“That’s Colin,” says Bill. Dead people don’t get salaries, so Colin’s appears as a surplus.
Cold.
What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies
31–40 of 203 posts
Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies
#32This has happened in my experience before, and it is one of the strongest reasons for good source control that is infrequently considered. It was a tragedy when a very wonderful and dear researcher in our group died suddenly, especially to his three children and wife that he left behind. It was also a great loss as well that we could never recover some key bits of source code from his computer, and that a very promis…
In Japan it happens so often they have their own word for it: karoshi.
Sararimen fall over dead at their desks, and others simply avert their eyes and focus on their work while a manager urgently calls for white-gloved personnel to spirit the corpse away to the undertaker.
Nobody even misses a beat. The work must go on.
Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies
#33At one company where I worked, I resented the fact that the executive assistant to the CEO made more than I; after all, she was non-technical and "simply a secretary". Then she had a heart attack at her desk and died instantly. I felt guilty for my thoughts and resolved to find out exactly what her job entailed.
About 2 years later, her replacement was struck by an aneurysm at her desk and died several weeks later. I had been interacting her a lot for work-related projects and had had learned how stressful, difficult and important that job was and did not begrudge her her salary at all.
Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies
#34When 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.
A few of the folks that I know who are approaching 50 have started checking the obits in the paper frequently, so that they won't have an awkward encounter when they run into an acquaintance at the store, on the street, etc. and ask "How's so-and-so/our mutual acquaintance/your spouse?"
Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did those deaths affect your workplace? Do people try to hang out and talk more or do people generally just carry on normally?
An Exec I worked for died. I was fairly new and didn't really know him, so I just kept working. Others were a lot more affected. I remember there being group meetings to talk about his life etc. After about a week, someone said in one of the meetings, "That's enough crying, back to work." Seemed harsh at the time, but everybody went back to work. A room was named in his honor. Life goes on.
I've noticed this, sometimes grieving must be brought to a close by an external event, otherwise everyone forgets why their there.
Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies
#36Happened to me once early in my career. I was working as tech support at a manufacturing plant. As I'd be walking around a lot fixing things I got to know everyone fairly well. Manuel was the production manager. A nice guy, always seemed relaxed but always got shit done. He had been working there for about six months. One morning I get in and hear the news from the somewhat insensitive IT manager, can't even remember…
> Someone is still putting flowers there.
Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies
#37One of my close relatives passed away this year. She was the partner in a professional services firm, and well like by her staff. The entire company had a day off on the day of her funeral, and many of them were distressed by it. It was not a shock as she had been ill for quite some time, but it does entail an adjustment.
This is going to become more of a common occurence as the baby boom generation start moving towards an era of high mortality and are in senior positions. There are actually companies around which can help with transitioning through a period like this, including grief counselling for staff, strategies, etc. I worked with someone on a project once who worked for one of these firms. Up until that point, I had never even considered that they would exist.
Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies
#38I have personally experienced this on five occasions in the work place. I can say that only once did no one have any idea that there was an issue. I have seen CO's, junior enlisted, and the inbetween. The powers of self loathing are in my experience not the driver, the most dangerous force is self confirmed failure. The type or scale of the failure does not matter, only the persons value of that failure matter.
That being said.
Go in to work tomorrow and make a forceful effort to engage with anyone that you think may have any issue with failure overwhelming them. The only weapon that can help is others.
Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies
#39I rarely read comment threads here. I'm almost as edified by the stories people are sharing as I was with the original post. Thanks to all.
Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies
#40A decade later you stumble across code they still had checked out in the ancient VSS repo. And then the rest of your day is a bit crappier.