WORKER DEAD AT DESK FOR 5 DAYS

So, Who Really Cares?

WORKER DEAD AT DESK FOR 5 DAYS
New York Times
1-22-03

Bosses of a publishing firm are trying
to work out why no one noticed
that one of their
employees had been sitting dead at his desk for FIVE
DAYS
before anyone asked if he was feeling
okay.

George Turklebaum, 51, who had been employed as a
proof-reader at a New York firm for 30 years, had a
heart attack in the open-plan office he shared with 23
other workers. He quietly passed away on Monday, but
nobody noticed until Saturday morning when an office
cleaner asked why he was still working during the
weekend.

His boss, Elliot Wachiaski said: "George was always
the first guy in each morning and the last to leave at
night, so no one found it unusual that he was in the
same position all that time and didn't say anything.
He was always absorbed in his work and kept
much to
himself."

A post mortem examination
revealed that he had been dead for five days, after
suffering a coronary. Ironically, George was
proofreading manuscripts of medical textbooks when he
died.
You may want to give your co-workers a nudge
occasionally.

What's the moral of the
story?

Some might say, "Don't work too hard.
Nobody notices anyway." Not so. In most organizations,
the dead Mr. Wachiaski would have been given his pink
slip before he'd even gotten cold.
The more intuitive
might observe that "George's managers should ashamed for
their lack of knowledge, empathy, and care for for
George, their fellow worker and human being. If they
don't "get it," then perhaps they should be replaced
with managers who understand and appreciate the value of
those who give the better of their lives, and even their
deaths, to their employer."

Credible Connections
has a simple premise: You can't empathize with anyone
whom you do not know. You may sympathize -- that selfish
emotion we all feel when we observe, "I know how I would
feel in that position." As opposed to empathy, when we
say, "I know him. I know he he is feeling." In this
case, a manager might have noticed George feeling ill in
the preceding days or hours, given a damned, and got him
some help.