One of the two bosses didn’t turn up for work one Friday. On the weekend, we all received a call that he had died.
Monday was horrible. We had new starters that came into an office full of people crying, and people from our HQ joining to set people up with any counselling.
The worst part? We had deadlines to meet, and clients didn’t give a fuck that the person responsible had died. One large client outright said to me on the phone on that first Monday “that’s sad and all, but I don’t really give a fuck, have it done by end of day”. To HQ’s credit, after I had told them they asked me to stop what I was doing (had already delivered the work) and our CEO called them and told them we were to terminate our contract with them. One woman I worked with, a Project Manager, was repeatedly brought to tears by clients checking on work or trying to sort out meetings with a guy that was in a morgue. I was able to power through, up until the day of his funeral when we all went to the pub after and saw his children playing without a care in the world.
Initially, it brought us all closer together, but within three months people started to leave - and by the end of the year the HQ decided to just close the office entirely, firing everyone that was still there.
I hate to say it, looking back, but this gave me without question one of the best answers for behavioural interviews in tech, since I ultimately ended up having to help deliver everything and onboard people in a stressful scenario. Knowing the guy, it’s what he would have wanted.
One of the two bosses didn’t turn up for work one Friday. On the weekend, we all received a call that he had died.
Monday was horrible. We had new starters that came into an office full of people crying, and people from our HQ joining to set people up with any counselling.
The worst part? We had deadlines to meet, and clients didn’t give a fuck that the person responsible had died. One large client outright said to me on the phone on that first Monday “that’s sad and all, but I don’t really give a fuck, have it done by end of day”. To HQ’s credit, after I had told them they asked me to stop what I was doing (had already delivered the work) and our CEO called them and told them we were to terminate our contract with them. One woman I worked with, a Project Manager, was repeatedly brought to tears by clients checking on work or trying to sort out meetings with a guy that was in a morgue. I was able to power through, up until the day of his funeral when we all went to the pub after and saw his children playing without a care in the world.
Initially, it brought us all closer together, but within three months people started to leave - and by the end of the year the HQ decided to just close the office entirely, firing everyone that was still there.
I hate to say it, looking back, but this gave me without question one of the best answers for behavioural interviews in tech, since I ultimately ended up having to help deliver everything and onboard people in a stressful scenario. Knowing the guy, it’s what he would have wanted.