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My Coworker Almost Died & My Inappropriate Emotional Response.

  • Grove just shot up in my poster rankings.....if that even means anything to anyone.

    fearthetrtle34

  • This thread got a downvote. Only logical explanation: Your coworker posts here.

    MJ6964

  • when do we get polls? tags?

    poll question: at which level are you a heartless bastard?

    don't care when.....

    a. co-worker heart attack
    b. tornado destroys home, killing 3
    c. tsunami kills 10 000 but they are mostly foreigners (or ncsu alum)
    d. etc

    winterps ●

  • MJ said...

    the thought of the guy laying on the ground behind you writhing in pain and you sitting at your computer typing away furiously is just destroying me right now for some reason.

    This

    3minute rule

  • The people in my unit are quite frankly in pretty poor health and don't take care of themselves very well. The vast majority are over 40 so I'm the young buck. Like once a month someone goes out for an extended period of time and a card gets passed around but I basically don't sign unless its one of the people I talk to a lot or the person in charge is going from cube to cube.

    Although I do think there might be a couple people who if they went out and the card came to my desk I'd just say 'yeah, she's a (rhymes with punt), I don't really care.' Now I kinda want to test that out.

    They also take up a collection...so I can subsidize other peoples income while they're out on paid leave? That part I really don't get. I guess I'm just heartless too.

    Oh and I definitely crack inappropriate jokes all the time. Its funny, there's the time where everyone is shaken up but you can tell it to others that like you. Then the mourning period where its REALLY sunk in and all jokes are now off limits. But after everyone stops mourning the jokes are okay again.

    "WE WANT MORE WE WANT MORE girl is providing the rallying cry for the 2013 O's." ~dh2k3

    JDawgBBall9

  • Wow remind me never to have a heart attack in your office. I was about to post about the first aid kit but I guess it was such an obvious comment that others beat me to it.

    I heard the call for CPR but I didn't read where anyone actually performed it. All I read was "sit back until the EMTs get here" which is obviously a good way to kill a guy. So nobody bothered to attempt CPR? And you actually went back to work with a guy (potentially) dieing 5 feet from you? Wow.

    As for your basic question I don't know how I wouldn't feel for someone who potentially died in front of me regardless of how I felt about them. I'm pretty sure the urge to laugh would have been off the charts. Seriously WTF is that all about? Hell I may even be forced to try to help Daniel Snyder if I saw him in such a condition. Nobody is saying you should grieve for a week but to feel pretty much nothing is indeed heartless. And imagine how the guy will feel when he returns, remembering that you went back to work when he needed help.

    This post has been edited 2 times, most recently by DarrellGreenFan on 4/1/2011 at 7:14 AM

    DarrellGreenFan

  • I don't think there was anything abnormal about the OPs reaction given the circumstances.

    I watched a guy die at my previous job. Was In a meeting with about 10 people in a small conference room and suddenly a co-worker slumped over, face down on the table. The others in the meeting who had come from this guys office and knew him much better thought he was joking around at first, but I found that odd as I had never once seen the guy joke around. This guy was generally known by co-workers as you average nice, quiet, shy, geeky, serious, rocket scientist type. Well, turns out he had a stroke and died right there. He was 49 I believe . I was always a bit sympathetic towards this guy due to his extreme revenge of the nerds vibe. At least he left behind no wife or kids.

    TerpFan44

  • TheGrove said...

    The guy (40ish) who sits next to me is constantly nervous and fretting about everything. He yells at his computer, gives it the finger, uses the phrase “I need more bandwidth” to mean he needs more people on his team. He’s nice to me but if he shot up work, I wouldn’t be surprised.

    Today he complains he’s having a panic attack. I say, “Take a walk around.” An hour later he says, “I think I’m having a heart attack.” His face goes white and he asks me to call 911. I get up and walk to him, he starts collapsing in my arms (romantic!) and I look around and everyone suddenly looks up as he yells, “Call 911!”

    Everyone starts calling.

