Keeping it short today again because I still have to pack for a 9am flight to DC tomorrow…
“Dale, where are we on the Hoffman project?” the message popped up on our work Jabber chat from my boss.
“Shit,” I said aloud. I was not, in fact, working on the Hoffman project at that moment. No, I was multi-tasking between the Universal installation and the new TelSys configuration – that and about a dozen other things that kept bubbling to the surface. The Hoffman project was last week’s supernova.
I pulled up the most recent email thread – okay, I was waiting on Taylor to get me the schematic. I replied to the message asking, “Hey, Taylor – do you know what’s up with the schematic? When can we expect it?” I hit send and switched back to Jabber where I started typing, “Still working on it: waiting on the — ” a ding indicated a new email. I switched back to my email and my blood ran cold.
On its face, it was an innocuous Out of Office message from Taylor. “Thank you for your email. I’m currently out of the office and will be back at my desk on October 5th. If you need immediate help, please don’t hesitate to reach out to anyone in our Sales team at 707-555-1212. Thank you, Taylor O’Reilly.”
However, today is October 9th and Taylor isn’t at his desk.
Taylor was killed in a plane crash returning home on Saturday, October 3rd.
Of course, I knew he was… gone. The shock of losing Taylor was still palpable through the office. Everyone loved Taylor – he’d been with the company for ten years and was practically an institution… I guess the fact that I forgot he wasn’t with us and just fired off that email on muscle memory says something about Taylor – everyone could count on him.
Except when you couldn’t because he was gone.
“Goddamn it,” I said and rubbed my eyes. I looked at the clock – it was after six.
Deleting the Jabber message I’d started I wrote, “I was working on that with Taylor. I’ll see where we left off Monday morning.” Sent.
A moment later, “Sounds good. Taylor is missed. Thanks, Dale.”
I was done. That Out of Office was a gut punch I didn’t expect. I let out a long sigh and locked my computer and stood up to gather my things to go home. I felt a buzz in my pocket – an incoming email on my work phone. I reflexively opened the message and moved to sit back down in case I needed to unlock the computer to deal with whatever it was. My eyes scanned the email header and I fell hard to my seat.
“Hey Dale, sorry I’m late on the schematic – the latest is attached. The source files are on my PC – Eliot should be able to get you access if you need it. It was great working with you. You all will be fine. Sincerely, Taylor.”
