????但最近，瑞士鄉(xiāng)村也不復(fù)以往的平靜。在7月23日，沃蒂耶自殺五周前，瑞士電信CEO卡斯滕?斯洛特在首都伯爾尼近郊的弗萊堡的家中自縊身亡。（六周之前，斯洛特的朋友、明信片公司ABC Verlag的CEO丹尼爾?埃契也在伯爾尼的家中自殺，只是此次事件鮮有報(bào)道。）與沃蒂耶一樣，斯洛特也留下了一封遺書，據(jù)報(bào)道，遺書內(nèi)容非常簡短，且內(nèi)容含糊。

????瑞士今年夏天發(fā)生的自殺悲劇肯定是巧合。但沃蒂耶和斯洛特身上的一些共同點(diǎn)卻不容忽視。碰巧的是，這兩位都在大公司身居高位，都面臨巨大的競爭壓力；瑞士電信是瑞士最大的電信公司，由政府控股。據(jù)稱，2013年上半年，這家公司的收益下降了10%，原因是用戶增加導(dǎo)致成本上升。其次，兩人都相貌英俊，有著運(yùn)動(dòng)員一樣的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)身材，對戶外運(yùn)動(dòng)都充滿了熱愛。斯洛特?zé)釔叟懿健⒒┖突?，曾騎競賽自行車行走2,200英里，還計(jì)劃在伯爾尼成立一家自行車共享公司。斯洛特去世后，與斯洛特相識12年的《Bilanz》雜志電信業(yè)記者馬克?考瓦斯基寫道：“他相貌英俊，體格健壯，極富男子氣概?？ㄋ闺?斯洛特的職業(yè)道路似乎無人能擋?！?/p>

????然而，一個(gè)因素使斯洛特的職場道路停滯不前。在考瓦斯基看來，公司高層之間的激烈沖突才是致使他選擇自殺的關(guān)鍵原因。與沃蒂耶類似，2011年年中，一位強(qiáng)勢的董事長韓穗里?魯斯利的到來徹底改變了斯洛特在瑞士電信的命運(yùn)。魯斯利下定決心對公司進(jìn)行改組，他曾成功將瑞士連鎖超市Coop改造成一家大型公司，為自己贏得了聲譽(yù)。他借鑒Coop的策略，要求提高利潤，減少開支。然而，他對面臨巨大變革的電信行業(yè)并不熟悉。而被要求執(zhí)行此項(xiàng)任務(wù)的斯洛特有自己的想法。有時(shí)候，誰才是公司運(yùn)營的負(fù)責(zé)人并不明確——有人認(rèn)為，瑞士出現(xiàn)這樣的問題，原因是董事會(huì)主席/董事長和CEO的職責(zé)有許多重疊的地方。在魯斯利的前任任職期間，斯洛特獲得了多年的相對自主性和自由，而隨著新官上任，這種自由卻突然受到了限制，因?yàn)轸斔估故舅臋?quán)威?？纪咚够嬖V《財(cái)富》雜志：“斯洛特與魯斯利都是微觀管理者。如果你把他們兩人放在一起，由一個(gè)人管理另外一個(gè)人，肯定沒有好結(jié)果?！薄?/p>

????斯洛特生活中的壓力非常明顯。他去年曾對電視記者表示，失敗的婚姻是對他“最沉重的打擊”，讓他始終充滿了負(fù)疚感。多年以前，他愛上了公司的一位同事，從那之后便與妻子分居。他只能每兩周去見一次他的三個(gè)孩子。而他的新伴侶經(jīng)常出差。他的朋友告訴記者，斯洛特自殺的時(shí)候，他與愛人正在考慮分手。與魯斯利持續(xù)的爭斗則是雪上加霜。斯洛特的同事告訴考瓦斯基，在工作中，曾經(jīng)熱情洋溢的斯洛特變得沉默寡言，他在工作過程中做的陳述報(bào)告也是漏洞百出。失眠令他備受折磨。斯洛特從2006年開始經(jīng)營瑞士電信，后來卻開始公開物色新工作，咨詢獵頭，還有規(guī)劃自己的自行車共享公司。他一直盡量避免在辦公室工作，更喜歡通過智能電話保持聯(lián)系。但在5月份，斯洛特對瑞士一家星期日報(bào)紙表示，每天24小時(shí)的工作要求令他感到窒息。他曾這樣說：“如果你要不時(shí)查看智能手機(jī)，看看是否有新郵件，你就沒法得到任何休息。我發(fā)現(xiàn)自己越來越難平靜下來?！比缃?，這些話聽起來更像是求助的信號。

