Work Colleague Dead

[JaDanketies]

one of the barmaids when I worked behind the bar - a cousin of one of my close high school friends, coincidentally - hung herself about a year ago. I didn't go to the funeral, it'd been at least a decade since I'd been close with any of them. Her sister lived with her and discovered her hanging. She was the first one I worked with, so she showed me how to pour a pint and explained the jargon and everything.

[curiousoranges]

Will Young, Gareth Gates and Rik Waller leave thread etc.

[willbo]

2008. Started work at Woolworths. Supervisor was a quite large, tough, loud, 35 year old lady. I had one or two weeks working with her. The last thing I remember her saying was that she watched "Skins" because everyone at work was talking about it, but couldn't get into it cause she felt too old. Anyway, a week or so after I started, she went on holiday to Spain never to return. Apparently she had a heart attack and a spider bite could have been involved.

[kngen]

In my first proper job, I remember the secretary putting down the phone, ashen faced and said 'David is dead!'

"Jesus, what the hell happened?"

"No, it was someone saying that they were going to kill him ... 'Tell Dave he's dead' then they hung up."

Her friend came over to comfort her, as she was quite shaken by this, which allowed me to wander off and process and analyse the involuntary feelings of joy then disappointment at the exaggerated report of David's demise. He was a bit of a pain in the arse, but not much more than that. 'Am I that much of an miserable, evil bastard?' I asked myself. Yes, apparently.

[Des Wigwam]

End of the 90s I was in the office late on a Sunday finishing some work (the reason escapes me) and a distant colleague's phone rang. I walked over and answered it and the woman on the other end was asking if X was there and had I seen him - to which the answer was No, sorry.

Came in on Monday and he'd hose-piped himself to death in the garage around the time of the call. I often think of that. I suppose it's only hindsight that makes me kick myself for not saying "you should go and check the garage".

[Huxleys Babkins]

In my first proper job, I remember the secretary putting down the phone, ashen faced and said 'David is dead!'

"Jesus, what the hell happened?"

"No, it was someone saying that they were going to kill him ... 'Tell Dave he's dead' then they hung up."

Her friend came over to comfort her, as she was quite shaken by this, which allowed me to wander off and process and analyse the involuntary feelings of joy then disappointment at the exaggerated report of David's demise. He was a bit of a pain in the arse, but not much more than that. 'Am I that much of an miserable, evil bastard?' I asked myself. Yes, apparently.

Angie Bowie considers rewrite.

[The Culture Bunker]

Chap I sat next to one a couple of days a week (I was a basic data drone, he was IT support) and we'd have craic about music and whatever. He got falsely implicated in some work scandal, suspended for about six months but completely cleared of any wrong doing - I remember him coming back in and telling me he wasn't feeling at all right - stomach pains and the like. I suggested it might be related to stress or anxiety brought on by recent events. He concurred and said he'd go see a doctor.

I never spoke to him again, as is turned out to be cancer and he died maybe eight months later.

[flotemysost]

Really sorry to hear your loss, OP and others in this thread.

I've mentioned him on here before, but my manager died of cancer a few years back. It's sort of thanks to him I've been anything other than an ephemeral admin nobody at my current employers; he ended up becoming a mentor-type figure to quite a few of us, and was just a great person - unbelievably dry with lightning-quick wit, but principled, caring and selfless to a fault underneath. And responsible for quite possibly one of the funniest work meetings/situations in general that I've been in, owing to a misunderstanding (someone else's) about a gay slang double-entendre.

His was the only funeral I've been to where I properly cried, though that was partly due to the sheer fucking weirdness of seeing all my colleagues with glassy eyes and trembling lips too. Anyway I still think about him a lot; not in a sad way though, more just sort of grateful and happy that I knew him (though I'm sure he'd have baulked at such a cheesy epitaph).

[jamiefairlie]

20 years ago one of my colleagues had just been promoted, was 27, extremely popular, every woman loved him as he was ruggedly handsome and was about to get married. His fiancée came home from a night out and found him hanging in the kitchen. Totally out of the blue and nobody suspected a thing.

[madhair60]

anyone got a work colleague who's actually alive? a single one.

[Armed Traffic Warden]

anyone got a work colleague who's actually alive? a single one.

I have, but give me time I'm working on it.



