My coworker and I were scheduled to do an international trip. I just got to the new country and checked Slack. My coworker messaged me halfway through my flight informing me that their fiance has committed suicide.
I struggled/struggle with these things myself, but I’ve found the support (and medication) to find balance or something close to it.
This news came as a shock to me. He just merged his family with his fiance’s. So now he has 4 children (I believe 2 or 3 of which are not biologically his).
I sent him a terse but kindly worded message, but we aren’t that close. I’ve never met him in person. This was going to be our first meeting and he was largely responsible for guiding the meetings with our customers.
So I guess I just feel a bit like a fish out of water. I don’t know how to support him or what I should do. I want him to just forget about work which is why I hesitated to message him at all. But I didn’t want him to think I was incapable of doing this myself. Hence the short message in reply (which included me telling him I have it covered and take all the time he needs).
Foreign travel is hard enough when I have someone else with me. I’ve never driven in this country nor do I speak the language. I’m just a little flustered. I figured venting here might help me reorient myself. I don’t want this to “be about me”, but I also have no clue what’s going to happen. I’m not useless, but I’m also hardly a driver of million dollar contracts. I’m more like the “software guy” that helps make these contracts a deliverable. I guess I’ll just figure out driving and I’ll wing it with the customer engagement. Intimidating to spend 3-4 days with just me and a bunch of clients trying to figure out the future of this project.
Nonetheless, I also feel a lot of emotions about suicide hitting a colleague of mine. He’s a very kind hearted man. He’s a big strong guy with a soft heart. Just 3 years ago, I could have put my own fiancee in the same situation. It’s stirring up quite a lot of emotions.
Since I don’t have a therapist right now, I just sought out Lemmy/social media instead. I hesitate to drop this news on my wife because she has a hard enough time dealing with this kind of stuff as it is (especially with my previous history). I usually would talk with her about it but I don’t even know what I’d be looking for: comfort, encouragement, advice? Feels sort of selfish. On an anonymous platform, I feel a bit less bad about it.
Edit: thanks everyone for the advice and the space to vent. I got a car and spoke with the customers to plan for the next week. It’s still very much a “wing it” approach, but at least I know where to be and how to get there. I spent Sunday going on touristy things. Going alone feels a bit awkward - especially with language barriers. But it wasn’t too bad. My coworker - I hope - is taking this week off (at least) to sort it all out. It’s unclear what he’ll be doing but a couple of his closer colleagues reached out to him and offered to drive 6 hours to his home to support. So I think he has more than the typical “corporate support”. I’ll check in on him when this trip is over to tell him it went well. Doesn’t really matter if it did or didn’t. I just want him to not stress about it and feel responsible for this in any way. At this point, my own little shock and fear has passed. I’m ready for the week. I can’t imagine what he must be going through.
Sounds like your plan is reasonable: do what you can to keep business going. It doesn’t hurt to check in with your coworker about how he’s feeling. It can be by text if you want.
Yes, it breaks social convention for him to get emotional support from a coworker, but our society’s too dry in that regard to rely on the culturally-sanctioned channels for that support.
But also, it’s okay for your contribution to just be keeping everything running as smoothly as possible. That’s helpful too.
One thing I would recommend is to come up with your cover story about where he is. It doesn’t have to be a lie. You can just tell the truth that there’s a family emergency your coworker is dealing with. But even a simple response like that benefits from being worked out in advance, before you’re asked.
Also, since your own workload has increased, it’ll be good to pay attention to your own care. The one thing I would specifically caution is to pay attention to your hydration levels.
Being in a foreign country, it’s always handy to know where you’re going to get drinking water, and then to drink plenty of it. Being dehydrated will make you more forgetful, and right now you need to be on the ball with the driving and the contract negotiation.
I would just be as honest as possible about what you can and can’t do, and provide as much help as you can in understanding the tech. If you choose to propose a delay in closing, make sure to frame it in terms of everybody’s benefit, like:
“Despite the fact we want to move this forward, the reality is we’re missing a person that we planned on having present for this process. It’s not ideal, but it may be our best option to extend our closing deadline a bit. As much as I am committed to helping, and will help however I can, my vote is to delay this closing until we can make the best use of everyone’s input”.
However, the reality has to be dealt with that your coworker may be simply unable to contribute for a while.
Also, check in with us here in a couple of days and let us know how it’s going for you.
I think that if you tell the truth, and stay hydrated, you’ll be able to help cooler heads prevail and keep things managed in his absence. But I’m not kidding: pay special attention to staying hydrated as it’s easy to forget, easy to avoid, and makes a huge difference in performance in an unfamiliar environment.
Oh, one other thing: if at all possible do what you can to ensure there are tech people on the other side of the table as well. You’ll have an easier time feeling sane if there’s another tech person in the room during these meetings.