A Tate Modern death

Matthew Courtney, a 27-year-old lawyer at the City Law firm, Freshfields Bruckaus Deringer, fell 80 ft to his death within a stairwell at the Tate Modern art gallery. The London Evening Standard said that the police were treating his death as suicide. He was reported to have been working 16-hour days, seven days a week, and had spoken with senior partners about his difficulties coping with the workload.

There has yet to be an inquest but the Evening Standard appeared to have made up its mind about the cause - death through overwork. We do not know whether it was the workload that led to his death. His parents have rubbished the suggestion he was working constant 16-hour days. We do not have an inquest verdict and have not heard the evidence surrounding the circumstances of his death. It may be that it was accidental.

But that has not prevented the newspapers using the story to raise the issue of overworked City employees. Nor has it stopped people debating work-related suicide on web-based forums.

Brilliant and gifted

Matthew, the son of former World Cup referee George Courtney, was an Oxford University graduate described as "brilliant and gifted" in the Standard. There are hundreds of brilliant and gifted people working in the City. At a recent Oxford careers seminar, when the audience was asked if anyone there wanted to work in the City, more than two-thirds of them raised their hands.

The City offers big money. Seriously big money. As a junior associate Matthew was reportedly earning £55,000 a year. Within three or four years his salary would have been in to six figures. As a partner he could have moved in to the seven figure bracket. Beyond owning your own business or running a big public company there are no more than a handful of professions that can deliver that kind of financial reward.

But there is a price to pay for big money earnings. You must give the best part of your life to your work. If you enjoy your work, if work is where you find your friends and maybe your partner, if you thrive on pressure and know how to put any mistakes or criticisms in perspective, then all well and good. But I don't know many who could tick all of those boxes.

Of course there is another way to earn big money. But, for that, Matthew would have needed the talent and social skills of a Jade Goody or Shilpa Shetty. That is to say he would not have needed any talent, any academic qualifications, any skills or abilities whatsoever, other than a willingness to behave outrageously on telly. Even then there is a price to pay, apparently. Miss Goody spoke of suicide (according to the Sun) after leaving the Big Brother house. Whether the feelings were genuine or more publicity-seeking nonsense is neither here nor there. We know, from other examples, that fame too can extract a ruinous price.

We may discover that there were other, more telling factors, in Matthew's death. Perhaps he simply tipped over the rail accidentally. Whatever the cause, it will not put an end to the cycle of high work demands in return for big rewards. But it will lead to yet more stories on work/life balance that depend on the premise that work and life are two distinct entities. This premise holds that work is something we would rather not be doing. I understand this definition. It is the truest definition I can use for much of the work I see today.

Signs of pressure

I do see people who are loving their work, who couldn't think of anything they would rather be doing. But not many. Even among those who profess to enjoy their work, you can see signs of pressure.

I see people looking constantly at their watches during what should be a pleasurable lunch; juggling their diaries; grabbing for what they think could be the main chance; agonising about their boss, worrying about deadlines, bitching about their colleagues and sighing. Yes, that very audible sighing. Sometimes I do it myself. Sighing over work is stress.

If I were writing this for a newspaper, as I could be, I guess these words would be classed as work too. But I don't have to write this. I don't have an editor breathing down my neck. I don't have anyone saying they would rather I wrote about something else. I don't have that here. So here, right now, you know I am thinking about Matthew Courtney, a life so full of promise, now gone.

Billable hours

I don't want to get sentimental. Having just read a book about the horrors of World War I, I am quite aware that other generations have suffered from far worse stresses than those caused by overwork. But it's difficult to gain that perspective in the face of demanding clients and systems that insist on billable hours.

The billable hour, beloved of professional service firms, is one of the worst measures of service and work I can think of. I know that law firms agree. But the billable hour started with the client who wanted to see evidence for the charges imposed by consultancy and law firms.

When asked to justify his fees for "two days labour" as an artist James McNeill Whistler said that his client had been paying "for the knowledge of a lifetime". It is quality that counts, not quantity, and sometimes quality is measured in what is not said, what is not written. Is good law defined by something the size of a telephone directory? No, it is defined by common sense.

There doesn't seem to have been much sense in Matthew Courtney's death. There is no sense at all in 16 hour days; no sense either in brilliant academic careers if we cannot give ourselves the time to sit and look at the snowdrops.