From the New York Times: "Bosses of a publishing firm are trying to work out why no one noticed that one of their employees had been sitting dead at his desk for five days before anyone asked if he was feeling okay. George Turkelbaum, 51, who had been employed as a proof-reader at a New York firm for 30 years, had a heart attack in the open-plan office he shared with 23 other workers.
He quietly passed away on Monday, but nobody notice until Saturday morning when an office cleaner asked why he was working during the weekend.
His boss, Elliot Wachiaski, said: "George was always the first guy in each morning and the last to leave at night, so no one found it unusual that he was in the same position all that time and didn't say anything. He was always absorbed in his work and kept much to himself."
A post mortem examination revealed that he had been dead for five days after suffering a coronary. George was proofreading manuscripts of medical textbooks when he died.
You may want to give your co-workers a nudge occasionally. The moral of the story: Don't work too hard. Nobody notices anyway."
So the next time you think that you can't get away because you have too much work to do, think again....it will still be there after you're gone. Life is not a dress rehearsal, you only get one shot at it, so you should take time to enjoy yourself. You never know when your number's up.
