Wells Fargo worker dies at her desk in Tempe, Arizona

I think that Tina Darling said it best....

EEEEEEEWWWWWWwwwww!

When asked for a comment, one employee said...

Amateur!

Those security guards are nervous now.

Speaking of, has anyone checked on Ginny in Billing?

I haven't seen her since last week.

What was on her📱

No wonder she didn’t turn up to her office birthday party. They’ll be billing the family for the sheetcake.

The only thing that people noticed was the foul smell, and even then, they were dismissing it as dirty water.

How stupid ARE these people???

I'm surprised those cyber time clocks to punch-in and punch-out don't send, after, say, 24 hours, some type of alert to somebody in HR or her supervisor that somebody's time doesn't indicate a clock-out.

"Well, she was a quiet girl and always kept to herself. And so we really didn't notice anything unusual about her."

Things just haven't been the same since WFH started.

No more "casual Fridays," and no more office birthday parties, and no more talking about Grey's Anatomy and Dr. McSteamy.

Maybe she just died of a broken heart.

OP, do normal people still type ROFL?

Been there, done that.

Oh please, THIS is how you die at the office!

I always joke that that’s how I’ll end up - just a bad odor at my desk one day -and now I see it can be a possibility.

[quote] The only thing that people noticed was the foul smell, and even then, they were dismissing it as dirty water.

She’s from India so we just thought it was a cultural thing.

"Why is everyone being so callous about this?! ... The [wo]man died, and it seems to me the only people who are showing any reverence around here are Mr. Grant and me."

Do any of the sources explain how custodial staff missed a dead person in the same position day after day? The offices are near cleaned?

Phoenix. Same place a dozen cars rolled over and squashed a dead Native American on the freeway during rush hour. He was pulverized so many thought it was some kind of animal.

This is how we plan for all of you to go out. She was just ahead of her time. A true pioneer!

Phoenix is a shit hole, even tempee

[quote]a dozen cars rolled over and squashed a dead Native American on the freeway during rush hour. He was pulverized so many thought it was some kind of animal.

Him new Injun name is "Flattened Beaver."

And we're supposed to trust these people with our money.

The company probably took the decontamination fees out of her last paycheck.

What really sucks is this woman was probably working some horrendous call center job at 60 to shore up her retirement somehow. Wells Fargo is not the most employee friendly company out there so stress is a likely factor in her demise. This really makes me think is it worth it returning to work? Poor woman kicked it 2 years before Social Security eligibility. Also this is an example of how older people are dismissed and ignored in the workplace.

Ooh that smell…can’t you smell that smell…

R10 more likely they’d just admire the initiative of the worker spending 4 days at her desk, and mandate it for everyone else going Forward

I asked her if she had seen my red stapler, but she just stared at me funny.

That's what happens when you work in a cubicle -- no one can see what you're doing back there.

It’s Wells Fargo. Huge employer where I am and I thank my lucky stars I will never have to work there.

[quote]I'm surprised those cyber time clocks to punch-in and punch-out don't send, after, say, 24 hours, some type of alert to somebody in HR or her supervisor that somebody's time doesn't indicate a clock-out.

People have to 'clock-out'? How primitive. Itś easy enough to track an employee's hours of activity and keystroke numbers if you work in that kind of place, but what's the point of 'punching-out' when the terminal will lock after a period of X minutes of inactivity.

Or maybe her noggin or upper body slumped down pushing her hand agaisnt the keyboard for four days, producing the equivalent of a small town library's worth of gravity text: '...to summarize, we should like to reiterate tha takjdlksjaashhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...'

Never mind not being discovered for not clocking out, it’s sad if no one in her life noticed she didn’t come home from work for 4 days.

They must have had the air conditioning up high

Oh ho the Wells Fargo worker is a-dyin' now

I don't get how anyone's supposed to see...

She died as she lived: answering other people's phones.

I figured she'd just pulled four all-nighters.

Something similar happened in a company I worked for about 15 years ago.

I worked in HR, and there was a woman there who was annoying as hell and no one really knew what her exact job function was. She mostly walked around the halls and yammered on endlessly. When people saw her coming, they'd retreat to their desks or offices and pretend to be on the phone so they didn't have to talk to her (me included).

