The Check-In
Asking the question they need to hear
You walk over and ask if they're okay. The question is simple. Getting it right — the tone, the timing, the lack of pressure — is anything but.
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Part of this story
The Colleague in Crisis
→Something is wrong with the person two desks over. They haven't said anything. You're not sure what you're supposed to do. You do it anyway.
Part of the quest
Mental Health Conversations
→From checking in on a colleague who seems off, to telling your manager you are burning out, to supporting a friend in crisis — practice the conversations that most people avoid until it is too late.
What you'll learn from The Check-In
This scenario focuses on Asking the question they need to hear — a critical skill inside the broader emotional intelligence domain. You'll face a decision where the instinctive response is often the wrong one. After you make your choice, you'll see exactly what happened in the other person's head and why it mattered. The scenario is part of The Colleague in Crisis, a full interactive story inside the Mental Health Conversations quest.
Skills you'll build in Mental Health Conversations
More scenarios in this quest
The person at the next desk has been off for weeks. Quieter. Later to meetings. Shorter in messages. You're not a therapist and this isn't your job — but you can see something the rest of the team can't.
They start talking. It's heavier than you expected. Every instinct says to offer solutions, suggest therapy, fix something — but the bravest thing you can do right now is just stay.
You can't carry this for them. But you can help them find the next step — a resource, a conversation, a professional — without making them feel like a problem to be solved.
Ready to practice Asking the question they need to hear?
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