Let it cool first...

Friday was just another day at work. It was the first week of the month and my office was slammed. The lobby of my office was packed with people. Sometime earlier that day a large group of Russian students came in to the office for work purposes. This put a strain on the man power available for claim processing. As I was between scheduled appointments, I was required by my supervisor to call people to my interviewing station to try to help with the sheer volume of people. I am sure that we had violated the fire code because so many people were in the lobby, but hey we are the feds so we can do whatever the hell we want, and on Friday, we wanted to see how many people we could cram into our lobby.

I called one of the people back to my window and he was a huge dude. He sat down at my desk and thrust a hand full of papers at me. I tried to be friendly and introduced myself, but he was having none of it. When I looked at the documents he had handed to me I realized I was looking at a Death Certificate for his mother. Now, I have talked to many many people whom have lost loved ones, but what set him apart was the fact that his mother had passed away that morning. I glanced at the clock on my computer (thank you Mr. Gates) and saw that it was 3:24. She died at 7:55 in the morning.

I was shocked for a moment. I wanted to tell him to let her body cool first before you start reporting the fact that she HAD DIED. I mean, this was some one's mother. I am not sure how many mothers people get, I only have one, but he was really all about getting this done and with a quickness.

Here comes the philosophical issues related to this lengthy narrative. The funeral homes are required to report the death of an individual to all the relevant authorities and my agency is one of those authorities. The normal grieving process takes some time. People have their own way of grieving and I am not one to tell someone how to do this, but in my infinite cynicism, when someone comes into my office that fast, it usually means they want the money the deceased was receiving. It all comes down to money. There is a very specific list of people I can pay survivor's benefits to and he was not on the list. I was looking forward to telling him this, but did not get the chance. As soon as I gave him the paperwork back, he bolted and I have no contact information on him. Chalk one up for the loss of humanity.