    Someone tells me to get a first aid kit from the receptionist. I go to her and tell her what’s going on, his wife works at the company and she says to me, “Did you tell his wife?” “Uh, yeah, totally, I’m the going to tell his wife, whom I’ve never met, that her husband is dying. Smart thinking Vicki!” What I really said was, “No” and then ran back to the dude.

    I get there and everyone is standing around. He screaming in pain, people are helping him and they gave him baby aspirin cause that’s what you do? Emails start coming in “IF ANYONE HAS EMT EXPERIENCE GO TO THE 9th FLOOR ASAP!”

    The main boss tells us all to sit back down at our desks and relax until the EMTs come. My desk is five feet from his face...so naturally I sit down and start working again...while he’s screaming...after a minute I look around and see no one else is working so maybe I should not be typing so loudly.

    EMTs come and he gets wheeled out. Everyone settles back into work although it’s pretty quiet the rest of the day. I’ve never had so many people genuinely ask me, “How are you doing?” since 9/11.

    So, here’s my emotional response: I just don’t really care. I was shook up because the guy was making human noises I’ve never heard before but I didn’t really like the guy, if it was virtually anyone else, I’d be upset but the guy was so negative. Also, I really wanted to laugh the whole time. I looked around to see if anyone would at least smile like, “Can you believe this is f***ing happened?” but nothing. Luckily, a few people were cool with jokes over IM after an appropriate time (72 minutes). Gallows humor I suppose.

    Is it callous just to not care about people you really don’t have much attachment too? Is that normal? I don’t know, I do know I was a lot happier the rest of the day thinking, “At least my life isn’t THAT bad.” :ascheafe:

    1) At least your boss didn't say, "Grove, Steve, put Dave out in the hall. Everyone, else get back to work!"
    2) Good thing you kept working, it might have been some kind of productively test
    3) while it sucks he had a heart attack at work, at least no-one went through his wallet or took his shoes.
    4) Did his wife ever show up? If not, then
    5) You were probably right the first time, I bet it was just a panic attack

    OttoMaddox

  • TerpFan44 said...

    I don't think there was anything abnormal about the OPs reaction given the circumstances.

    Oh I can totally understand the OP's mixed emotions. I'm in an interesting situation. I have a customer at my largest account who for some reason hates us. He has gone out of his way to tell everyone not to use our company despite how well we have performed for them. He sat us down and told us that he was about to be named Director and when that happened thing would change and we would see a huge reduction in our business. That never happened, this dickhead never had a chance because everyone hates him. So I had every reason to despise this guy and I did. He was not a annoying co-worker, the was a total dickhead who was effecitng my paycheck.

    Well I just learned he has terminal cancer and will die soon. I was generally confused about this news. On the one hand this was good news. But I just couldn't allow myself to be happy, I actually feel badly for the guy.. So you see if I felt badly for this guy, a guy who I had every reason to want dead from a personal standpoint, I think it's safe to assume I wouldn't feel apathy or even be tempted to laugh as I watched a co-worker screaming and clinging to life.

    I just can't believe I'm in such a minority in feeling this way.

    This post has been edited 2 times, most recently by DarrellGreenFan on 4/1/2011 at 8:40 AM

    DarrellGreenFan

  • Well I doubt if Grove was tempted to laugh at the guy's pain/suffering/possible death, more at the improbability and absurdity of the situation. I mean, (1) who comes into work expecting something like that to happen?, and (2) the absurdity comes in with a bunch of people who have no training or preparation for such a situation trying to deal with it, and especially being told to go back to their desks and just stay calm.

    Then again, I've met Grove and he's a pretty awful person, so maybe he did want to laugh at the guy's pain/suffering/possible death.

    aschaefe

  • We had a guy who was like that. Just crazy yelling at people who screwed up their computers (he was on the PC support desk). One time his wife messed up something, and he screamed at her through the phone for 30 minutes while everyone in the office was all WTF.

    He finally got fired for yelling at a vice-president for getting some mal-ware on his laptop.

    Anyway, just found out a few weeks ago that he died of a heart-attack less than a year after he got fired. Everyone else at the office was somber, but I laughed and said, "Called it!" because after he got fired I said he wouldn't last 5 years without a heart-attack.

