Warning Signs of Violence: Poor Health and Hygiene, Poor Relationship Skills, Safety Concerns, & Serious Stress- both at work and home
Written by Robert D. Sollars
- Poor Health and Hygiene
These individuals will simply ignore their own health, especially if a family member has a serious illness such as CANCER, ALZHEIMERS, OR some other serious life-threatening disease/condition, & they may be in denial OF THEIR OWN HEALTH AND THE NEED TO STAY THAT WAY. If a spouse has terminal cancer, then the husband/wife may ignore the signs of a heart attack or stroke.
This can also very easily nosedive into poor hygiene. If the individual is up all night tending to someone, they may forget to shower, shave, or put on deodorant. Once a month or on weekends, this isn’t so bad, but if it starts becoming a daily occurrence…
There are others who just refuse to have responsibility for their own hygiene. These individuals have issues but are not necessarily ready to pop their cork and harm someone else. Alcoholics, drug abusers, and others simply ignore that they simply stink and don’t really give a flying fuck what others say about it. They’re too worried, generally, about where their next fix or bottle is coming from.
- Poor Relationship Skills
If you notice an individual who seems to have problems with developing and maintaining relationships… It doesn’t matter whether it’s a personal, school, or work relationship, any one of these, or all three, may be cause for concern.
Some people just have problems forming lasting relationships with anyone, whether that’s at work or socially. They don’t have the skills to have positive relationships, for several or many reasons. Some of those behaviors can be attributed to autism, parents, failures that haunt them, romantic setbacks, etc.
Many times, these people can be dark and brooding and possibly be the stereotypical loner in the organization, they could also just be very shy and not very self-confident about themselves or their surroundings. In that case, then it doesn’t matter who or why someone tries to befriend them, it probably won’t work very well. That can lead to further stereotyping of the individual as ‘stuck-up’ and unfriendly when they are actually not that way.
Also, consider that there are aspects of autism and other mental disorders that can cause someone not to be able to have normal relationships. Or possibly, they have been burned in the past by friends. I know of a person, who has been stabbed in the back so many times, because he was too trusting, by so-called friends, that it’s very hard for him to even start a conversation or friendship much less maintain one.
I also managed a security officer at a large distribution center that was this way; he was very good at his job of logging trucks in/out of the center. However, he was very brusque and extremely rude to anyone who supervised/managed him or tried to tell him what to do. However, he was not a big concern for us.
We left him alone to do his job, which always had a 98% pass rating by their corporate people, which he was rude to as well. In his off hours, he, his wife, and a daughter took care of 15 special needs children in their home. They were placed there by the state of Kansas and were very lovingly cared for, always receiving a high rating.
You have to be careful of those who can be considered loners. They may be just a loner and need someone to talk to them or remain friendly to start opening up. On the other hand…they may be homicidal and a threat.
- Safety Concerns
If an employee has always been clumsy and has always had safety issues at work, then this is probably nothing to worry about. However, if a truck driver suddenly has a couple of stupid accidents after years of perfect driving and the accidents may just be scraping the truck or knocking over a fence post. Or if a factory worker begins running into things with their forklift or stumbling, fumbling, and dropping items that would be the same thing. It may indicate that something is wrong.
They may have other stressful thoughts running thru their minds and they aren’t concentrating on their job properly. Again, if their spouse has terminal cancer or money issues, or any number of factors could be causing them to lose their concentration on being conscious of safety.
Some of these can become their own medical issues, very common in long-distance truckers, of which they may not be aware of. A stroke or TIA, undiagnosed diabetes, or a myriad of other problems could pop up unexpectedly and cause them to be lackadaisical and lose concentration.
- Serious Stress- both at work and home
Is this person having issues with work, of any kind? I’m talking about specific work responsibilities.
Are they having issues remembering what to do or how to do it? Are they shuffling or stumbling through their shift, more so than normal? All of these things and others may indicate that something is wrong.
This is a big one to watch for. And in today’s economy, it’s easier to spot than it was 20 years ago. Whether we are becoming ‘simplified’ or we don’t have a good support system, we are showing stress outwardly more and more.
At one time, if we had stress, anywhere in our lives, we kept it quiet, it stayed at home, which developed into domestic violence or child abuse in some fashion, or our own brains. Rarely, did it spill over into our organizations. It wasn’t unusual for someone not to show stress to anyone until they were either over it or so depressed you couldn’t help but notice. Now, it’s unusual not to notice if someone is fine.
Money, health, family issues, vehicle problems, foreclosures, and employment worries, all of these things and tons more help us to keep sky-high stress in our lives. Some just don’t know how to handle it. And the only way they handle it is to lash out at someone or anyone close to them at home, work, coffee shop, or where ever, like a trapped animal.
You can check out my books and discover a whole lot more: Murder in the Classroom: A Practical Guide for Prevention or Murder at Work: A Practical Guide for Prevention
www.sollarsviolenceprevention.com Twitter: RobertSollars2 e-mail: robert@sollarsviolenceprevention.com
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