Monday, October 05, 2009

Very sad work day



Now that I have the full correct details, I will blog about John. John was one of our Construction Managers here in the Hillsborough Region office. As they all say in that departmnet...he was the glue that held the department together. There is another Manager, a couple of Sepervisors, and a Director...but John was the glue! He has been thru many of cable buy out/name changes. In all this past July he has been with us 38 years (I thought it was 28, but it is 38). He did leave once for a short time but came back. The correct thing that happened...his wife went to the grocery store and when she came back home she came in the house and yelled to him to come help with the groceries. She found him in his chair, and thought he was pretending to be sleeping so he did not have to help. She thought he was joking, as he is a big jokester! She went over to him and went to shake him to wake him up, and when she touched him he was cold. He was not sick or anything before hand, so they beleive it was a massive heart attack. A few of the Construction guys did not find out till this morning as they wanted a break from this place, so they turned off their phones. Johns right hand man Mike has been to his house and helping his wife with things. He only lives a few blocks from him and they were really close. He drove his work truck in this morning, said he was fine until he got to the parking lot..and then it hit him like a ton of bricks. I avoided most all the people I could. Except one of the guys that did not find out until this morning got on the elevator with me. It was a tough slow ride. I held strong. But then I started doing Alexis's work since she is off. There is a verify service request form we use that is a database, when filling it out, we have to select Johns name. So, I was faced with...what do I select on now? As they started building up, I had to find out. I went down to the department to see if it would be Mike now...I took one look at him and lost it! I could not even ask. Took me a few moments and I was finally able to ask. Barry who is the other Manager did come in, but was asked to be left alone, so no one is going to his office. They have been checking on him to make sure he is ok. He is not well. When I first found out I thought they got the name wrong, and meant to say Barry. He should not be working, he should retire. But is stubborn as John called him 'Bald headed old fart". I could go on and on, he was just a well liked person and will be greatly missed!

2 comments:

Scrappin' Jackie said...

michele,
i am so sorry to hear of the loss of your friend and co-worker. i can tell how fond you and everyone else were of him.

there are no words......nothing will make the loss easier. take comfort in knowing that he died with no pain(as my daddy did) and was a very dedicated individual.

my heart goes out to his wife......
HUGS,
Jackie

Kip said...

That's so sad. He sounds like a much loved man. big hugs.