A coworker of ours did not show up to work one day. Then almost at end of the work day, HR called us into a meeting, to let us know he had unexpectedly died that morning. It's shaken a lot of people. I personally did not know him well, but those of my work friends who did broke down sobbing. It was tragic, startling news for the whole team.
The way the company handled it just exemplifies how little these orgs actually care. What I noticed here:
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HR learned that very morning, but waited almost until end of day to tell us. Then said “if you need to take the rest of the day off, you can”. When everyone would go home soon anyway. They let us have about a minute in the actual meeting to process the news, and just sent everyone back to their desks.
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Everyone was expected to work the next day as usual and have an “everything is fine” attitude. No mention of time off for grieving or lighter workloads for those most affected or anything. Gotta just go back to being productive, to put more $$$ in the leadership's pockets.
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We have to keep this a secret from the new hires. The reasoning is to avoid gossip about the deceased, but really I think it's to keep up the toxic positivity this workplace loves so much. New hires are supposed to think it's all rainbows and unicorns here.
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The general tone of HR was like one of those canned email templates. Formal and pre-approved. If they felt anything, it was carefully masked.
I hate these company masks. I hate how my grieving friends have to answer client calls with a fake positive attitude. I hate how this nice, helpful coworker is to be forgotten within a day. It all feels so wrong..