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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

#131

Post by rplnt »

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.

Why do we see his comments then?

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#132

Post by seanccox »

na85 wrote: post #127
jigneshg wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 !

>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 jigneshg's statement is no more accurate for it. There's plenty of self-righteous indignation to go around this holiday season, so maybe a little forgiveness is in order, after examining the situation?

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#133

Post by maigret »

zero_intp wrote: post #71

A good friend and co-worker died recently, worked together for 10 years. Hard worker, lived in Cali and flew out every quarter. We shared being assholes who get shit done by working hard, long, and speaking truth to power. He died by driving fast, impatiently, killing his wife and unborn child. We shared a love of fast cars and recklessness. His death has helped me re-evaluate. Selling (trying) my fast car, going par…

It always surprises me that people need such an event to rethink their life. I put my life and goals in question around every month, if not every week. Could you tell more about why you didn't do that before? Would be interesting for me to read.

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#134

Post by shiftpgdn »

judk wrote: post #69
RougeFemme wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?"

Obits in the paper? Startup idea here, folks. Monitor my mail contacts etc and notify me when someone dies.

That's morbid, nobody would sign up for that.

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#135

Post by moron4hire »

Moving houses, I found a t-shirt I kept meaning to give back to an intern I had had a few years before. We were close in age when I was at that job and we spent a lot of time together outside of work. I looked him up and found his Facebook page, where the last post was a year old, a memorial post from one of his family members. No information on how he died. It hit me a lot harder than I expected.

Holy crap, it's been a couple of years since I even learned he died and it still breaks me up a little.

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#136

Post by 72deluxe »

zero_intp wrote: post #71

A good friend and co-worker died recently, worked together for 10 years. Hard worker, lived in Cali and flew out every quarter. We shared being assholes who get shit done by working hard, long, and speaking truth to power. He died by driving fast, impatiently, killing his wife and unborn child. We shared a love of fast cars and recklessness. His death has helped me re-evaluate. Selling (trying) my fast car, going par…

That sounds a good idea about re-evaluating your life. I was working at a place where many did unpaid overtime and you could see the strain it was having on them and their families. Company's typically do not thank you for extra work.

Buy a VW Bug - "all show and no go" but you will enjoy tootling from A to B with a noisy engine in what is essentially a glorified basic go-kart.

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#137

Post by kayoone »

Spooky23 wrote: post #72

My uncle worked for a financial services firm in the 80s. A consultant was in a computer room working on something very early in the morning and had a heart attack. Someone discovered the guy, called 911, and went about their business. Due to some combination of bureaucratic bungling and security nonsense, the ambulance folks didn't know someone had died, and were either turned away from the building or taken to the…

wow thats cruel, the guy could maybe have lived if the ambulance would have been there quickly, a heart attack doesn't necessarily kill you when you react fast enough.

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#138

Post by jlgaddis »

weland wrote: post #116
jigneshg wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 !

> 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 upstairs must have been looking out for you". I'm an athiest and I get really annoyed when people say such things but, at the time, the best way I could think of to respond was to simply keep my mouth shut and not respond at all, so I said nothing.

It was about the fourth or fifth person who made such a remark when I finally went off. "Oh!? Well why the fk wasn't he looking out for me a few seconds earlier? He could have stopped that Jeep from turning in front of me -- but he didn't, did he? Get out of here with your religious bullsh*t!"

I really hate to be like that or respond to people that way but I just couldn't take it anymore. Apparently, however, "the word spread" as not one more person said anything even remotely similar to me the rest of the time I was there.

(Similar/related: all the "praying for you" comments posted to my Facebook page. I responded to those with something along the lines of "I don't believe in God so don't waste your time praying but, if you must, pray for the doctors who are operating on me instead.")

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#139

Post by mseebach »

jigneshg wrote: post #90
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 !

The word "punishment" does not mean what I think (hope) you want to say. Punishment implies a crime, ie. something you knew to be wrong, could have chosen not to do, but since you did do it, you're being punished. That sentiment, of course, is offensive.

That said, I think the bulk of the vitriol fueling the down votes is the mention of God - that's also what the comments are all about. It's sad how the inclusiveness and tolerance of the modern rationalist ends abruptly at religion.

Re: What Happens When One of Your Coworkers Dies

#140

Post by jlgaddis »

RougeFemme wrote: post #29
jboggan wrote: post #8

This 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…

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."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor
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