It is 3:15 am on an autumn night.  Katerina, a 28 year old single woman returns to her apartment after a hard working night at the bar as a manager.  She parks her red beat up fiat and walks to her apartment.  It is her first week and she is staying late to make sure she does her job right.  As she walks to her apartment building, a man attacks her, and stabs her three times in the back.  Katerina screams for help.  The lights turn on in several neighboring apartments.  People peak through the windows, go out on their verandas to see what is going on.  The assailant after seeing the lights on the neighbouring apartments runs off and hides for a few minutes.  Katerina is screaming “I am dying”.  By this time, 38 people are watching her.  Nobody moves. They are all eagerly watching from the safety of their apartments.  The assailant returns, to finish what he has started.  He stabbs her a few more times, and proceeds to cut off her underwear and violate her.

The event lasts for 32 minutes, and Katerina is stabbed a total of 17 times.  She bleeds to death, and somebody calls the police after the “action was over”.  The police arrives there in 3 minutes, but it is too late.  38 people watched this horrific scene for more than half an hour, everybody thinking that “somebody else had called the police” or “somebody was going to take action”.  

What was described above is a true story, and took place in a residential area of Queens in New York in 1964. The woman’s name is Catherine Genovese.   All these people that were watching, remained apathetic to her scream for help, because they all assumed, somebody else had called the police.  Other’s assumed that it was a couple, and they didn’t want to interfere in a fight between the couple.

This bystander apathy happens everywhere around us from politics to the environment, to our neighbour’s house and in our office.  We all experience everyday things in our working environment that bother us, but we don’t do anything about it, because “it’s not my job”, or “somebody else should have done it”, or “this is the job of the boss”, and nothing gets done about certain issues.  It is possible to overcome the hurdle of this kind of attitude and behavior in the office.  PeopleAchieve has helped organisations overcome such obstacles by carrying out the appropriate unique training to suit each organisation’s needs.

PeopleAchieve can help create a positive and dynamic environment, where people take initiative to help and take care of other team members. Through a series of training programs your office environment can become a model of unity and collaboration, where nobody remains apathetic to your needs nor your colleagues.  

For further information, or to share your comments you can contact the author at pambos@peopleachieve.com