[pradn]

He means that his colleagues at the Divinity School don't seem to care enough about him to send him a condolence for his mother's death. It's about the apathetic work environment at the school. That would be a problem for me, too, at my company if I chose to disclose that via a public email. Hell, I have several colleagues that wish me well when I have a cold.

[whymauri]

Especially for a Divinity School, his point is that it marks a fundamental departure from the spirituality and community that made the school special at some point.

[OrvalWintermute]

What struck me about his letter was not only that specifically about the death of his mother, but he also referenced the death of his colleague's mother, Dr. Cooke-Rivers, received no public condolences.

Whether that is Spiritual Bankruptcy, or merely Indifference, I know not, but it definitely reflects a culture problem of sorts.

The best workplaces do not involve parking your humanity or caring at the door.

[threatofrain]

What does it mean to send condolences to a colleague when you don't know much about their mother? That carries the intimacy of sending someone a life event message because FB told you so.

I really don't see that as "spiritually bankrupt".

[chrismcb]

It has nothing to do with the mother. You would be sending condolences to him. If it's about his loss. Presumably his colleagues know something about him.

[ashtonkem]

I mean, I got more than two condolences from my team when I mentioned that my cat was sick, and I think my team is smaller than the Harvard Divinity School.

Spiritually bankrupt? Not sure. It’s not great though.

[op00to]

It means “I recognize your humanity, and we all feel bad at times. It’s ok to grieve. I hope you feel better soon.” That’s what I hope it means when I send condolences to coworkers.

[duxup]

He might think it is apathy, but it's not like we know their motivations.

[darkerside]

He specified public condolences. I don't think it's uncommon for people to share those types of messages privately.

[onecommentman]

In my past experience, public condolences at work were the responsibility of administrative assistants, the folks formerly known as secretaries.

Complaining about a lack of a sympathy card is basically complaining that the admin support staff dropped the ball on meeting his personal emotional needs. So how old is Cornel?

Be nice if the complaint mentioned the unmet emotional needs of his support staff (garbage collectors, groundskeepers, janitors, food service, admin assistants, etc.) instead of simply the top of the ladder folks. Did he send sympathy cards to them during their moments of need? I’m guessing not, but I don’t know.

In my worlds, anything more public than a sympathy card would have been thought inappropriately intrusive, borderline cruel and just weird. It’s a place of work and the presumption would be the worker values a wall between work and family. An emotional HIPAA policy as it were.