One day, I came to work and was told that this woman had died the day before. But here's the best part - apparently, the woman died of a massive stroke while sitting at her desk in her office, but no one on the floor noticed. It was a janitor who came in after hours who found her. The coroner said she had passed away around 2:00 in the afternoon. She had been dead in her office for hours and nobody even knew, because no one wanted to be near this woman.

Sad, but kind of funny in a macabre way, too.

I'm sure she'd been dead inside for years

I still need her to sign Bill's birthday card.

It beats getting killed by an exploding tire at work, just months before your retirement!

[quote] Delta worker killed by exploding tire was just months away from retirement, family says

ATLANTA (WANF/Gray News) - A Delta Air Lines worker who died in a tire explosion this week was less than a year away from retirement.

Delta employees Mirko Marweg, 58, and Luis Aldarondo, 37, were killed at the facility early Tuesday morning in what Atlanta fire officials are calling a tire explosion.

A third worker, who hasn’t been identified, was injured and taken to Grady Memorial Hospital.

On Wednesday, Mirko’s wife, Scottie Ann Marweg, said his loss can’t be put into words.

“I don’t know how I’m feeling. I’m in disbelief,” she said. “It’s so weird. We’ve been together so long.”

Scottie Ann Marweg said they were married for 28 years and called him the love of her life.

“He had a big heart, a big smile,” she said. “He would help anybody. He loved his family. He was a planner. He was smart.”

She said Mirko Marweg worked in the painting shop at Delta’s maintenance center for two decades and loved his job. He was getting ready to retire next June.

Mirko Marweg leaves behind four children.

“Just getting through one day at a time, one hour at a time,” Scottie Ann Marweg said. “I have my family around me and friends, so I’m blessed.”

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration confirmed they’ve started an investigation into the fatal explosion.

This is a big fail on the part of Wells Fargo and the building security department. Aren't they supposed to be rounding on all floors and corridors at certain intervals throughout the day? Why wasn't she checked? And if Wells Fargo is going to allow mostly remote work with only a few coming into the office or hoteling spaces, they need to have safety checks for the workers that are there.

Well, if no one saw her days. it means her cube walls were high enough to provide some privacy. In my employer's office's, all the cubby walls are below shoulder length which makes them pretty useless (except, admittedly, for spotting dead employees).

I just saw a news clip about this on YouTube.

The 4 days started on a Friday, so I don't think it's such a big deal (4 days) as people are saying it is.

R43 works for Wells Fargo management.

R43 Yes, but these buildings are supposed to have 24-hour, 7-day a week security.

R45, office worker here. She could have been in an office with her door closed. Her office could have been one of many offices and cubicles on a floor.

Security guards don't patrol an entire floor and check every office and cubicle to see what's going on each space.

R46 The report says she was in a cubicle.

OK, well, I still don't think it's a security guard's job to do welfare checks on each and every office and cubicle.

I think 🤔 of that poor lady in England watching T.V. FOR YEARS. I always blamed the commercials.

R48 Good thing you're not a security guard.

"Look alive Susan! Oh, wait...."

I'm going to have to write her up for unauthorized use of the workplace, and it's going in her annual performance review.

R49 Y— E—A—R—S !!! same channel , T. V. Still on 24/7

It thought at least cubicle trash cans are emptied nightly when the workers go home. I guess that was the good old days.

R43, true, but she was many found til Tuesday.

I hope she finished the TPS reports.

R55 Shut up!

Just had the gas/electricity guy in my house. He said they couldn't send anyone yesterday because one of their dispatchers died at work of a heart attack. Well, at least they knew he died.

In retirement, the father-in-law of a former secretary would dog sit. Once, when the couple for whom he was working returned home from vacation, they were met with their dogs acting especially frenzied. Behind a closed door, they found their pet sitter. Dead.

Maybe they didn't notice her because she was [italic]in[/italic] the desk.

One of my coworkers keeled over at home during a holiday weekend. She had always called out if she was sick, so her absence was noted immediately, but the nearest contact was an out of state daughter who for some reason didn't take the call seriously. When rent wasn't paid, the apt manager eventually entered the unit and found Joyce in her easy chair. It had been 2 weeks.

R54, according to news reports, the employees at that Wells Fargo location usually work remotely, so the trash cans are probably emptied weekly rather than nightly.