????But the Swiss countryside has not been a picture of calm lately. On July 23, five weeks before Wauthier's death, Swisscom CEO Carsten Schloter, 49, hanged himself in his home in rural Fribourg, near the capital Bern. (Six weeks earlier, Schloter's friend Daniel Eicher, CEO of ABC Verlag, a greeting-card company, committed suicide at home in Bern, though little has been reported about his death.) Like Wauthier, Schloter left a suicide note, reportedly short and vague.

????The rash of Switzerland's summer suicides could well be coincidence. Yet the echoes between Wauthier and Schloter are hard to miss. Roughly contemporaries, both were in high-flying executive positions at large companies facing tough competitive pressures; Swisscom, the country's biggest telecom company mostly owned by the government, reported a 10% drop in earnings for the first half of 2013, citing the rising cost of adding subscribers. Both men were good-looking, supremely fit sports nuts, whose outdoor passions were central in their lives. Schloter was an ardent runner, snowboarder, and skier, logged about 2,200 miles a year on his racing bike, and was looking to launch a bike-sharing company in Bern. "Handsome and athletic, he embodied virility," Bilanz's telecom correspondent Marc Kowalsky wrote after the death of Schloter, whom he'd known well for 12 years. "Carsten Schloter's career seemed unstoppable."

????But one factor stopped Schloter's rise in its tracks, and in Kowalsky's opinion, was key to his final collapse: An intense conflict at the top of the company. Much like Wauthier, Schloter's life at Swisscom took a bad turn with the arrival of a powerful president, Hansueli Loosli, in mid-2011. Loosli was determined to shake up the company, having earned accolades for transforming Switzerland's supermarket chain Coop into a major corporation. He demanded higher profits and leaner expenses, using strategies borrowed from Coop. Yet he was new to the industry, which was undergoing major changes, and Schloter, who was charged with making that happen, had other ideas. Who exactly ran the company was sometimes unclear -- a problem, some believe, in Switzerland, where the chairman/president and CEO responsibilities overlap closely. Schloter's years of relative autonomy and freedom under Loosli's precedessor were quickly halted, as the new man imposed his authority. "Schloter and Loosli were both micromanagers," Kowalsky toldFortune. "If you put two people like that together and one is the superior of the other, it does not work well."

????The strains in Schloter's life were clear. He told a TV correspondent last year that his failed marriage was his "greatest defeat" and had left him feeling constant guilt. He had separated from his wife a few years ago, after falling in love with a Swisscom colleague; he saw his three children only every two weeks. But his new partner traveled much of the time, and friends have told journalists that the couple was considering breaking up by the time Schloter killed himself. Added to that was the ongoing struggle with Loosli. Colleagues told Kowalsky that at work, the ebullient Schloter was withdrawn and quiet, his presentations halting. Insomnia plagued him. Schloter, who'd run Swisscom since 2006, was openly hunting for a new job, consulting recruiters and plotting his bike-sharing company. He had long eschewed working in an office, preferring to be always available on his smartphone. But in May, Schloter told a Swiss Sunday newspaper he now felt "strangled" by the 24/7 work demands. "When you permanently check your smartphone to see if there are any new emails, it leads you to not find any rest whatsoever," he was quoted saying. "I find it increasingly difficult to calm down." That now sounds like a cry for help.