg Beckett told his brother a few weeks before his death.
After his death, a manager in another group working on controls wrote to his team, saying that Greg Beckett “had been working on a number of high importance, high stress projects at work for an extended period of time.” He noted the importance of managing that stress, writing: “If we don’t find healthy ways to address it, there will be negative consequences of one form or another.”
Greg Beckett’s life outside of work seemed to be going well, Dave Beckett said. He had recently moved in with Giovanna Muraca, his girlfriend of a year, and her daughters. They accompanied him to his family’s Christmas Eve dinner for the first time.
His Philadelphia Eagles were having a strong football season and went on to the Super Bowl. When they played at home, Greg Beckett and a group of friends tailgated outside the stadium, each time in the same grassy spot. Out of superstition, he wore the same sneakers, socks, jeans and jersey.
Greg Beckett doted on his dog, which he sometimes held like an infant with his hands under her bottom and her head resting on his shoulder. He once dressed up in a Barney costume in 100-degree heat for his niece’s second-birthday party. He texted his friends’ spouses about the Real Housewives’ latest dramas. He stopped by his parents’ house to mow their lawn and take out their trash each week.
He and Muraca had been part of the same group of friends for years, but only became romantically involved later in life. They talked about getting married.
On the night of Jan. 19, Greg Beckett stopped responding to text messages and phone calls from Muraca and his family. He was supposed to pick up his dog from his parents, and wasn’t answering questions about when he would be there. They worried he might have been in a car accident. His brother and sister-in-law drove to his office at around 10 p.m. to try to find his car. They found police blocking off the parking lot.
Greg Beckett’s Eagles jersey was still at the dry cleaner in preparation for that weekend’s divisional playoff game. It would be displayed at his memorial service the following week.
Help is available: Reach the 988 Su----e & Crisis Lifeline (formerly known as the National Su----e Prevention Lifeline) by dialing or texting 988.