R32, I live alone. There would be nothing unusual about friends or family having no contact with me for four days*. Pretty sure my situation is far from unique.

*Sure, it’d be rare for me to go absolutely without contact for four days. But no single person in my life would be alarmed not to hear from me for four days.

You would still think that a security person would have made rounds. But security companies are mostly dumb lazy people who don't do shit unless they're forced to do it.

R64, especially when most of the office staff work remotely. Security has gotten lax and they aren't going to walk the floor if nobody's around.

I have been to offices where it's a maze of cubicles from end to end, and some of the cubicles are tucked away in remote corners where nobody would ever venture unless they have business there. And I always think, "If you die at that desk, nobody will ever find you until you're rotting and stinking up the joint." So, I definitely understand how this happened.

[quote]How stupid ARE these people???

I take it you've never been to Arizona.

Right, the city of phoenix is chock-a-block with idiots

[quote] One of my coworkers keeled over at home during a holiday weekend. She had always called out if she was sick, so her absence was noted immediately, but the nearest contact was an out of state daughter who for some reason didn't take the call seriously. When rent wasn't paid, the apt manager eventually entered the unit and found Joyce in her easy chair. It had been 2 weeks.

Coworkers can ask the cops to do a welfare check. Just call and say: my coworker always calls in sick and she hasn't shown up for work ... Geez.

Does this remind anyone of reading Bartleby the Scrivener? I think I read it in 9th grade. IIRC, there was a quote about whether or not we are our brother's keepers.

[quote]Coworkers can ask the cops to do a welfare check. Just call and say: my coworker always calls in sick and she hasn't shown up for work ... Geez.

This was back in the 90s and it was a small special ed center with 2 secretaries, not a business with a HR dept. I don't remember welfare checks being a common thing like they are now, but they could have at least followed up with the daughter.

This will happen to me. I work for bank too and we joke about it all the time.

[quote]Never mind not being discovered for not clocking out, it’s sad if no one in her life noticed she didn’t come home from work for 4 days.

Her dead cat did.

r70 [quote] Does this remind anyone of reading Bartleby the Scrivener?

In high school? I preferred not to.

When did that happen r20?

Sometime around 2010. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s impossible to find by googling.

R48 A think a reasonable assumption that any security team's list of duties should include the night guard walking the building nightly and glancing into every cube and office. This is Well Fargo. Not some suburban office park.

[quote] Her dead cat did.

You see? I was right!

This is what happens to childless cat ladies.

R56. She's right on top of that, Rose!

Wow, you rarely see this kind of dedication to the job anymore. Talk about nose to the grindstone! Well, now it's a headstone, but I'm sure her corporate slave masters will remember her fondly.

Man abandoned on hiking trail by ~ 14 coworkers. Happened in Colorado. Rescued by volunteers.

What a missed opportunity! I’d have taken her to the park for one last rodeo.

[quote] Officials probe death of Wells Fargo employee found in her cubicle 4 days after last scanning into work

A 60-year-old Arizona Wells Fargo employee scanned into her office on a Friday on what appeared to be an ordinary workday. Then, four days later, she was found dead in her cubicle.

Denise Prudhomme, 60, was found dead on Aug. 20 in her office in Tempe, police said.

She had last scanned in the building at 7 a.m. on Aug. 16, a Friday, and there was no further scan in or out of the office, authorities said.

Tempe police responded to the Wells Fargo office in the 1100 block of West Washington Street after on-site security called about an employee they believed to be dead. She was pronounced dead at 4:55 p.m., police said.

The cause of death is pending determination by the Maricopa County medical examiner. Police said the preliminary investigation showed no obvious signs of foul play.

The investigation continues.

It's not clear how Prudhomme had gone unnoticed for so long. NBC affiliate KPNX of Phoenix reported that she worked in a cubicle on the third floor, away from the main aisle.

An employee who spoke with KPNX on the condition of anonymity said that a colleague found her at her desk while walking around the building and that several people had smelled a foul odor but believed it to be faulty plumbing.

Wells Fargo confirmed she sat in an underpopulated area of the building.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of our colleague, Denise Prudhomme. Our thoughts are with her family and loved ones, and we are in contact to ensure they are well supported during this difficult time,” the company said in a statement Thursday.

