Grief and Work

I have to start by saying, that I was lucky enough to have a supportive workplace. Sadly this is not true for everyone.

When I first learned that Karl's illness would be fatal, I talked to the VP of HR about whether I would be eligible for bereavement leave. As I read the policy, it seemed that I would not be eligible since we weren't married. I wanted confirmation of this, so I could always make sure to have a week's leave available. She confirmed that was the policy and then called back about six hours later to tell me that company had changed the policy to include anyone you lived with. This was more than year before Karl died and it was much appreciated (as well as making me feel good that others in my situation both gay and straight would have the same benefit).

On the day I left for bereavement leave, the HR rep told me to go and not to worry about anything. When I returned she had gathered together all the paperwork I would need to change. Karl was my emergency contact as well as the beneficiary of my life insurance policy. She had the forms I needed to change filled out as much as she could and ready for me to fill in the new names and contact information. I might not have thought of doing that for weeks even months; I appreciated that she made sure it got done right away.

The office sent flowers and several of my co-workers attended either the funeral or came to the viewing. I work at a satellite site away from our HQ, so I received flowers from some of the people I directly worked with in our HQ as well as local co-workers.

My boss at the time was not the type of person to let others know his emotions especially when they are not happy. I'm fairly sure he didn't understand why I was not the same way, but he respected that I was not able to hide my emotions when I returned to work.

I came in a couple of times that week before the funeral for half days. Not because work insisted I come in or to meet a deadline, but simply to escape the dysfunctional family funeral for a few hours. I told my boss when I came in to pretend I wasn't there, that I was hiding out from Karl's relatives. He was good about doing so and giving me something completely non-stressful to do. I wasn't thinking clearly at that point, so this was critical. I could not have handled a high stress task at that point. My co-worker was still doing my normal tasks as that point. Something I was very grateful for as it couldn't have been easy to do my job and hers.

The first time I came back after Karl's death was the hardest. I was still crying at the drop of a hat and many of my co-workers wanted to express their condolences. I was grateful for the condolences, but it was hard to get through them. There's no way to avoid this, waiting to express condolences would have made me feel as if nobody cared. So pretty much the first hour I was back at work all I did was cry and get hugged by distressed co-workers.

Dealing with work and grief together is just one paradox after another. It hurts terribly to return to the normal routine of life and yet, it feels good to do so as well. It seems strange and unprofessional to insert strong emotions into the workplace, but it was also the only way I could return to work as the emotions were most definitely not under control for months. Work was a place of security where everything hadn't changed, but it also terrified me that I would make a serious mistake and lose my job now that I was my sole support for the first time in 26 years.

I cried at work every day for months. I never cried at work before; it was very strange. Luckily my cubicle was in an out of the way corner. People would say something innocuous on a phone call and I would start to cry. I had to apologize repeatedly to co-workers so they would understand I knew they weren't deliberately trying to hurt me and I ended up explaining to many of my co-workers at other sites what had happened as they didn't get a general announcement like they put out here at the local office.

I have no doubt my performance suffered. I tried to do good work, but for at least a couple of months I wasn't thinking very straight. At least I'd been a decent performer to start with, it makes it easier for others to cut you a little slack I think. My boss at least tried to keep things lighter the first month afterward anyway. My co-worker did her best to help me out as I wasn't working as fast as normal either and things were getting a little backed up. She was a champ, I couldn't have made it through without her. Sadly nine months later, she left work for cancer treatment and died a few months later. I miss her still.

I found that for at least a year and half, maybe close to two, I was far more easily stressed at work than I had been. Part of that was we were going through a lot of organizational changes at work and I ended up on a new team, one I never would have gone to by choice. Part of it was the grief and the loss of the feeling of safety in being alone now brought up some psychological issues, I thought I had moved past 20 years earlier. But now a little more than two years after the death, I'm starting to feel comfortable at work again. My brain doesn't feel like it's in such a fog. It's not so hard to concentrate.

Co-workers are uncomfortable with strong emotions in the workplace. I know I made them uncomfortable, but I needed to express those emotions. It still bothers them when I mention that I'm still grieving (my new boss gets this “oh spare me” look on his face when I mention anything to do with Karl or grieving, but then he wasn't someone who actually ever expressed personal condolences either)– somehow society has decided that we shouldn't do that for more than a week or so after the funeral. But what society wants and what I was able to do weren't in synch. I think it cruel that we don't expect grieving people to grieve and that we make them feel even worse if they should happen to show how bad they feel to relatives, friends and co-workers. I reached out some to others I worked with who suffered griefs after me. I like to think it helped that they had some one who knew what it was like to talk to.

One thing that amazed me was how few of my co-workers attended the funeral or the viewing, less than ten percent of the local employees came even though we were a small enough office that I knew everyone. No one from the local senior management came (even though I'd worked closely with all but one of them) and none of them even expressed their condolences in person until weeks later. It's colored my view of management here, I don't know that I will ever feel loyalty or trust in them, since they were absent when I most needed support. Another person here lost her father recently, I was the only person from work who actually attended the funeral (several more did make it to the viewing). Why wasn't her boss there? Where were her teammates? Are we really all so busy and important that we can't take a couple of hours out of a day to attend a funeral when one of our co-workers needs our support? It seems wrong to me; 20 years ago when someone had a funeral that was local, people were expected to attend. Now it seems to be too much trouble.