So this week has been a bit of a bummer at work.

Not so much on the work drama, actually, though there was a bit of that. We have a whopping project that runs July-December that we all have to work on, and uh...I literally do probably about 80% of it and combined everyone else might do 20%, if that. Anyway, since getting everyone else to do more work is just not freaking happening unless someone wants to spend all of their time cracking whips personally or something, my boss took me off of front counter duties for at least two weeks so at least someone will be working on the giant pile.

This is a giant yay for me, obviously. But also... well, my mom needs eye surgery and I may end up having to use all of my vacation time soon to be a caregiver for her. GOD HELP US ALL, WE’RE GONNA END UP KILLING EACH OTHER. At any rate, my boss has been repeating to them, “What happens if Jennifer isn’t here for some reason?” and ah... that may end up being the case before this project is due. More on this later, as I don’t know too many facts beyond “can’t work for three weeks” and Mom muttering that she’d rather ask a friend to stay at her house. God, I hope so.

Anyway, I’m stalling on this. I found out on Tuesday that a super nice fellow I know primarily through work (not in my office, but in one that deals with us a lot) died outta fucking nowhere on Sunday. Nobody seems to know what happened other than “it wasn’t natural” and I guess they are waiting on an autopsy to determine. Which just seems wrong. What the hell does “it wasn’t natural” mean?! Murdered? Suicide? Trust me when I say that neither of these sound logical or right, because this dude was like, the nicest, sweetest, most cheerful dude on the planet. I can’t imagine why anyone would kill him and well..yes, plenty of people have said that people who committed suicide seemed just fine the night before. But it doesn’t sound right.

I last saw him a couple of Fridays ago when he came by the office. I last talked to him the week before, where I saved his bacon a bit on a work thing.

He was also a friend of my cousin Kristen’s. I first met him before the work thing when we all had to attend the triathlon she was in during college--on a super miserable drenching rainy day. I didn’t want to be there past the swimming, but I first met this fellow there because he was her friend and watching it. I definitely thought, “You are a nicer person than I am to be doing this voluntarily.” I think that summed him up in a nutshell, really: incredibly nice.

My mom and I debated for a few days on whether or not to mention the situation to my aunt--I didn’t actually know if Kristen and he had kept up the friendship since she’s been moving to a different state every year for the last few years and some people don’t keep up very well when they move, and he hadn’t mentioned her to me in conversation--though most of the time we either talked about work or musicals, hah. Anyway, Mom finally e-mailed and my aunt was all, “yes, she knows, she’s devastated she talked to him Saturday night and he was fine, do NOT contact her about this, she can’t talk about it.” I found that part out Thursday.

On Friday, his office held a brief memorial for him, which was well attended. I went, as did my boss and one other coworker who could get out of the office. And as I’m standing around with them, I was all, “wait a minute, is that Kristen?!” Who lives in Oregon for law school, mind you, so I would not have expected her to be there. But she was, she said she came for the weekend. She was crying a bit, but had enough friends there (I think from her old job? All three of us worked in that building at one point or another) that I don’t think she needed me around. I gave her some hugs anyway.

“How’s your week been?” she asked.
“Well, other than this, not bad....” Hah.

*sigh*

Anyway, it’s a loss to the world that this fellow is no longer with us and other shitheads are. Just saying.

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