Two incidents this week have once again highlighted a major problem afflicting IT workers: The frequent breakdown in their mental health

Two incidents this week have once again highlighted a major problem afflicting IT workers: The frequent breakdown in their mental health.

However, tech companies just sweep the problem under the carpet, and pretend it doesn’t exist.

The incidents occurred in Hyderabad, but both involved techies who worked, or previously worked, in Bengaluru.

First, 25-year-old Balvinder Singh ran amuck with a sword. He attacked his parents at home and then ran onto the road chopping at people at random injuring over 20 people. He was shot dead by a constable.

Second, Syed Imad Hasan locked up his former girlfriend in his bathroom and tortured her, trying to force her into marrying him. She was rescued, battered and bruised, after she managed to contact a friend over Facebook.

Isolated incidents?

Not really, this is a pattern that has been apparent for some years. In 2015 alone, a number of gruesome incidents involving techies have hit the headlines.

September 2015: Bangalore-based techie MG Gokul was arrested when hoax bomb threats to Bangalore and Delhi airports were traced to him. When police arrested him, he also confessed to killing his wife earlier in July by hitting her on the head with a Ganesha idol. The bomb threat was a part of an elaborate plan to get rid of a friend and marry the friend’s wife.

June 2015: Keshav Reddy, 36, a techie working for Actiance, was killed by his wife Shilpa who first drugged him and clubbed him to death. She enlisted the help of her cousin and parents to dispose of the body.

October 2015: 31-year-old techie, Murali Krishna, a former Infosys employee, was arrested for posting obscene ads of his wife on the internet. The girl began receiving phone calls from men responding to the ad. Murali was unhappy with his wife for failing to bring more dowry.

October 2013: Ashwin Tambrekar, 35, was arrested on the complaint of his wife. The techie had allegedly been raping her 14-year-old niece for years. The girl had been threatened into keeping quiet.

Over the years a significant number of techies have been killing, raping, blackmailing, torturing domestics, and indulging in disturbing behavior; not something that you expect from a generally well-educated, high-earning class of workers.

The problem has been flagged before. Two years ago, Nimhans director P Satish Chandra told The Economic Times that more and more IT executives were coming in with problems of acute depression, insecurity, low confidence, dejection, aversion to social life, and panic. He said, "This is just the tip of the iceberg." He meant that for every one person who sought help, there were many more out there, hiding it, fearing social stigma.

So, what is it that causes so many techies to completely lose it? Is it job stress?

Bengaluru-based consulting psychologist Dr Geetha Appachu says, “While working for tech companies is stressful, there is nothing to indicate that these jobs are more stressful than any other.” This makes sense. Doctors, lawyers, policemen, even journalists, have high-stress jobs. “The problem is in how one perceives and deals with their stress,” she says.

As someone whose majority of patients happen to be in the tech industry, she should know. Many of her patients complain to her about tight deadlines, long working hours, rotten co-workers and bosses, and unhappy married lives.

But these are problems in any profession! What is different for the IT worker?

The main problem is the speed at which IT workers come out of college, get high-paying jobs, and get access to cash-to-spend. Often, IT workers belong to small towns, with little or no exposure to big city life. Fresh off the bus, they are instantly propelled into a world of partying and the fast life. This could create psychological problems, and often does. “They need to make an attitudinal shift due to the sudden change in status,” says Dr Appachu. Many can’t cope.

Given their rapid career rise, most techies could be too self-centered to realise that the change must come from within them, and that the environment will not change to suit them. Once they realise this, they could probably fit in better.

For some, this inability to adjust and the resulting stress causes real physical problems like persistent migraines and lower-back pain. Others burst into rashes. In extreme cases, it causes depression, personality disorders, and even anti-social behavior, like the type we saw in Hyderabad earlier this week.

Dr Appachu says triggers that send some people over the edge may vary, but the underlying causes are usually the same — the perception of stress and overwork. A problem that is usually compounded by lack of exercise and too much of the ‘good life’.

So what are IT companies doing about helping their employees cope with the stress, whether real or imagined? “Nothing, when it comes to mental hygiene and psycho-social competence, in particular,” says Dr Appachu, and adds, “It’s surprising, because they spend so much money on training employees in work-related skills and soft skills, but do absolutely nothing when it comes to dealing with their mental health.”

She points out, “Companies must realise that mentally-stressed employees are not the most productive employees.”

And that is probably the most important message that needs to go out. Once companies realise that employee stress actually hits bottom lines, they will pay more attention.