We will not react

Today started like any other day .

At around 10 AM a colleague blurted out that “R” passed away. Now “R” was not my close friend , or I have not even talked to him once . But then he was someone whom I saw everyday , it doesn’t seem real.

He was a very tall, very slim ,a vegetarian. And with the tag of a “workaholic”.

For many days , maybe since October , he hasn’t been sleeping well coz the project was in a bad shape. He was an architect , he did not have to take responsibility for the project .  But he did and the managers took undue advanatage of his dedication and passion to work. This meant that he has his own work , he had to mentor and help out the juniors and he did the job that his managers should have done. And he was sleep deprived…

It hurts me , he and his wife were expecting a baby and she was in the hospital for her delivery when he collapsed. He was shuttling between home , hospital and work since the past few days.

What really worries me is that this is not an isolated incident. There have been so many cases that I personally know of , where sleep deprived , hard working people get a pain in the chest and pass away before they reach the hospital next door.

My concern here is that management is least affected by this. Today , his manager commented that “R” didn’t have much of a work load. Everyone knows its not true. No one reacted.

We do not react, Organizations want to make money and they bid for less money, they make employees work and work . We lose a few of our collegues but we do not react. Is it pure selfishness ? Or is it about being scared ? Or is it the feeling that it will never happen to you.