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What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

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Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#81

Post by nulagrithom »

teraflop wrote: post #63
steven2012 wrote: post #52

One of my coworkers, my mentor and someone who taught me what it meant to be a good programmer, was murdered by his wife, who also murdered their two children and then killed herself. It took place over a holiday, and I noticed he hadn't shown up afterwards. After a couple of days, I asked my boss if he was on vacation, and he said no, so I emailed him. His body and his family were found the next day by his neighbors…

FYI, bluekitten, you've been hellbanned since December 13.

Interesting. bluekitten seems to have been hellbanned after posting only two comments. Is that all it takes?

Edit: And in the time it took me to post this, the comment appears!

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#82

Post by [deleted] »

_wp3r wrote: post #53
DigitalJack wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about suicide? The man in the article died of natural causes. Even so, I totally agree with regards to failure and its magnitude not necessarily (or even frequently) having a relationship to the self loathing one can feel due to that failure. I struggle with this a couple times a year. Holding one's self to overly high standards can be unhealthy.

I am talking about suicide. I felt the article was mostly about that thought process with the reality being kind of the side note. When I have run across people that I thought were having a hard time with failure, they are usually measuring themselves against the completely self contrived version of the peer that they see as being better. My context may be skewed, but the guys that have the hardest time are the ones…

[deleted]

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#84

Post by Qworg »

grecy wrote: post #78
RougeFemme wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I've worked at places that had poor source control and/or poor documentation, I've resorted to trying to push for it by walking around saying, "Suppose I (or fill-in-the-blank) get hit by a bus? You'll all be up a creek."

During University, my professors routinely called this "The bus scenario", are harped it on us every project. Luckily, nobody got hit by a bus, but we all wound up very diligent at source control.

I always knew it as your "bus number": how many engineers could get hit by a bus before your project ground to a halt.

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#85

Post by randomacct »

hudibras wrote: post #64
notastartup wrote: post #14

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…

To all supervisors: If one of your employees dies while you're on vacation, cancel the rest of your vacation. No exceptions.

Why?

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#86

Post by infectoid »

throwaway1460 wrote: post #36
infectoid wrote: post #11

Happened 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. Some day soon, leave a flower yourself with a note — just what you said here, ‘nice guy, got shit done’. Let them know that someone else remembers him.

Been thinking about this all day at work. I drive by but I never stop.

I'll be heading to the folks place for Christmas next week. I think I'll drop off some flowers on the way.

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#87

Post by warmwaffles »

judk wrote: post #68
kabdib wrote: post #60

When we were doing the Apple Newton, Ko Isono (who was working on the tablet sensor code) committed suicide. Our manager got us into a common area, then told us the news. We were pretty shocked. Many of us went to the funeral in the east bay. I remember it was very cold and rainy, and that I didn't mind. We put Ko's name in the "About Newton" page. Nobody in management objected to that.

I wonder if we'd have fewer suicides if we publicly acknowledged the contributions of people before they died.

We would have to know they are suicidal ahead of time. By that point if I knew they were suicidal, I would definitely talk to that person a lot more and invite them to events with my friends.

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#88

Post by philwelch »

atgm wrote: post #47
theorique wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This makes no sense. 過労死 is just a compound word basically consisting of "too much work death." Using your "they have a word for it so it's common and blithely ignored" logic, you could say that "infanticide" happens all the time and is ignored in English-speaking countries simply because there's a word for it.

> you could say that "infanticide" happens all the time and is ignored in English-speaking countries

It does, but most cases can be covered up as SIDS.

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#89

Post by dobbsbob »

I worked with a guy who went golfing on one of the hottest days, drank too much and died of heat stroke in his sleep. Healthy guy too who was in perfect shape and ate disciplined nutritional food everyday and ran 5km in the morning while we ate mystery noodle bowls from a chinatown takeout window and rolled out of bed late

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#90

Post by jigneshg »

steven2012 wrote: post #52

One of my coworkers, my mentor and someone who taught me what it meant to be a good programmer, was murdered by his wife, who also murdered their two children and then killed herself. It took place over a holiday, and I noticed he hadn't shown up afterwards. After a couple of days, I asked my boss if he was on vacation, and he said no, so I emailed him. His body and his family were found the next day by his neighbors…

Hi Steven,

Sorry to hear your horrible experience loosing good friend and after reading your reply, i feel that the person like him did not deserve such death :(

Sometime it is very difficult for human to understand GOD and his punishment !

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