Wednesday 30 May 2007

Absolutely shocking

New York Times: Bosses of a New York publishing firm are trying to figure 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 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. George was proofreading manuscripts of medical textbooks at the time of his death.

You may want to give your co-workers a nudge occasionally, or say “hello in there,” just to be sure they have not succumbed to the same fate as George

If there IS a moral to this most unfortunate story, it could be this: Don’t work too, too hard. Nobody notices anyway.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

that is tragically sad...i think somebody, somewhere has felt his death (besides us i mean). us humans are royally fucked. "hey, let's invent time, work, money, the industrial military complex". fuck yeah, we are awesome."

Anonymous said...

George Turklebaum was being disrespectful when he died for five days.