I work in retail. Have done for 15+ years and I've known many colleague deaths.
   1 was suicide (or an appalling attempt at self medicating) after being caught fingers in til, so to speak. It was the same night as the firing so the husband didn't know what had happened at work. Work decided not to tell him.
   Another lady also committed suicide but i didn't know her as well. I know she never said thank you when I helped her or held doors open.
   Another chap I worked directly with for 13 years died in dubious circumstances. He'd recently come out and had been receiving shit from his social group/family. He'd had a tough life and could be very difficult to talk to (not to mention an abnoxious Liverpool fan... still he got to rub my nose in them beating spurs in the CL final despite my never talking shit about other peoples teams at work.. but I digress). The assumption is he killed himself but I know the people closest to him felt something else was going on.
  I think the rest of the deaths were heart attacks or cancer. Probably about 1 death a year... which seems excessive now I think about it.
  I also had three classmates and 4 teachers die throughout my school life.*



This post feels similar to the time I realised that having a coke addict as a father wasn't normal. Or the time I realised (late 20's) I had depression despite attempting suicide, being immensely unhappy (for as long as I remember - literally) and wanting to die since my mid teens... or the time I realised my hair was on fire because my whole body was on fire. I'm starting to think I'm not quite as self observant as I thought.

*this post is not a confession.

[touchingcloth]

A manager has died.

[Armed Traffic Warden]

A manager has died.

Where will baby Jesus sleep?

[Mobius]

I've had loads of colleagues die, but then again I do work for Al Qaeda!

[Mister Six]

I think I've only lost one colleague that I actually knew to speak to. Was found dead right at the start of the Covid pandemic, although I noticed afterwards that he'd deleted his Instagram account at some point, so I wonder whether it was suicide. I hope not, he was a good egg.

Few older colleagues have died at my current place of work over the past few years, but they're all based abroad and I never spoke to most of them - and when I did it was just messages on Slack (which is to Instant Messenger what LinkedIn is to Facebook) so they were just abstract figures to me.

[Icehaven]

A few I knew a bit but not very well. The saddest one was a bloke in his early 50s who basically died of a really bad asthma attack. His last words to his panicking wife as he was loaded into the ambulance were "I'm so scared, I don't want to die." Another had just retired after many decades slog, got diagnosed with cancer and died a few months later.

[Alberon]

I don't think I've really got any to relate that are relevant to the thread. Last former colleague I've known to die was after about the better part of twenty years of retirement so can't really complain.

A year or so after I started work in the late eighties one colleague retired and fairly promptly died. My wife runs a church cafe (both of us are atheists) and a year or so back I was helping her and sat for a break at a table where an old woman was. She turned out to be my colleague's widow and was overjoyed she'd bumped into someone new who remembered her husband.

But no colleagues actually still at work so I suppose I've been lucky (and they've been luckier, really).

[The Mollusk]

This is a good song to play when a colleague has passed

[gilbertharding]

There was a bloke in another department - I can't remember his name, but he was 'cor blimey' fat, if you know what I mean. I do remember the guy who worked next to me saying that this bloke was 'a heart attack waiting to happen' after he'd observed that he'd get out of breath from the exertion of making a cup of tea (for instance)... and, inevitably, shortly afterwards he expired from a presumed heart attack.

And at the first place I worked was a guy we only knew as Elvis, on account of his sideburns. He drove the dumper truck out in the yard, so us office folk only knew him by sight... but apparently people who knew him better called him Donkey. Anyway, when he wasn't driving the dumper truck he was driving a quite nice Jaguar XJ6, which he wrapped around the front of an oncoming truck one night, with fatal consequences.

In all my years at work, I think these are the only colleagues I've known who've died while they were still colleagues. Quite a few have died after they retired, or whatever...

[TheDutch]

died on a sunbed on a beach in Cornwall on Sunday at the age of 5.4

Was of the view they thoroughly deserved it until realising you probably meant sun lounger.

[Voltan (Man of Steel)]

5.4 is no age. RIP

[imitationleather]

Sounds like he achieved a lot in that short amount of time though.

[badaids]

Had a boss who was knocked of his bike cycling home from work one evening and hit by a lorry. He was a good sort and had a young family so they was very upsetting.

Another work colleague died aged 29. Super fit chap but just didn't wake up one morning - the post mortem showed he had a major heart defect that had never been picked up.

