2w ago

Employee commits suicide after MongoDB fired her during mental health leave

www.linkedin.com Our beloved, irreplaceable daughter Annie should’ve been celebrating her 30th birthday this week. Instead, we’re left marking that milestone without her -- remembering all that she was and grieving… | Greg Surman | 264 comments

Our beloved, irreplaceable daughter Annie should’ve been celebrating her 30th birthday this week. Instead, we’re left marking that milestone without her -- remembering all that she was and grieving all that should have been. Annie died by suicide last year, after being fired by MongoDB while she wa...

Comments

81 comments

This is something you learn the hard way about neoliberal meritocracy..."They only hire the best and you fight to get there, you're the best until you inevitably aren't at your best...and once you aren't at your best even for a moment of weakness, then you are not the best...and you never were". This is why everyone needs protection from a work culture that burns through people.
- This is why everyone needs protection from a work culture that burns through people.
  You are all welcome to Europe for that. Come on over.
  
  You don’t want us…..
  
  Europe's going through a pretty big racist anti-immigrant phase, so probably not the best of ideas.
  
  For now anyway. Europe is not immune to fascism.
  
  It doesn’t seem like Europe is very open to American immigrants these days….
  
  No thanks, I don't want to see this side of the ocean get ruined too
  
  Right, I'll just conjure up a work visa for my bullshit job, sell my house and belongings, and leave my family and friends behind. Super easy, barely an inconvenience.

In my experience, when you bring up FMLA, then you're going to be fired.
Its a well-intentioned protection, but not enough legal teeth. Corporations have learned how to work around it.
This problem will continue to get worse until workers gain power in our society. Mass unionization or socialist revolution would solve the problem; both are very unlikely.
All that is left is violence; may a thousand Luigi's bloom.
- this must be an american thing.
  
  it really is wild how toothless american labor is
  
  Yes we have no mandatory paid breaks. If you get a holiday you are lucky. We have no medical protection. Few states have mandatory accrual of some days off or sick day. It's horrible here.
- My body is ready.
- Supposedly theres a general mass strike planned for 2028. I'll be participating as a UAW member.
  
  Over 2 years away? What will that even do?

The sad thing is what is expected now: the manager who made this decision will get fired, if we’re lucky. But their bosses who set the policy, incentives and company culture to do this will apologize profusely, initiate some corporate training and proceed to change nothing. And neither will any other company.
All over database software, that functions alright as is.
The state of things feels pretty depressing to me. It feels like accountability at the highest levels is vanishing, especially when I see people like Bezos, Zuck or Musk (or more local leaders outside of my online habits) pursue completely irrational things, with zero consequence. It’s not getting any better; it’s getting so bad even the impact the economy and quality-of-life is getting hard to ignore.
- I actually think the expected reality is worse:
  The family will likely settle out of court. MongoDB will admit to no wrongdoing and the settlement will be sealed and there will be an NDA signed by the family, essentially making it impossible for future employees to get the help they need.
  If the family really, really cares about their daughter's legacy, they need to hold out until MongoDB is willing to admit to wrongdoing, even if it means they don't see a penny.
  
  Mongo's strategy will be no different than any other corporate: circle the wagons, put out some "empathetic" release, then get back to maximizing revenue.

I had this happen to me at a company that is now an IBM subsidiary. I took FMLA leave to get mental health help to cope with the burnout, and about a week after I got back, they took me into an office for a "quick catch-up meeting" where they told me it wasn't working out and that I had to go. I'd worked my balls off, getting promoted directly from product support up to software engineering within a year, but apparently that didn't indicate anything positive to them.
- Does it rhyme with bedcat?
  
  I'll just come out and say it was SevOne, although it was well before the acquisition. This was right around the time they got a huge infusion of cash from Chinese investors.
- yup, taking fmla just signals to these jackals that you actually know your rights...and they don't want you potentially spreading that knowledge via cultural osmosis into their company
- Sorry about your balls man.
  
  The poor lil guys are so flat now. My sack looks like someone ran over silly putty with a zamboni machine.
- You … killed yourself? Is this your ghost posting?
  
  The firing part, I mean.

Disgusting. Regrettable.
- Preventable.
  
  Curious - because I'm a dumb American. What would make this preventable?
  She was a person going through a mental crisis. And I can't say at my American job, my work would never stop me from offing myself, beyond recommending a wellness app.

Hawkernews being unhinged capitalists as always:
aeternum: 18h
Sad.
And perhaps a controversial take but consider the counterfactual: Should it be illegal to fire employees that recent took mental health leave? Get a bad review or put on a PIP? It's already becoming a common strategy to immediately take mental health/sick leave.
0xbadc0de5: 3h
This is sad and tragic but ultimately I don't think Mongo bares any responsibility here. If her partner left her while she was having a prolonged mental health crisis, would her partner be to blame for her suicide? I would argue: no.
You're just an expendable cog to the money machine to techbros.
- This is sad and tragic but ultimately I don't think Mongo bares any responsibility here
  Annie was on leave receiving intensive mental health treatment when MongoDB demanded her immediate return to work. She asked for an extension to complete her treatment, or at the least a short period to consult with her medical providers about whether and how she might be able to return to work before the treatment was completed. Instead, MongoDB terminated her health insurance and then fired her in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the New York State and City Human Rights Laws. Shortly afterward, Annie took her own life.
  Yeah demanding she return to work is the part where they bare responsibility.
  The frustrating part about being an American is tying work to healthcare.
  
  Work being tied to healthcare only makes sense if the entire country would work like a corporation.... Oh wait..

I’m sure this happens to thousands of people every year in America. It’s good that awareness is being spread about our dystopian hellscape
- Happened to me. Went on leave specifically for mental health issues caused by work. Fired first day of leave.
  
  I'm glad you're still with us, friend. Hope everything's alright.

And Mongo is now on the eternal shit list. As far as I’m concerned this is not merely abuse, it is premeditated murder.
- Just info on the company (and that it might be hard to avoid bcs it might be a third party of an app you might be using - it's a big list):
  As of May 2025, MongoDB was the fifth most popular database software. It focuses mostly on managing large databases of unstructured, "messy" data. It's typically used for mobile and web apps that commonly use unstructured databases. As of 2024, there were 50,000 MongoDB customers.
  wiki/MongoDB

Heartbreaking. And revolting. All these companies nowadays bang on about mental health, and supporting diversity, all lip service, of course. But this is utterly despicable, I hope the company doesn't recover from this.

Capitalism doesn't kill people
They fooled us.

At this point the AIs would be more humane managers anyway
- Actually, saying please would get the ai to change their earlier response
  
  That or it will burn more GPU trying to understand human nature.
- in idiocracy the movie, the AI actually controls society in 500years. it replaced all ceos, managers, of course the stupidfication of humans occured at the same time.
  
  Ah so it’s just like real life where the stupiditication of humanity occurred several decades before the invention of AI which then made the effects permanent

Social murder

Man, I read this as the technology being blamed, vs. her being their employee. I hope her family gets justice for this, but companies seem to be immune from consequences, so we'll see...

mongo has always been a shit org. this is no surprise.
if you work for this shithole you should organize a labor strike because she was anyone of you.

I think I should wait to hear from MongoDb before making any judgements.

81 comments