Per brobdingnagian's comment... everyone has bad days on occasion. A good manager can work around this. But a workplace is about work. Not therapy.
Maybe you're right and work is about work and not therapy, but why not? If anything it seems like it's in the company's best interest to provide therapy if it's needed. They already provide health insurance, and it's well known that people who are happier perform better on the job than people who aren't.
All the things we take for granted... the lights being on, the roads being paved, the bus coming on time... all this happens because people organize, take care of their personal affairs, show up and perform their duties in a proscribed manner, even when they would rather be doing something else.
My belief is to play when it's time to play and work when it's time to work and to keep my personal life separate from work and not to turn personal problems into workplace problems. Managers aren't (generally) personal counselors nor should they be. Their function in that role is to insure something happens in accordance with organizational goals. Not to be someone's mom or life coach. And again... the function of the workplace is to provide a good or a service to someone else. Not a place for working out personal issues. Take that to the appropriate venue lest the buses stop coming on time.
It's certainly the case that people show up to work even when they would rather be doing something else. If anything I suspect that's what the majority of people working are doing, working because they have to, not because they particularly want to.
On the other hand, do you really want someone who's very unhappy driving the bus or flying the plane you're on?
I don't think that work is somehow special, we should care for each other no matter whether we are at work or at a coffee shop.
Of course, everyone is different and I'm glad to have heard your opinion. I just think it's a bit sad because for those who work full time, work is where the majority of their waking life goes. That being the case, I can see a situation where people might only ever interact with other people at work, and so if they need help they have nowhere else to go. But anyway, I can of course also see your point. It's just that it seems with something like depression or suicide, people don't necessarily know what they should do or act rationally even if they do know what they should do.
Just like most of the best practices here haven't been tied to success, it's also true that helping people going through a hard time hasn't been tied to failure.
The right thing to do is really obvious here. Help them.
I test as ENTP at work and INTJ at home just because success at work requires a different mindset. I don't like it, but that's how it is.
Also, ENTP & INTJ all that stuff is proven to be bunk with no statistical evidence that it predicts anything.
I'm also required to represent my company's interest instead of lending a sympathetic ear to a friend. Don't get me wrong: I'm honest and fair, but some avenues are simply closed in an employee / employer relationship.
I just told a guy today that he flunked an interview because he failed to convince the ED he interviewed with that he (the interviewee) would adequately represent his area on a P1 production support bridge.
I could have sugar-coated it and said "Ah, man, yeah that was unfair because I've seen you succeed in exactly that situation" but instead I coached him on how to present himself better and (hopefully) pass the interview next time.
It wasn't pleasant telling him what I had to tell him, but it was necessary.
No arguing with that.
In the long run, we can hopefully select against business practices that have these kinds of human costs.