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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

#151

Post by zacinbusiness »

krisgenre wrote: post #119
gknoy wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, my mother always told me to drive as if the oncoming person who appears to be stopping is NOT, and that people with turn signals on are liars or forgetful, and will continue straight, when evaluating safety of turning right. Sometimes it feels like I drive like the stereotypical granny, but this has saved my bacon several times in the past two decades.

Everyone drives like that in India :)

I saw an episode of Top Gear (UK) where they went to India and the driving situation looked terrifying. I still want to go sometime :-)

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#152

Post by Confusion »

jlgaddis wrote: post #138
weland wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sometime it is very difficult for human to understand GOD and his punishment ! OP isn't stupid. He has no problem comprehending the wrath of your imaginary friend, nor the imaginary nature of the aforementioned wrath. He lost a dear friend and mentor. The one who has trouble understanding reality is you.

A few months ago, I was on the losing end of a head-on motorcycle versus Jeep Cherokee crash and spent several days in the hospital. I had some pretty severe injuries but somehow managed to not smash my head in -- I don't wear a helmet and, although I had several broken bones, I somehow escaped with only had a few cuts and scrapes to my head. Several of the doctors and nurses said (words to the effect of) "someone up…

  I'm an athiest and I get really annoyed when people say such things [..]
Why? You make it sound like you think that's an entirely reasonable response, but as a fellow atheist: I don't think it is. Why not just say 'Thanks'?

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#153

Post by morganherlocker »

liotier wrote: post #128
bane wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good question, it was...10, 11 years ago? I think it was spring or early summer. Looking back, I think the endless ceremonies, reminiscing, room naming...his office was a shrine for a couple months and nobody emptied it of his personal affects until his widow came and asked...I think it extended out the difficult feelings longer than it would have if everybody had been driven back to work or gone on vacation…

Someone in my company died of illness - someone quite young so it was a surprise and a shock to all around him. It has been more than a year and his computers are still on his desk...

My first day on the job I erased the whiteboard in my office. When a couple people walked in and saw what I was erasing (a short inspirational phrase on the corner of the board), everyone had a look of horror on their face.

It turned out that a close friend of the company had been in the office and written that phrase on the board. He died the next day. That was 2 years before I erased it, and everyone had been keeping it as the last thing to remember him by.

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#154

Post by kabdib »

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.

The suicides and attempted suicides I've know have been variously caused by:

- family and culture-driven stress

- alcoholism

- emotional issues beyond the pale

So in my experience: No. Just saying "Hey, you've done a great job" (or whatever) wouldn't even be appropriate, or be listened to, or work.

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#155

Post by lmm »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #107
nulagrithom wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

This is both mistaken and a distraction from a very important topic. EDIT: It's mistaken that she was banned for her two comments. It's unreasonable to read her comments and conclude she was hellbanned for asking a question about Steam and correcting someone about her gender. There's also no way to know whether she was hellbanned, or simply posting comments via Tor. If a new account posts comments via Tor, those comm…

Bluekitten's still green, so it's unlikely to be the Tor issue you describe.

It's perfectly reasonable to conclude she was hellbaned for those things: given the available evidence, it's the most plausible interpretation.

Being able to apologise and get unbanned might be a reasonable defence of the system except the entire point of hellbanning is that you can't tell when you've been hellbanned.

The lack of transparency or accountability in the HN moderation system is itself a very important topic.

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#156

Post by klibertp »

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.

Or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestration

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#157

Post by lmm »

Confusion wrote: post #152
jlgaddis wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few months ago, I was on the losing end of a head-on motorcycle versus Jeep Cherokee crash and spent several days in the hospital. I had some pretty severe injuries but somehow managed to not smash my head in -- I don't wear a helmet and, although I had several broken bones, I somehow escaped with only had a few cuts and scrapes to my head. Several of the doctors and nurses said (words to the effect of) "someone up…

I'm an athiest and I get really annoyed when people say such things [..] Why? You make it sound like you think that's an entirely reasonable response, but as a fellow atheist: I don't think it is. Why not just say 'Thanks'?

It can lead to a very dangerous fatalism. If you think it's in God's hands whether you survive a crash, why wear a seatbelt?

More generally I get annoyed when someone says something false, even if I can't immediately see what mistakes it's going to lead them to make. My experience is that even the most benign-seeming of errors can cause problems sooner or later.

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#158

Post by lmm »

grecy wrote: post #79
Refefer wrote: post #5

Reminds me a little too much of the regrets of the dying[1]. Ingrained deep within our mammalian brains is the instinctual desire for community and personal intimacy. We'd do well to remember ourselves and what makes us happy before we're reflecting from our own death bed. [1] http://www.inspirationandchai.com/Regrets-of-the-Dying.html

A while back I found a website (or article?) that interviewed elderly people who where essentially on their deathbeds. What do you regret, what would you do differently, etc. etc. Without fail, every single person said they wish they went to work less, and spent more time with their loved ones. I personally, am not good at learning lessons from other people, usually I have to learn "the hard way". I hope I can learn…

> Without fail, every single person said they wish they went to work less, and spent more time with their loved ones.

I always wonder how much truth there is to that though? I mean, if you actually loved your job and preferred working to spending time with your family, wouldn't you still feel obliged to give that answer?

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#159

Post by pc86 »

seanccox wrote: post #132
na85 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sometime it is very difficult for human to understand GOD and his punishment ! How does it feel to be a terrible fucking person?

A quick scan of jigneshg's past comments reveals that they are definitely not a native English speaker, and as was pointed out above, in Indian culture, this is a perfectly polite way to empathize with another's suffering. The irony that this apparent cultural misunderstanding has caused jigneshg's karma to plummet gives me no end of mirth, but the clearly anglophile Western (and perhaps white male) reaction to jigne…

What exactly does race or gender have to do with anything in this comment thread?

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#160

Post by bostonpete »

lmm wrote: post #157
Confusion wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an athiest and I get really annoyed when people say such things [..] Why? You make it sound like you think that's an entirely reasonable response, but as a fellow atheist: I don't think it is. Why not just say 'Thanks'?

It can lead to a very dangerous fatalism. If you think it's in God's hands whether you survive a crash, why wear a seatbelt? More generally I get annoyed when someone says something false, even if I can't immediately see what mistakes it's going to lead them to make. My experience is that even the most benign-seeming of errors can cause problems sooner or later.

> it can lead to a very dangerous fatalism. If you think it's in God's hands whether you survive a crash, why wear a seatbelt?

This seems like a red herring. I'm not a religious person, but the notion that it's possible for a divine power to influence human affairs doesn't necessarily imply the absence of free will.

Do you have evidence of this dangerous fatalism? Other than the tiny percentage of fanatics who want to be martyrs, I don't consider religious folks to be an especially reckless bunch.

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