Tacky or Informational?

[bszopi]

I work at a fairly large (250+ employees) family owned engineering firm. This morning, I received an email from the brother of the company's president/owner. It basically said that the owner's youngest son died this weekend of a meth overdose.

After getting over the initial shock, I found it tacky that he would say such a thing in an email sent to every employee at the company. But, the more I thought about it, the more I thought that maybe it was for a reason. Maybe to just get it out there so that people would talk or spread rumors about the fact. Or maybe, it was to show that you never can tell what can happen in this world today with all the tempations and such out there. The guy used to work here while he was in high school, and our company is very family oriented, so many people knew him from special company events. And the fact that his father, mother and brother all work here, and just seem like the perfect family.

So I am just wondering everyone's thoughts on the email. Was it wrong the mention it in the email? Was it something that NEEDED to be put out there?

[SappySE107]

It wasn't needed but if you are going to tell everyone about a death, you know what the next question is. I wouldnt find it tacky at all. They must feel like their employees are family as well.

[3100 MPFI]

The way I see it, it is kinda tacky, BUT by them telling everyone outright, it means less RUMORS will be spread about the death.

I had a friend that died in a car wreck, and it was spread that she was raped, drugged and killed exocution style. If the family would have come right out and said it was a car wreck, there would have been a lot less speculation leading to false statements.

[sharkey]

did many people at your work know the son??? did he work within the company??? if so, i can see why they would let everyone know.

[Guest]

It wasn't needed but if you are going to tell everyone about a death, you know what the next question is. I wouldnt find it tacky at all. They must feel like their employees are family as well.

EXACTLY. It would be tacky if it were an annucment n the papaer, but since it was an e-mail sent to people that knew this person on a more informal basis, such as a co-worker, or special events, it's more to just let everyone know.

[tijuana_no]

when someone close in your fam. dies ,especially traggic death,you don't other poeple making rumors or asking over and over the same question .you are allredy in pain and the reminder of people who sometime don't even care ,becomes bothersome and painful.
on the e-mail he was direct (sound to me) to try to stop all this ,250+ employees is alot of employees.

[sil]

yea i agree, get the info out. everyone knows, less questions for the father
id rather hear "im sorry for your loss" than "what happened, is it true"

on a side note...now to overdose on meth is actually pretty hard to do
you cant do it by smoking it, it was prolly injected, and if hes injecting then hes been doing this kind of stuff for a long while.
he prolly died of a stroke or heart attack as a result of doing high qaunities of meth

[3.1POWER]

Maybe they wanted to prevent the same thing from happening to anyone else that worked for them... a warnng of sorts??