[Voltan (Man of Steel)]

Nick, former head of service/assistant director where I work, took early retirement a couple of years ago and recently died suddenly of a heart attack. He was only about eighteen months older than me and almost certainly lived a healthier lifestyle.

A good egg, he and his wife once offered to look after our dog, a greyhound cross, when we went away for a long weekend. He was so enamoured with Ronni that shortly afterwards he adopted a couple of retired greyhounds, that he obviously adored. His death upset me more than I expected.

[Jockice]

Today, we were all asked to gather together whereupon one of the owners of the company strode in and through tears informed us that the general manager had suffered a massive heart attack and died on a sunbed on a beach in Cornwall on Sunday at the age of 54.

Having passed that age - hey, I'm 57 a month today - there have been quite a few, a lot older, some at my age (like the gig-going pal I mentioned in the colleagues you miss thread. He was 57, so give me another year and a month and I'll have outlived him) but some even younger. It happens. I worked at the same place for over a quarter of a century so there are bound to be a few fatalities. Some have been totally unexpected though. Like the bloke who left, got another job, drove to it one day, parked up, got out of his car...and had a fatal heart attack. Can't remember his exact age but don't think he'd even hit his half century.  May have even been early 40s.

What's more interesting (to me anyway) is the lack of deaths from my year at school. Only two so far as far as I know. One boy in his late 30s from cancer and another probably about eight years ago either from leukemia or a drug overdose depending on who you listen to. I can't say I knew either of them particularly well. The latter was a bit of a bullyboy so some people found his departure amusing but he more or less left me alone so I had no strong feelings either way.

Even the girl in my first year class who was off sick half the time and then left, never to be seen again (and who I only remember at all because she managed to make it in for the class photo) is apparently still alive and living in Ireland.

But there have been quite a few deaths in the years below. Especially three years below, where fatalities include my best mate there's brother (suicide in his early 30s. One of several from that year I believe) and my girlfriend's brother (heart attack/drowning - No-one can work out which came first - in his mid 40s). And recently from that year one of those rare kids who had attained legendary status at the place because of his general eccentricity passed away. From what I'd heard about him and from the few times I'd met him since - in one case I met him in a supermarket queue, he said I was always nice to him at school, handed me a tenner and walked out without buying anything - it didn't come as a great surprise. But his funeral was apparently packed out. I may even have gone myself if I hadn't been otherwise engaged that day.

However so far the class of 77-82/4 seems to be sticking around. 4 Eva And Eva. Even the two girls I know who have had breast cancer survived. Having said that I'll probably go and die tonight. So if I don't post after this...

[Jockice]

How many dead people are you still friends with on Facebook? I have one, who's a former work colleague. We weren't that close, but it would feel wrong to unfriend them. We follow each other on Twitter too.

Well, since I didn't die last night I'll tell you this story. One of my very first Facebook friends was a bloke who I knew from round town. Not particularly well but he was a big music fan so I'd see him at concerts, and also an anarchist, so he was at every single protest. He'd sent me the request, I accepted and although we didn't talk personally on it he'd post some interesting stuff.

Anyway, a few years ago he passed away from pneumonia, so like lots of people I said my sympathies bit on his page. And that was that. But more recently I was looking through my memories and something he'd tagged me in came up. So I looked at his page. And he'd defriended me. From beyond the grave.

I presume it had been someone else with access to his account (because when I did my condolences we were definitely still friends) but it just goes to show. Something.

[JaDanketies]

@Jockice that's really fucking weird, logging into a dead person's account and messing around with it. Seems like a modern version of defacing a memorial. I don't know if you want sympathy but it is definitely inexcusable

[Jockice]

@Jockice that's really fucking weird, logging into a dead person's account and messing around with it. Seems like a modern version of defacing a memorial. I don't know if you want sympathy but it is definitely inexcusable

Nah, I don't want sympathy. For that anyway. It just seemed strange being defriended after death. I didn't study it in depth but it's possible it was a close friend or family member minimising the number of friends for some reason. Mine is not to reason why. And the whole page has vanished now anyway.

[falafel]

Not specifically work colleagues, no, but some other colleagues have died that weren't from work, colleagues that I didn't work with, because there is such a thing.

[Mr Vegetables]

The closest I can think of is that I worked with someone who was very close to a man who got partially eaten by a polar bear