A Wake-Up Call

Thanks to everyone who emailed to tell me about Denise Prudhomme, who died while working for a huge corporation.

What Prudhomme’s death at her desk triggered is a stark reminder that life is short, and raises the bigger question of whether we are wasting precious time working for large companies who, at the end of the day, don’t notice if an employee dies at their desk for four days. In a year filled with headlines of tech layoffs where huge corporations continue to put profit over people and corporate America wrestles with return-to-office mandates that employees are outright rejecting, Prudhomme’s death might be the event that pushes many to leave the rat race.

The linked article (from Forbes no less – Forbes!) slams big companies for working their employees literally to death, then tells of new trends in people waking up to life being short and escaping The Trap while they can. A third of British women, for example, plan to quit work before retirement, in part because of work’s insensitivity to the menopause but also due to a growing “collective rejection of the notion that only one kind of career path and one kind of job offers stability.”

Which, of course, is wonderful news. The media talk about the Great Resignation but maybe it should be called the Great Awakening as more and more people wake up from the spell and come to their senses.

[Prudhomme’s] experience highlights a stark truth: that we really are just a number to the place where we spend the majority of our waking hours. The harsh reality is that we are spending our time and energy in the wrong place for the wrong people. For many, Prudhomme’s death is a wake-up call to make changes while they still can. And that’s a special legacy to leave.