It's pretty funny how smooshed up stories can get in a large gossipy environment. Here at The Company rumors spread faster than a brush fire. Today was a premier example of the game of telephone. I came into work at 9 am, checked my email, and then went in search of the fabled clean smock. Luck was on my side and Jason had saved me a smock, because my dingy sleeves were starting to scare him. This was when I heard the first part of the story. Jason heard that an older woman had been run over by a car in our parking lot. He was horrified about what sort of person would mow down some old lady. We discussed possible ways the accident went down, anime, cleanliness, and a few other things before I went on my way and started to actually get some work done.
Around 11:30 am I went to go dump my old smock and say hi to Beth. Beth was super busy because it's the end of Cisco's quarter and here at The Company she deals with them quite a bit. Since she was too busy to talk to me I took off and went in search of Danny, because he's always up for a chat, and I wasn't ready to go back to my office yet. When I found where they had moved Danny's office to he wasn't there, but I did overhear Melissa telling Sharon that the woman that had been hit by a car this morning was dead. The only details that Melissa had heard was that CSI had been here, and that there was even a chalk outline on the ground where the woman died, but she had no idea who the victim was. Sharon's remark was along the lines of, "Who would be in that big of a hurry to get to work?"
When I got back to my office around noon I ran into Bonifacio. Boni has been out of work for the last few weeks because his SO had to have some sort of surgery. (I don't know what kind and it doesn't matter in the context of this story. I can tell you that her staples have been removed, and that she is doing great; in a few more weeks she should be released to go back to work.) Of course we had to catch up on the cute things his dog had been up to, and how much fun I had being stuck at home because of the ice storm. The car accident came up in the conversation because he had talked to someone that actually saw the forensics team outside, and had caught a glimpse of the victims bloody smock. Now anyone working for The Company can tell you that you are not supposed to take your smock out of the building, but apparently this woman didn't listen, and now the smock was possibly ruined, and the poor dear was dead.
When I went to lunch this was all I knew. The accident reportedly happened around 7 am, and yet I couldn't find any coverage about it. In fact 8 hours later the lead story is about a Chinese restaurant that burned down, and I still can't find any record of a death. It's entirely possible that the reason for this is that it didn't happen.
It appears that two unrelated events became one tall tale. There was a woman that was hit by a car this morning. A man dropped off his wife, and when he went to leave he backed into a woman that was on her way to her car. The victim (still unknown to me) was taken to the hospital, but she is okay. On the other hand, a wonderfully sweet woman named Rosa Hurtado passed away last night. I never knew she was sick, but apparently she left work last year, and was diagnosed with leukemia. As Beth remarked, "Bad things shouldn't happen to the people we like." Unfortunately bad things do happen, and my thoughts are with her family.
There is a very good reason why I don't tend to believe the crazy stories I hear around work. It seems like 90% of what I'm told ends up being complete crap. I just can't believe that such completely different events got transformed into such a graphic tale of carnage. We're all just suckers for spectacle I guess. It's so boring here that anything to talk about is worth talking about.
No comments:
Post a Comment