Justice Scalia's Funeral Mass and Workplace Protocol

In my 21 years with my former company I saw a lot of good things such as community service, team work and an outstanding work ethic. I also saw the sadness and hurt of layoffs, project mishaps and the worst possible thing; employee death. It was inevitable.

It was always the deaths that disturbed and shook us all. Company policy stated that if an employee wanted to attend a wake they could, as long as they made up the work or if another co-worker covered for them. The same held true with the funeral service. 

The thing that angered me (and had my boss tell me that if I wanted to remain in Human Resources, I needed to grow thicker skin) was that the funerals for the “lower level” staff; the staff who weren’t management level, were rarely attended by the company leadership. A direct supervisor might attend but it was uncommon to see members of the leadership team. This happened so often that employees complained. It was finally addressed and some sort of unwritten policy was made. Going forward, at least one member of the company leadership team would attend the funeral and wake of recently deceased co-workers.This simple act eliminated the nagging "us vs. them" mentality and overall elitism that was so prevalent in those days.

Today’s funeral mass of Justice Scalia reminded me of those days. It was visibly different in that there was more pomp and ceremony and the people attending were friends, family, co-workers and members of our County’s “Leadership Team”. Still, I still couldn’t shake that feeling of deja vous.