What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

I've had this twice. Once to a car accident on the motorway in 2002. Once to a bizarre form of leukaemia such that (from our perspective) the guy had back pain on Thursday, and died over the Easter weekend by Tuesday in 2009.

Still think of them both from time to time. Some of my now-ex colleagues still comment on the anniversary of their passing on Facebook. I don't think I could honestly remember the dates if they didn't... Their names always stick with me though.

    Colin’s boss is on vacation this week. He recorded a message by webcam. 
    He’s lying on his side on a hotel bed. He talks about the clarity of 
    Colin’s press releases as palm trees shudder in the wind behind him.

    “I wish I had gotten to know him better,” he says. “He seemed nice.”

Reading this kind of made me rage...and sad.

Tragic, but the inequality, and the indifference free market creates, makes me steer clear away from corporate environments. I'd rather be a writer or an artist working on one's creation and dropping dead than die for someone's marginal materialistic desires.

I know this is just one way of looking at it, maybe the company was a great place to work at and the words alone do not carry justice.

Unsettling. Knowing that you can die at any moment, yet you work to fulfill the desires of those above you.

When I start a company, I don't want people below me or be insensitive. I'm gonna pay them well, make their work not overwhelming (by creating more software to automate and lighten their workload). Maybe I'm just young and naive. but I sure as shit not going to be an insensitive jerk to my partners in crime. Nobody is killing themselves or getting sick because of being overworked. Fuck that ferrari man, if someone kills themselves in the process of making money for you, I'd be devastated. I don't know how I'd feel when I turn old though, as your frontal cortex deteriorates, causing you to have less empathy and concern for your surrounding.

In the first case, everybody really took a day or two to come to terms that it had happened. Work really ground to a halt. People showed up to work, but took lots of time out of the office in coffee shops talking and processing the event. We named a room after him and had some ceremonies, everybody showed up to his funeral. It really took a few weeks for everything to get back to normal.

In the other two people really just carried on pretty normally by the next day or two.

In the last case, because of the way he went out, very violent and unpleasant, I think there was definitely an effort on the part of people to just...forget about him and pretend he had never existed. There was some occasional chatting about the event and how unexpected it was. But it was really detached like an event on the news involving a minor C-grade celebrity. But of course, we hadn't worked with him in a couple years at that point so his impact in our day-to-day was pretty minimal.

I think it really has to do with office popularity to be honest. If you're buried up in a corner someplace and don't interact with anybody...it's easier for people to get over it.

When this happens to people in their 20s, it's notable.

Sadly, as I approach 50, it happens in my workplace, in my private life, and in my family pretty much every other year.

I've been through this four times. Three died at home; one at work. These were all at small companies, so we all knew each other--many for decades, and over different jobs.

The last two passed away about eleven and twelve years ago.

One may think it's haunting to still see e-mails from them in my archives. But the really haunting thing is listening to them speak in the voice mails our phone system e-mailed back then. Voices from beyond.