Redeeming Takemoto

While the news was breaking about my colleague's death on Wednesday July 26 in Washington State, another tragedy was unfolding in California.

Danny Takemoto forgot his 11-month-old son in a Honda Odyssey minivan and went to work for more than five hours in Concord. The temperature exceeded 80 degrees. The day care called the baby's mother to report her son’s absence. When she called the husband at a little before 4 pm, he rushed to the minivan. He found the child strapped in his seat, dead.

Takemoto, who was sent to Contra Costa County Jail in Martinez, worked for a Siemens AG division.

We don’t know what caused Takemoto to forget his son in his car. Might this be stress related?

In 1992, a United Nations Report labeled job stress "The 20th Century Disease" and in 1996, the World Health Organization said it had become a "World Wide Epidemic."

The American Institute of Stress reports that “In California, the number of Workers' compensation claims for mental stress increased by almost 700 percent over eight years and ninety percent were successful with an average award of $15,000 compared to a national average of $3,420”

The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health relates the experience of David in a manufacturing plant. He speaks for many American workers when he says: "Since the reorganization, nobody feels safe. It used to be that as long as you did your work, you had a job. That's not for sure anymore. They expect the same production rates even though two guys are now doing the work of three. We're so backed up I'm working twelve-hour shifts six days a week. I swear I hear those machines humming in my sleep. Guys are calling in sick just to get a break."

Northwestern National Life survey reports that 40 percent of workers say their job is “very or extremely stressful.”

The tendency to blame Takemoto for his carelessness is high. Empathisizing with Takemoto should reveal the horror he is going through. How is he facing his wife? How is he going to ever forgive himself?

And when we look at this event in its wider context, might this be the visible effects of what organizations are doing to the psyche of their employees?

In this specific case, I wonder what Siemens offering daycare to its employees will do to reduce stress for their workers? It is ironic that such a tragedy should happen on Siemens campus because the company is noted for its life-saving products.

Management should find out how much stress its employees are now experiencing. Many other Siemens employees may be silent victims of the effects of the same stressful workplace: reorganizations, meeting deadlines, and profitability. This should be a reminder that the geese that lay the golden eggs should be adequately taken care of. Takemoto’s innocent child's death will not have been in vain.

The news source
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
AIS on Job Stress

Suicide

We entered seminary together in the fall of 2003. Over the years I took several classes together with her.

I wrote a joint paper with her in the winter of 2005 when we took the last UU Polity course that Peter Raible taught.

I remember her forthrightness, her humor, her heart for the poor. She volunteered at Tent City on several occasions. She participated in her church where she touched many lives.

She was a single mother of a 12-year-old boy. I remember she showed me her son's picture and told me how much she loved him.

I was at the grieving ceremony on Thursday night at the Woodinville UU church where I lighted a candle for her.

I am sad that she chose that final and absolute way to leave this world. I hope that her death will not be in vain. That through her death we will go deeper in our understanding of what it is to be there for one another, what it is to be a true community, in a suicide economy.

The Eagle/chicken

A farmer found an eagle's egg and put it in the nest of a backyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them.

All his life the eagle did what the backyard chickens did, thinking he was a backyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he thrashed her wings and flew only a few feet into the air.

Years passed and the eagle/chicken grew older. One day he noticed a magnificent bird far above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of his strong golden wings.

The eagle/chicken looked up in awe. "Who's that?" he asked.
"That's the eagle, the most magnificent of all the birds," said one of the backyard chickens. "The eagle belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth—we're chickens."

Then the eagle/chicken became surprised. “How did I become an earth-bound bird?” he asked. He looked at himself for the first time and discovered that he looked different from the chickens. He saw that he had stronger claws and a larger spread of wings than the chickens in the farm.
He desired intensely to fly like the eagle, magnificent above in the sky. But he was frightened.

“Look, I am used to scratching the earth for worms and insects. Where will I find the worms and insects to feed myself?" he asked himself. He was immensely terrified at the prospect of being free and flying into the unknown alone. Then again, he thought about his previous experience. He could fly only two or three feet into the air. “I can't fly like this eagle in the sky,” he said in despair to himself.

One day, the eagle/chicken noticed that he could fly a little faster than the chickens in the farmyard. He hurried to a short tree nearby, steeled himself and tried to fly. He flew about ten feet. He discovered that he enjoyed staying in the air, even if it was only a few seconds longer. Something within the eagle/chicken propelled him in the air. Unfortunately, he got tired too soon and fell down to the ground.

The chicken in the farm saw him. "We saw you fly. You looked like the magnificent eagle we saw the other day. Sooner or later, you are going to fly away into the deep blue sky, away from us," the chickens said. The eagle/chicken remained silent, not knowing what to say about such an unexpected comment. Encouraged, he went back a few days later, and while he tried flying again, he saw a wild eagle who took him in his wings. The wild eagle taught eagle/chicken the ways of eagles. Eagle/chicken learned to fly like all eagles do, hunt mice in the forest and fish in the river. After this encounter, eagle/chicken perched on the tallest tree, with a gentle wind blowing over him. He pondered how, as an earth-bound chicken in the farmyard, his life was incomplete and his potential was unrealized. "I am glad I discovered who I really am,” he said with teary eyes to himself. “I am glad I followed my dream."