There’s a script they hand out when someone cracks. A helpline number. A pamphlet. A few bullet points in a glossy deck titled “Mental Health Support.” It reads like they booked empathy by the thousand, printed it on A4 and tucked it into an HR folder. But when the script meets real pain, it slaps harder than any crisis.
I laid it bare in “One Man’s Cry For Help” (read here: https://tcap.blog/2025/06/09/cummins-confidential-one-mans-cry-for-help/) – an email where I spilled how despair stalked me and how asking for basic decency felt like waving a red flag in a bullring. The reply? A number. “Call this helpline.” No pause. No “we hear you.” Just the default detour to an EAP robot.
Meet Kevin Graham, the “Director of Ethics” – or so the title implies. I can’t find a trace of him online. No LinkedIn footprint, no press mentions, no interviews. It’s like a ghost title designed to tick the “we care” checkbox without actually caring. A Darlington alias? A phantom in a stateside PowerPoint? Doesn’t matter. The point is: you pour your guts out – suicidal thoughts, anxiety so raw you can’t even dial the number – and the response comes from a ghost.
That’s human robotics: diagnosing crisis as a process failure, not a signal for genuine change. “Here’s a leaflet” becomes the anthem of nonchalance. It’s not malicious in intent – it’s programmed procedure. But procedure is cold when your world’s burning. For someone in that void, hearing “Call this number” can feel like a sucker-punch: your plea meets a script, not a human.
Ask: when does a script become deadly? Does it take a tragedy – a man hanging from a beam – for someone to question the script? Would that moment override the flowchart? In an accountability vacuum, probably not. They’ll note the incident in a slide deck: “Learnings: review EAP protocol,” then move on to quarterly targets. The body becomes a statistic. The empathy train leaves the station long before it even arrives.
EAPs have their place – some folks find a stranger on the line and that’s enough to hold on a little longer. But for many, anxiety makes dialling impossible; shame snarls the words before they reach the phone. A sympathetic ear and untrained input is a better offer: an email address where someone who’s been there listens, without judgement, without “we tried” boilerplate. You won’t fix clinical depression with a coffee-shop chat, but you can prevent isolation from feeding the darkness.
Imagine if, instead of redirecting to a helpline, the “Director of Ethics” replied: “I read your letter. I’ll meet you for a coffee. Tell me what you need.” Real acknowledgement – not “HR protocol says we must offer EAP” – but real time spent. That flips the script. It says you matter more than a KPI.
But in corporate land, time is money and empathy is non-billable. So they outsource humanity to a helpline, then carry on. It’s easier to tick a box than to stick your neck out. Yet every time someone is diverted to that default response without real engagement, it widens the gap between policy and people. It teaches everyone: vulnerability equals liability; ask for help at your peril.
Riff this: “Director of Ethics” Kevin Graham – if you’re real, show yourself. If you’re a phantom, admit it. Either way, stop the robotics. Stop treating breakdowns as process events. And if you’re someone reading this, feeling unseen: you don’t have to accept the script. Write if you can’t speak. Email me at admin@tcap.blog. I’ll find time. Untrained though I am, I’ve been there. Speaking to someone is better than silence. No slides, no flowcharts – just a human who knows how deep the void can go.
Because if it takes a body swinging to break the cycle, then we’ve already failed. Better to risk awkward conversations than to wait for tragedy and bury it in “post-incident review.”
Real care isn’t a pamphlet. It’s presence. It’s listening. It’s making time. And yeah, it might mess with someone’s schedule. But if being human is an inconvenience, then whoever penned that script needs to step aside.
Let them mull that while you remember: you’re not a process. You’re flesh and blood. Don’t settle for the default detour. Demand a human response before the script writes a tragedy no one can rewind.
Lee Thompson
Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project
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