Death in the office: coping with a workmate's death on our roads

Thursday, 21 December 2017

Auckland Star reporter Louise Fish died in a road crash in 1982. Her former colleagues still remember the big gap her death left in the newsroom.

'There's been a death in the office.'

A colleague tried to break the news gently when I returned to work after the Christmas/New Year break, and I immediately assumed one of the older blokes had succumbed to a heart attack.

The Auckland Star news article about the crash that killed 22-year-old reporter Louise Fish in 1982.

More than 30 years on I still remember the moment I learned a friend and workmate had died in a car crash.

In those days, before cell phones, Facebook and the internet, it was easy to be off the grid for days at a time.

Amanda Cropp is Stuff's Christchurch business bureau chief.

Colleagues put in a death notice for their workmate.

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I was en route back to Auckland from a holiday on the family farm in North Canterbury when the newsroom heard 22-year-old Auckland Star reporter Louise Fish had become part of the road toll.

It was January 4, 1982 and she was returning from visiting her boyfriend in the Bay of Plenty with her cousin, Linda, when the Volkswagen they were travelling in collided head-on with a Valiant towing a horse float near Maramarua.

The two young women were killed instantly, taking the number of holiday deaths that year to 32.

Decades later as I head back into the office after the Christmas break, I often think of Louise and a little voice in the back of my head wonders whether my current workmates have made it back safely this year. Thankfully to date, they all have.

In 2016 there were 222 fatal and 1653 serious injury crashes involving at least one person aged 18 to 65.

Even allowing for students, retirees and the unemployed, that left a lot of grieving workplaces.

After a crash death the focus is, understandably, on the deceased's friends and family.

But Grief Centre counsellor Val Leveson says there is also a huge impact on workplaces where employees have spent eight hours a day together, perhaps for years.

'People do tend to put a hierarchy on grief, which means there's the main grievers, and it's not considered that other people might grieve as well.

'I've heard of people who just say hello to someone in the hallway being absolutely devastated by that person dying, just because it was a smiley face every day.'

Leveson has helped about five workplaces following crash fatalities – advising management on how to support employees, talking to staff about the effect of grief, and providing counselling where needed.

A worker who has already lost someone in a car accident may find that grief reignited even if they did not know the dead person well.

Others may appear unaffected, but their concentration deteriorates and their work performance goes downhill, Leveson says.

Age is a factor and younger staff may find it harder to cope if it is their first experience of death.

In my own case it was the first time someone close to me – other than elderly grandparents – had died.

Louise was great fun to work with and we socialised together a bit, going to the pub and the theatre and attending a self defence course.

The latter was inspired by the fact she was attacked walking home one night, while I was nervous living alone during my partner's frequent overseas trips. So we teamed up to learn how to eye gouge and deliver a debilitating boot to the privates.

The Star archives have an uncharacteristically solemn photo of Louise for an article she wrote about the attack and the self defence course.

Her siblings, who supported the writing of this story, supplied one that better reflected her sunny personality.

When Louise suddenly wasn't there any more, banging out copy on her old Imperial typewriter, the gap in the newsroom was palpable and I struggled to come to terms with the loss.

I don't recall any practical support from management, other than being given time off to attend the funeral.

Leveson says the expectation workers will just buck up and get on with the job after losing a colleague in a road crash still persists in some quarters.

'Workplaces who are 'just get over it, we need to focus on the bottom-line, you're here to work', those kinds of attitudes can be quite destructive because staff don't feel cared for.'

Having an outsider for employees to talk to helps because they can 'off-load personal stuff' they'd rather not discuss with workmates.

Like the fact they had argued with the deceased and never had an opportunity to resolve the disagreement.

Leveson give the example of someone who suffered depression after previous grief and feared it would recur, but worried about seeming too vulnerable if they confided in co-workers.

Even if no one takes up the counselling offer, it sends a signal. 'It's about saying, 'hey we care, we've lost someone and we acknowledge this is hard'.'

The speed at which bad news travels these days is a challenge because a crash death can quickly be all over Facebook.

Leveson says that's hard to avoid, but a workplace could ask staff to hold off putting anything online until everybody has been properly notified.

'Seeing it like that is far more difficult than being told by a human voice … I'd say get to the workers in the field as soon as possible and say, 'have you heard the news, and are you OK?'.'

Filling a vacancy arising from a fatality needs sensitive handling.

Temporary workers should be told of the situation they are walking into and that other staff may still be upset.

'It gives them a choice. If they feel they can't handle it, then they can say it's a temp job they're not going to take.'

Internal replacements can be tricky too.

'Some people are happy to step up. Others may feel 'I'm only being promoted because so-and-so is dead' and that really is awful.'

Leveson says some cultures would be unhappy if the office or desk the dead person once occupied was unceremoniously filled by someone else.

'You really need to understand who your staff are, and work out between you, what you want to do to honour this person and mark [their death].'