Wanna Know How He Died?

I'm not going to blog about work; people have lost their jobs over such nincompoopery, but I just have to share part of a conversation I had with a client, who will remain nameless in an industry that will remain nameless.

As a lawyer, I try to maintain professionalism, because, well, who wants a lawyer who comes across as unprofessional. And, truly, if you know any lawyers (no, really know a lawyer) you'd know that it's all an act and most lawyers are just regular people when the client is not watching.

Anyway, I had written a letter to a client requesting a very ordinary document for case we're handling. In this case, the guy died at the job site. Now, we don't often have those type of cases, but once in a while people die on the job and OSHA rushes out to investigate. I really didn't care about the particulars, all I needed to do was to request that one document. It wasn't even my case.

So the client receives my letter and calls me up. We discuss exactly what type of document I needed and clarified the whole issue. He was really friendly -- like in a small town kind of way. I tried to wrap up the conversation, but he asked an irresistible question: "Wanna know how he died?"

He said it in a tone that made it sound like some kind of mystery -- or maybe like a horror story from when you were little, sitting around the campfire trying to scare each other into not sleeping the entire night. Of course I wanted to know how he died. What red-blooded, breathing American wouldn't, right?

Apparently, the guy was driving a truck and didn't put it in park before he hopped out of it. The truck kept moving and the door knocked him down. He ran himself over. Not earth shattering, by any means. I've heard of people dying in more stupid ways. (For example: Road worker who was winding a cord around him when a car drove over the cord and yanked him into oncoming traffic. Yikes.)

When I hung up the phone, I thought about the poor guy. He was probably a husband, a dad, maybe he was a civic leader or a little league coach. Unfortunately, he'll be remembered as the guy who ran himself over.

So here's the thought for the day: Try not to do anything stupid. It may be the last thing you do.