Apologies for length
A few years ago I worked for the financial arm of a High Street bank. I was an Account Manager, which when you actually looked into what I did, boiled down to cold calling people and selling them loans. As such I was based in a small office which was run as a mini sales call centre. 7 people, 1 manager and from 10am until 7pm the room was buzzing with hyper sales people on the phones trying to get a sale.

The team that was based in our Chelmsford office got on well, and I used to love working there. We all seemed to click, and if the room wasn’t full of chatter between salespeople and customers on the phone, it was awash with conversation between the people that work there. If you have a room full of salespeople, their natural inclination is to bloody talk.

After being there for a year or so I got a call from my mum to tell me that her own mother had been taken ill and rushed to hospital, and that things were looking pretty grim. Although not especially close to my maternal grandmother, I wanted to be there for my own mum, whose voice was breaking with emotion as she had spoken to me. I told my boss Del, and immediately got told to go home and make sure things were ok, and that they would expect me back pretty much as and when I felt it was right to come back.

I rushed my mum to Basildon hospital within the hour, and we stood at the end of my nans bed for several hours, listening to her laboured breathing. Eventually the nurse came in, said that although my nan was in a bad way, standing and watching her was not good for anyone and that we should come back the next day.

The following day I drove back up there again, and stood in the same position as before, this time feeling as though I could slowly see the life ebb out of the woman laying in the bed. My mum did what she could, cleaning away the dribble that was on nans chin and generally making sure the old girl was comfortable, even though she was either asleep or unconscious. The whole time I could see that mum was torn. Her upbringing had been far from a fairytale, and she would have been within rights to not even speak to her own mother, but as a God fearing Catholic, she always wants to do what is best by people, and my heart bled for her as later that day nan passed away.

Having never been close to my nan, her death meant very little to me. My mums wellbeing, however, did, and seeing her break down in tears at the mix of upset and anger that it brought deeply saddened me.

I drove her home and dropped her off, but she was still in a fragile state, so I said that I would take the next day off of work to spend some time with her and make sure she was ok. The following morning I texted Del to tell him the news. “Nan passed away last night. Mum is broken up. I’ll be popping in this morning to grab some stuff from work, then going back to be with mum to arrange the funeral. I’ll be back in to work properly tomorrow if that’s ok.” It was a rhetorical question. I got on extremely well with Del, he knew me, even knew my mum, so I knew he would be fine with the extra day off that I had taken.

As I walked into work a couple of hours after texting Del, I wandered through from the front door and entered the sales room via the side entrance, deliberately so as to minimise interrupting anyone. I was still in shock at how badly affected my mum was, and certainly wasn’t in the mood to be happy and chatty with anyone. The sales room itself was busy, as normal, and there was a crescendo of noise between the people that were there. I could hear at least a couple of people on the phone, a couple more chatting to each other as the kettle boiled, and Del, whose seat offered him the only view of the side door that I had used, was sitting and laughing at something that had been said. Suddenly, he saw me.
“Hiya mate, didn’t expect to see you here.” He said, alarmed.
“I’ve just come in to pick up some bits then I’m shooting off again.” I’d already texted him to tell him this, and couldn’t work out why he was acting so surprised at seeing me.

“You ok?”

“Yep, fine.” I was curt, but polite.

“Your mum ok?”

I’d forgotten quite how much he loved a chat.

“As well as she can be.” I said, pulling that weird what-can-you-do face.

“Oh,” he thought for a second or two, wondering how to move the conversation on. “How’s your nan?”

Was he taking the Mick? He wasn’t as it turned out, and as the rest of the room continued their own conversations, I replied bluntly:

“Still dead.”

Perhaps a little too bluntly. My eyes scanned the room as I became acutely aware that all conversation had stopped, and every single pair of eyes were on me. “Still dead.” I repeated, for some reason believing that saying it again would make it sound less harsh.

I scooped up my bag and walking through the busy, but still silent sales room and let myself out.

I later found out that far from just being an insensitive idiot, my boss hadn’t in fact received my text message saying how nan had died, nor was he aware that I would be coming in to pick something up.
( SeasonTicketless is too often the statue, and rarely the pigeon., Mon 16 May 2011, 17:51, Reply)