"They seemed fine"

“They seemed fine.” It is the sentence that comes up again and again after someone is lost. And it is usually true. They did seem fine. That is the problem, not the reassurance it sounds like.

People do not go from fine to crisis overnight. It builds, quietly, often for a long time, behind a version of someone that looks like coping. By the time it shows, it has usually been there a while.

Which means seeming fine is not evidence that someone is. In this job, seeming fine is the skill. It is what the work demands and what the culture rewards. The people best at carrying it are often the ones you would never think to ask.

So the question is not who looks like they are struggling. It is who might be, behind looking fine. The colleague who has gone a bit quiet. The one whose humour has changed. The one still turning up and doing the job, because that is what they have always done.

You do not need to diagnose anyone. You need to ask, and mean it. “How are you actually doing.” Then listen to the answer, not the reflex.