If You Died At Your Job, Would Anyone Notice?

Seriously.

If you literally died in your office, how long do you think it would take before people noticed you punched out…for good? More than two days I hope.

I came across this article a couple of times this past week, so I thought I’d share it. It’s a story about a Finnish tax auditor who people didn’t miss for two full days. No security, no housekeeping, nothing. Two full days.

Luckily, you don’t have to lose complete faith in humanity as this story was from ten years ago. It just happens to be making the rounds again due to a large tax blog writing about it.

Something else caught my eye, though, aside from the unusual circumstances around this death. Did you notice the explanations for why this happened? “He usually works outside the office” and “the people he usually eats lunch with were out of the office”…

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think they sound like excuses for someone who didn’t interact much with people in the office.

Not everyone needs to be the over-the-top extrovert, but people should at least feel your presence or lack thereof. If that’s not the case, something is broken and you need to change that asap.

How many people did you speak to on the way into the office today?

photo credit: Loneliness via photopin (license)