# It's a small small world. Running into ex's at your Job. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 16, 2015, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-small-small-world-running-into-exs-at-your-job/737659 "2015-11-16T00:19:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-small-small-world-running-into-exs-at-your-job/737659/1 "2015-11-16T00:19:53Z")
Waiters and Waitresses often see friends or ex’s at their job. Salespeople at retail stores do too. I was in the hospital and one of my nurses was an acquaintance from high school. It’s a small world. But crime scene Tech’s? Hey, that’s my baby daddy. :smack: I guess it would happen more in a small town but New Orleans is a big place. > **[For New Orleans crime lab tech, a routine murder scene until victim turns out...](https://www.nola.com/news/crime_police/for-new-orleans-crime-lab-tech-a-routine-murder-scene-until-victim-turns-out-to/article_60944cb2-6c05-50c2-b22f-a41195ee1232.html)** > > New Orleans police crime lab technician Alonia Singleton stepped out of her department-issued car early Saturday morning (Nov. 7) and began to photograph methodically the scene of yet another New > **[Crime lab tech discovers her ex-boyfriend and son’s father is slain victim in...](https://www.nydailynews.com/2015/11/15/crime-lab-tech-discovers-her-ex-boyfriend-and-sons-father-is-slain-victim-in-new-orleans-murder-scene/)** > > A New Orleans crime lab technician made a stunning discovery when she found her ex-boyfriend and the father of her son dead while working a murder scene. Alonia Singleton was photographing the afte… > [@](#): > > She had nearly finished her work when she caught a glimpse of a familiar-looking tattoo – a cross – on the dead man’s back. Before authorities could place him in a waiting body bag, she asked if the man had another tattoo: The name, “Alonia,” on his chest. > > He did, they answered. > > In that moment, Singleton knew Jonathan Dotson Sr., her ex-boyfriend and father of her young son, had just been murdered. > [@](#): > > Alonia Singleton was photographing the aftermath of a shooting when a familiar tattoo on a dead man’s back jarred her, according to The Times -Picayune. > > The tattoo read: “Alonia.” > > “I started backing up. It was like this heavy weight. I kept not believing it,” she told the newspaper. > > Singleton’s former boyfriend, Jonathan Dotson Sr., was gunned down during the early morning of Nov. 7, officials said. > > Dotson and Singleton, both 31, dated from 2006 to 2009. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-small-small-world-running-into-exs-at-your-job/737659/2 "2015-11-16T00:27:04Z")
NOLA’s local news story is more accurate. I was concerned the link might die in the next month or so. I posted another link just to be safe, but they managed to jumble up the story a bit. I’ve learned the hard way local tv and newspaper links often have a short life span. They usually aren’t worth bookmarking. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-small-small-world-running-into-exs-at-your-job/737659/3 "2015-11-16T00:41:02Z")
That reads like a tale out of O Henry or Victorian Melodrama, or the great French romantics, or pulp noir. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-small-small-world-running-into-exs-at-your-job/737659/4 "2015-11-16T00:56:56Z")
Add in some appropriate background music and you got a movie. 😉 They’d been separated for six years, but I guess it still came as quite a shock to find her baby daddy like that. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-small-small-world-running-into-exs-at-your-job/737659/5 "2015-11-16T02:01:52Z")
Heard of that? Hell, I’ve _had_ a similar thing happen to me. End of summer after junior year in high school. I was at a regatta to watch someone; however, since it wasn’t her race it wasn’t that exciting to watch some random teams you didn’t know anyone on. I heard a car crash & walked up from the bleachers to see what was going on. One person was not breathing (he was killed instantly) & entrapped. One of the first cars on scene after that was two brothers/volunteer EMTs, & friends of the family. Somehow I ended up assisting when they removed the body from the car. I was at the head end of the longboard (so looking at the body upside down) & had never seen a dead body before, so didn’t understand about loss of skin color. I thought to myself that looks like \_\_\_\_ (he was one of identical twins). Nah, can’t be, he’s not that color. I wigged out when I did find out it was him. He was not only a classmate but also a teammate & preseason practice started the very next day. I decided to buy a shirt from the race because it had the event date on it; I still have that shirt in my closet. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-small-small-world-running-into-exs-at-your-job/737659/6 "2015-11-16T06:16:30Z")
I guess that can be good if there are issues of notifying family or they want the persons age or background. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-small-small-world-running-into-exs-at-your-job/737659/7 "2015-11-16T06:17:52Z")
I’ve got a second-hand story that would be pretty hard to beat. My family lived in a farming/ranching area that had a few small towns–small enough that there was (at most) one funeral home per town. The mortician in one town happened to also be the coroner, and responded to fatal accidents. One day he responded to a fatal car crash, not knowing anything more than the bare outline of events. When he got there, and looked at the scene, he realized the the victims were his wife and his two children. Being a small town, the story spread pretty fast. ---
**Author:** ![48Willys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/db5fbb/32.png) [@48Willys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/48Willys)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-small-small-world-running-into-exs-at-your-job/737659/8 "2015-11-16T08:00:22Z")
As a member of a search & rescue group in a small community, I once went on a rescue of some kids that had gotten trapped on a cliff above the ocean. As the largest & strongest fellow on the team, I often was the “anchor man”, as I was that day. As we got the kids up, I recognized the first one of them up as my cousin. She & two of her friends had decided that staying on the trail was too boring. One of them had slid down over 200’, she was pretty busted up physically. The other two were cold, tired & scared, but OK. The injured one spent ten days in the hospital. She did fully recover, but it took a long time. I had baby sat for all of them at one time or another. They were comforted that I was at the top getting them out of a jam. My cousin told me later that they had all known that everything was going to be OK once they saw me. Little kids have great faith in their “protectors”. It was sobering. I had never thought about that aspect of “family” before. Some of the outcomes of our calls were not as happy. I got to help recover the body of one of my best friends. Again, I had no idea as to who we were “rescuing” until I saw him. I was the one to tell the family of his death in a logging accident. Not fun.