I work for a huge company and we are moving into a new building. As part of the move into this building, they needed help setting up before everyone moves in, so I went in one day when I didn’t have a lot of work to do. My task was to give every desk a keyboard and a packet with tech info. I was doing this with another person who was checking the file and making sure the names at each desk matched up with where they were supposed to be. Super simple stuff.
Anyways, we get to one section and there was a lady who was working their early, before others moved in so it was just her. As we were setting down the keyboards the person I was working with was going through the names of each desk. When we got to one desk, the lady who was working told us “oh Mark passed away unexpectedly, so he won’t need a keyboard.”
I was taken aback by how bluntly she said this. I expressed my apologies to her for the death of her coworker, but then she responded “oh it’s fine. My manager is currently interviewing for his replacement so we’ll be ok.”
I really think she thought I was apologizing for losing a coworker so now she has to pick up the slack of his work. She was reassuring me that her burden of extra work would be taken care of soon because her manager was quick to replace this guy. It all felt so cold, but very nonchalant. It made me feel so sad for this guy who I never knew. He meant nothing to this company other than to help alleviate the work load of his coworkers.
I went home after work and googled his name and sure enough, he passed away a couple weeks ago and from what I found, he was young, married and had three teenagers. We’re all just cogs in the machine…