Monday November 07, 2005

Two weeks

A lot has happened in the past two weeks or so, particularly in the office. One colleague (the team lead) has given birth, the wives of two other colleagues have given birth, two colleagues have gone off on holiday, one colleague has quit, and one colleague has died.

Yes, you read the last part right. His name was Phil. He was an Australian guy, responsible for many of the Java applets in the system, especially parts where a plain web interface wouldn't do. Passed away from cancer last Tuesday. The week before that was the last I saw him alive, when some of the team visited him at the hospital. We called his name then, and he tried to say "Hi" to us. At least, I think he did.

When I joined the company at the end of April, he was one of those who helped me with the bootstrap part. Bootstrap, as in getting started quickly with the system, and getting things done, without having to understand all fifty million lines of code at once. Well, actually, to-date, I don't know the exact line count. The earlier blog entry on the object tag for applets was inspired by his advice.

Three seats down, one seat to my right. The cleaning auntie had gathered up his belongings, books mostly, and put them into two large red plastic bags, ready to be sent back to the family. I pause a little when I pass by. I still have the email sent out earlier, just about three or four months back, telling us that he had been warded for severe stomach pain. I remember going out with him and his friend Ronn for our very last tea-break together, though of course we did not know it at the time. I did not know him very long, but I will always consider him a good friend. Farewell, friend.

"Death and taxes", I blurt out in a YM soon after the funeral, not knowing exactly why. Joe Black's line from the movie, probably - "Death and taxes?" Colleague replies, "some countries don't have taxes". "Yeah, those Middle East oil producers, mostly", I send back. "Brunei as well", he adds helpfully. We chat a little bit more about his (Singapore) oil rig shares and my (Canadian) energy stocks. As they say, "talking cock", mostly.

This kind of thing, it messes with your mind. Life and death. Life and work. He worked hard. He did work very, extremely hard. And then what? The question, such as it is, hangs in the air. Saying "congrats to your newborn" one day, "condolences on your loss" the next. It's extreme. You don't get much more extreme than this. Well. People die, people get born. Time passes. Life goes on. And that's that.

(2005-11-07 00:43:48 SGT) [Musings] Permalink Comments [2]

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