Amen, AnaMen.
This may be true, but it’s not my experience. I’ve had a couple of girlfriends go to the hospital in pretty dire circumstances, and I was treated like I was family.
I thought the bosses were going to be pestering the guy for work details on some recent deal, or demanding he participate on conference calls or answer emails from his hospital bed.
I work for a really big company, and it colors my ideas of how other people live.
This.
Plus, the man has worked there for twenty years — he’s more than just an employee to these men.
Yeesh.
DummyGladHands, I think you should check your creep-o-meter. It’s out of kilter.
I would be willing to bet that part of their reaction was due to the fact that this happened at work. It is different to seesomeone you know carted off in an ambulance than to hear about it the next day at work.
Regardless, it doesn’t look like your reaction is common, OP, and may be because of that “uber privacy” trait you mentioned. That you didn’t tell your co-workers about your own husband’s terminal illness is your right, and I hope everyone respected your privacy limits, but you probably shouldn’t expect that others share your views about this sort of thing.
Yup. Over twenty years, your bosses have probably spent more hours with this guy than with their own families. They care, that’s all.
Another vote for not-creepy.
Too many cynical people in the world today.
I don’t think it’s creepy, but I’ve been the wife in that situation and it actually was kind of annoying.
My husband had a surprise heart attack at age 37. He drove himself to the ER from work, not knowing exactly what was the matter (symptoms not too bad).
After finding out, I found childcare for our three kids and rushed to hospital where I was promptly directed to a chair, not allowed to see my husband and told to wait.
I let his boss know. His boss was our age (actually younger) and a real friend. He and another co-worker rushed to the hospital to support me.
I know it probably seemed like the right thing to do, poor carlotta, there all alone. I don’t think they did anything wrong.
But now I was stuck in a boring waiting room with these two guys with two options: Make conversation while waiting to hear about my husband or NOT make conversation and sit there in ominous silence.
Honestly I would have far preferred to read the book I’d brought (I would bring a book if I was the one having a heart attack. Don’t go anywhere without a book).
It was awkward and I really just wished they would go away, even though I liked both of them very much. I could not figure out any acceptable way to convey this wish.
This is how I picture things going, and I think it’s creepy (or annoying, I guess).
I find this weird. I work for a very close-knit company (on a first name basis with everyone and their spouses and kids, practically nil turnover, and see people outside work, etc.), and also I struggle with a chronic illness, to the point where my co-workers have some family contacts for me, have texted back and forth with a sibling when I wasn’t feeling well, and help out with things I need outside of work. I’d definitely expect a lot of contact back and forth if I was hospitalized, but I wouldn’t expect people to just show up and stay there like that. I could definitely see people offering to stop by for a visit, help with pets, do errands, maybe even just popping by to bring food or coffee, that sort of thing, and certainly me or my family would be in close contact to let people know how I was, but just hanging around all day seems a bit weird for the family.
I guess I haven’t been here for 20 years but there are some folks here that have been around nearly that long (the company itself isn’t 20 years old yet) and I still don’t see that happening. I think people would feel that they would be in the way. If anyone else was hospitalized, I’d definitely want to help in any way I could and I’d expect the whole company would do something, but it’d be along the lines of chipping in to buy flowers and sending some people for a brief visit and to offer assistance to the family if they needed/wanted any.
I find it weird, too. I’d expect my coworkers to come visit me, sure. I’ve been here ten years. But just to hang around? I think that’d make my SO very uncomfortable.
When my husband had his emergency gall bladder problems (ending with surgery about a week later), his company treated it just about perfectly, in my opinion. They made it clear that they were very supportive of him, and I was supposed to ask for any help that I needed, and he was supposed to take all the time off he needed (with pay) and only come back to work when he was perfectly healthy, but no one ever showed up and made me uncomfortable at the hospital. Perfect.
Well, since the sick guy has been there for 20 years, I hope his bosses know what his and his family’s preferences are and that the family isn’t over-socialized.
In one of the factories where I worked, and not through nepotism but simply because it was in a small town,
- the EHS manager was the brother-in-law of one of the shift managers (sm was married to EHSm’s sister),
- whose brother-in-law on the other side was the factory’s doctor (doc was married to sm’s sister),
- the factory manager was a self-professed “former groupie” of the group the EHS manager played in before settling down (they had also been classmates from ages 4 to 18),
- one of the workers was dating the factory manager’s cousin,
- and another of the shift managers was this worker’s father.
If any of that bunch had caught sick, getting updates from any of the others would have counted as “getting them from the family”, according to local definitions of family.
I have thought long and hard about this. I have been with the company 20 yrs. as well, and I know this guy, and I adore him-he’s simply the best person I know. And he’s very very sick, convulsing for no reason they can find, and in an induced coma. We may lose him. And although one of the owners stays every day since, I guess I don’t really see it as quite so creepy–you guys are probably right on.
I think my horror was mostly selfish, at the thought that it might be me, totally incapacitated, and with work people hanging around, and how I would abhor that so much. Family, maybe but not preferred, my partner, certainly, and maybe 1 or 2 really close friends, again, stop in and see if my partner needs anything but don’t hang out.
We’re all doing the right thing now, no more hourly updates, just once a day or so. We’ve set up a pooling of our extra vacation days, so he keeps getting a paycheck as long as they need it.
So you guys were right.
Does anyone come back and say that here?? 
I think there are really two paradigms when it comes to illness. Some people see sickness as something that requires quiet and privacy, with support from a few very close loved one. Others can’t imagine anything worse than being sick and alone, and see a community vigil as a sign of support and love.
Not as often as we’d like. 