Sign of the Times

"Mobbing" is the term that has been coined for an increasingly common phenomenon in primarily Western employment environments that leads to divorce, unemployment and it has been documented in at least one study that 12% of all suicides experienced a 'mobbing' event shortly before they took their own life.

http://chronicle.com/article/What-Killed-Kevin-Morrissey-/123902/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Suicide at prestigious Virginia Quarterly Review stirs concern over workplace bullying:

Family members and people close to the review say Mr. Morrissey, the review's managing editor, had been complaining to the university about workplace bullying by his boss, Ted Genoways. But, they contend, the institution did virtually nothing to help. "Kevin had been to the university as recently as the Monday before the Friday he died," says a person who worked for the review. "The university had tools to step in and mediate, and they didn't." Some close to the situation say that in the days before the death, they even warned the university that Mr. Morrissey, who suffered from serious depression, might commit suicide."


"They say Mr. Genoways, in turn, began cutting Mr. Morrissey out of key decisions and distancing himself from the office, refusing to answer staff members' e-mail messages, shirking many of his day-to-day duties, and dumping most of the work on his small staff. "The whole staff felt Ted took all the credit and did none of the work," said the person who worked for the review, adding that Mr. Genoways spent most of his time at VQR "scrambling to be a star." Mr. Genoways has been away from the office on a Guggenheim fellowship in recent months, but he still has been responsible for making sure the journal's issues are finished on time."