    Moral of story: lighten up, Francis.

    LeafeeWolf

  • phatphelix said...

    i was talking to thegrove. if i was talking to you, i would have said something like, "wtf we aren't talking about watching our fathers die you horrible, horrible poster."

    hahahahahahahahaha

    Canyonerooooo

  • TheGrove: Me and my wife are going out for our anniversary dinner tonight. Trying out Mike Isabella's new restaraunt Graffiato. I've heard its great.

    Amyeg - One time I had an ice cream sandwich. It was soooo good. tongue

    Canyonerooooo

  • Top five least appropriate responses to Grove's coworker heart-attack

    1) Continue working
    2) Order lunch
    3) go through Dave's pockets
    4) hit on his wife
    5) Darth Vader impression: "Dave, you've failed me for the last time!"

    OttoMaddox

  • I got downvoted for laughing at Phatphelixs comment about amyeg and upvoted for my own comment.

    A little consistency people.

    Canyonerooooo

  • OttoMaddox said...

    Top five least appropriate responses to Grove's coworker heart-attack

    1) Continue working 2) Order lunch 3) go through Dave's pockets 4) hit on his wife 5) Darth Vader impression: "Dave, you've failed me for the last time!"

    I think "really bad puns" should be on there too, like "come on guys, have a heart!"

    neal990

  • Phelix's post was so good that I upvoted it on my phone. And that doesn't happen often since you have to refresh the entire page and it takes forever but I knew I wouldn't remember.

    "WE WANT MORE WE WANT MORE girl is providing the rallying cry for the 2013 O's." ~dh2k3

    JDawgBBall9

  • The Grove sounds like a guy I'd like to have as a co worker.

    hokthu

  • Kid Bro Sweets said...

    LOL @ old people in this thread. Go breathe some more in the conference room.

    So it's unique to old people that we care is someone lives or dies? Gotcha.

    Kids today...

    DarrellGreenFan

  • In all seriousness, though, a basic CPR class is ridiculously easy to take/pass and I encourage people to take it at least once in their lives so that they can become familiar with the basic concepts of compressions and how an AED works. You may not give shit about your coworker (who in this case CPR or AED intervention couldn't really help) but you never know when your dad, wife, son, etc may suffer a heart attack. I think the statistic is there is a 70-80% survival rate if AED intervention happens within the first 5 minutes... that's huge.

    This post has been edited 2 times, most recently by PantsEnFuego on 4/1/2011 at 9:43 AM

    PantsEnFuego

  • PantsEnFuego said...

    In all seriousness, though, a basic CPR class is ridiculously easy to take/pass and I encourage people to take it at least once in their lives so that they can become familiar with the basic concepts of compressions and how an AED works. You may not give shit about your coworker (who in this case CPR or AED intervention couldn't really help) but you never know when your dad, wife, son, etc may suffer a heart attack. I think the statistic is there is a 70-80% survival rate if AED intervention happens within the first 5 minutes... that's huge.

    Yep. I gave up a Saturday once to take a basic course because my wife and I spend a lot of time outdoors away from care and I figured it would be a good thing to know. When I think back at all the time I spent learning completely useless crap in High School it bugs the hell out of me that basic CPR is not manditory. Hell even if you sleep right through it, as we all would do, you have to retain something. I mean to sit around and wait for the EMTs to arrive is the absolute WORST thing you can do.

    DarrellGreenFan

  • DarrellGreenFan said...

    I mean to sit around and wait for the EMTs to arrive is the absolute WORST thing you can do.

    Rifling through his wallet and desk drawers while you wait is probably even worse than just sitting around.

    MisterSmiley

  • the most shocking part of the OP is that you have a job, or more appropriately, that you do work.

    TheColfax

  • oh also relevant to this story (I haven't read the thread - sorry) is that you only have to do chest compressions now. No more mouth to mouth (unless she's cute!)

    TheColfax

  • Not knowing CPR = having a clear conscience when I watch someone die in front of me

    gurgle

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