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.
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Your response to this situation is perfectly normal. Things I would recommend:
Please at least mention it to your wife and mention that at minimum it is “affecting you emotionally.” It is not fair to her for you to return and be so worked up and not have an explanation.
Clients are understanding if they have an explanation. I would say something along the lines of “my coworker has a personal issue to attend to.” And a lot of times that is enough.
Though it is hard to deal with, remember that you are still here and made it past that time before. Though this sort of thought line is always a struggle, it is possible to push through no matter how difficult it may seem. What you said to your coworker is likely sufficient for now. Perhaps a reminder message saying something like “hope you are still doing ok” or “don’t push yourself to come back too hard, take time to work through things” would be appropriate on rare occasion until they return to the project.
These things are tough for everyone and nobody deals with it the same way. Since you don’t have access to your therapist, perhaps finding an outlet like journaling might help you work through your side of things even if you do so temporarily.
You will make it through despite it being harder than expected on your side of things. Always remember you can only control yourself and there is only so much you can do. Don’t stress yourself out too much when you have already taken steps to show that you care.
Thanks! Yeah I appreciate the response. I think just talking through it here was a form of journaling. I’m feeling a bit more composed.
I’ll be reaching out to my wife when she wakes up back at home. She’s definitely my rock so it’s a good idea!
You
I don’t think you’re being selfish here.
If anything, the empathy you have about this hits you harder than it would a selfish person.
Being emotional about this is perfectly normal.Your wife
At least tell your wife about the coworker not being able to make it there.
If my partner was in this situation I’d want to know, I imagine you would too if the roles were reversed.
It’s not about looking for something out of it, sometimes it just helps to get things off your chest.This trip
It’s also perfectly reasonable to worry about your new immediate situation in this work trip.
I know what you mean, I’m a tech expert, not a sales guy. Customer sales meetings are usually inanely boring sales pitch with the occasional tech question.
Sales people talking together, with tech being an afterthought.
Your co-worker likely had some sort of sales pitch already prepared that you can reuse, but honestly, you don’t necessarily have to become a salesman here either.
The meetings themselves will likely just be different, it’s fine.
Just be honest and upfront about your sales person not being able to make it because of death in his family. Give them as much details as you feel comfortable with.
Customers are human too.Firsthand experience, some of the strongest customer relations we have… were made the other way around: tech first, sales second.
Play to your strengths, get them interested, they can figure out the boring sales stuff afterwards for once.
It still depends on your audience obviously, but it’s not necessarily a bad way to approach a customer.You got this.
Thanks for the encouragement. I definitely told my wife immediately about being alone out here but I hesitated to mention the details until recently. I’ll see if anyone has a slide deck for the plans this year. Otherwise, like you said, I’ll play to my strengths. Maybe I can make it more like an extended FY25 sprint planning meeting lol we’ll just have to see.
One thing I would like to tell you first: it’s not selfish to want to talk with your wife about this. This is something that of course is affecting you and you should talk with someone about it. A great stepping stone to this is your post here, great that you’re reaching out and asking for advice about this. I’m no expert in these things and have my own struggles just like you, but take one hour and one day at the time, don’t stress it out. If you need counseling there is a few online services that you can use that has psychologists, one of the ones I’ve heard about is BetterHelp, I hope you’re able to afford it. I hope this helps mate.
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.
Other people are giving you good advice about your emotions, so here is some practical advice for your customer interactions:
Be honest without being specific. Print out on a piece of paper in their language an explanation of your role, and that you are also covering your coworkers role who cannot be here due to a sudden death in the family.
“I apologize for any difficulty caused by the situation and appreciate your understanding and patience in these unusual circumstances.”
This is pretty good advice. I have created a sort of script to follow which should make it easier to gloss over it. It’s awkward, dark, and sad that my business seems to supercede this news, but it’s also life.
