Dead But Already Forgotten

[djm]

You may have already seen this. I have been checking its veracity. According to <A HREF="http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/horror ... htm">Urban Legnds</A> its another whopper that originated in Weekly World News in 2000, and has since been propogated by English and American newspapers, and is now doing the web rounds. (The subject's name appears variously as Turkelbaum or Turklebaum.) Still, it makes for good reading:

From the New York Times: 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. Gearge 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 guy 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 pretty much to himself."

A post-mortem examination revealed that he had been dead for five days after suffering a coronary. George was proof-reading manuscripts of medical textbooks when he died.

You may want to give your co-workers a nudge occasionally. The moral of this story: Don't work too hard. No-one notices anyway.

djm

[BrassBlower]

[jkwest]

coffee just came out of my nose...

[missy]

ah - our cleaning crew wouldn't have noticed, they'd have just sprayed cleaning solution on you and wiped you down, like they do keyboards, and sticky notes, and anything else you have on your desk!!!

[Redwolf]

Five days? Whoever started that one must not have much of a sense of smell! (Or maybe they've just never encountered a three-day-old corpse!)

Redwolf

[hyldemoer]

Five days? Whoever started that one must not have much of a sense of smell! (Or maybe they've just never encountered a three-day-old corpse!)

Less time than that isn't it?
Don't the bowels start leaking out their contents shortly after death?

I've known of a couple former co-workers who fell asleep at work and woke up on a later tour. When that happened they'd either leave without clocking out (and deal with Timekeeping later) or try to find a supervisor stupid enough to authorize Overtime for them.

I also had a few single co-workers who died at home (yes, this happened a couple times over a few years) but no one missed them at work (except for Timekeeping, who wasn't authorized to contact them at home) until a week later.
By then their cats or dogs had made a real statement.

At least one of those departed co-workers had it written in his will that he leaving everything to his cat.
I don't think he realized at the time how true that wish would become.

[I.D.10-t]

I find this kind of reporting disturbing. Most of the “news” agencies reported that five firefighters were found alive in a SUV after the world trade center collapsed even though it never happened. It disturbs me that these people don’t check their facts and report entertaining news rather than what could be otherwise good use of spectrum. Add to this how many times corporate PR is represented as real news, and it makes me wonder where you can find news that has passed any form of fact checking.

Or perhaps I am just cranky this week.

[fearfaoin]

Five days? Whoever started that one must not have much of a sense of smell! (Or maybe they've just never encountered a three-day-old corpse!)

Yeah, that's what I thought. During my stint in college, some poor
blighter died in his dorm room, and because he had no roommate
or friends, no one knew until his neighbor complained about the
smell. It only took a week for the overpowering smell to permiate
into the next room.

[buddhu]

I don't believe I read the whole thread. I could see the way it was going, but still I read...

Oy vey, only meself to blame.

[brianc]

Feh.


Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" was the original in this theme.

[brianc]

I find this kind of reporting disturbing. Most of the “news” agencies reported that five firefighters were found alive in a SUV after the world trade center collapsed even though it never happened. It disturbs me that these people don’t check their facts and report entertaining news rather than what could be otherwise good use of spectrum. Add to this how many times corporate PR is represented as real news, and it makes me wonder where you can find news that has passed any form of fact checking.

Or perhaps I am just cranky this week.

Naw, you're not cranky, you're spot-on correct.

Welcome to Journalism 101. The tougher courses are "Introduction to Basketweaving" and the famed geology course entitled, "Our Friend the Earth".

[Rod Sprague]

At the U of I, "Our Friend the Earth" is called “Rocks for Jocks”.

[brianc]

At the U of I, "Our Friend the Earth" is called “Rocks for Jocks”.

1/2 my in-laws are Illini grads.