It said that it is "committed to the safety and wellness of our workforce" and that it is "reviewing our own internal procedures after this event."

Counselors have been made available to support employees. Prudhomme's fellow employees were told of her death after the company notified her family, Wells Fargo said.

A thankless job, ending with you dying at your desk.

How fucking depressing.

I guess the creepiest would be if they went to one of those abandoned malls and found a shopkeep skeleton covered in cobwebs who had gotten stock while retrieving something from “the Great Backroom” years before!

I worked a firm where we had a floor we called, "The Dead Zone."

Multiple attorneys had died on that floor and one died while I worked there.

That used that floor to put older attorneys who wanted to keep working while they were nearing or were beyond retirement.

The one who passed when I was there came in on a Friday and they found him Monday morning. He had died at his desk working late a few days before. I just remember being told that we should stay in our offices that morning and keep our doors closed so they could move his body without us seeing it. Poor guy.

[quote]Counselors have been made available to support employees.

Will there be cake?

Did they pay her overtime for the four days, at least?

R8 Will I be paid for the time I take to get support?

^R87 that is

My god, she sat there and everything released and flowed out, the stench would be worse once they moved her, I bet she gushed bad.

Lots of DLers express the desire to die at a young-ish age and not have to deal with the indignities of getting old.

If she died at her desk, and assuming there's no afterlife, she is now "at peace" and is not having to deal with the BULLSHIT of life and office life, in particular.

Or gushing, for that matter.

She was in a cubicle.

It's one thing if you have a private office and keep the door closed. But, if you're sitting in a cubicle, that's just crazy.

I used to travel internationally for work for weeks at a time. I'd rarely speak to people in my office or even my boss unless I had something specific I needed. I also had a private office. I actually used to joke that it would takes a couple weeks for people to figure out I was dead.

The people in whatever country I was in would likely just think I had gone back to the US and the US folks would think I was working somewhere on a project. People would only probably begin noticing after a few days of not responding to emails, but would chalk it up to time zones. It would be a couple weeks before they'd actually start searching.

My guess is that when she died, she dropped to the floor, which might explain why no security guards found her body for days.

But you would think they'd investigate the smell, my God, the smell!

Does a dead body really start to smell bad in an air-conditioned environment, after four days?

[quote]But you would think they'd investigate the smell, my God, the smell!

They probably thought it was the men’s bathroom.

R96 Bodies begin to decompose within hours. You would be surprised at how bad the stench can be after just 24 hours.

Not even air conditioning could get rid of it.

R96 A friend's former coworker was just found dead in her home this week.

People had been concerned that they hadn't heard from her, so someone called the police to check on her. They estimate she had been dead for about five days, and the stench in her home was so bad that they had to have a hazmat team come in to remove the body, then clean her place.

R96 There’s a phenomenon known as “purging” — you probably shouldn’t look it up.

R100 My father died in hospice, and within an hour the purge began. The smell was so horrific, our family had to leave his room before the coroner got there to remove his body.

R101 Sorry to hear that - condolences to you and your family.

Apparently most of the team worked from home and that area of the office wasn't used often. So it sounds like she came in to work for the day and died at her desk.

If it's an area where most people WFH - cleaners and security aren't going to go over there after months of previously doing so and no work to be done or checked up on.

It's not as outrageous as it sounds when you read the details.

R85 “Fo you have these in a size 9?”

“I don’t know, I’ll go check in the ………….

R104 I had that exact experience at a shoe store in the mall, but I thought the employee probably went out to his car to smoke a joint and just never came back. I hope someone found him…

I have filed a request for a team of four emotional support Huskies pulling a wagon of six emotional support Pekineses to permit me a chance to survive the stress at work because I am expected to work only 14 floors from where the corpse was found. With mold growing on it.

[quote]Does a dead body really start to smell bad in an air-conditioned environment, after four days?

Absolutely. Decomposition would be quite present after four days, and also the purging of bodily fluids and waste through the mouth and anus only takes a few hours.

Oh the Wells Fargo Wagon is a .... COMIN' down the street!

Its really not that shocking. Post Covid there are office spaces that people use maybe once a week, and she was probably in one of those huge buildings with acres of cubes.

Security guards at these type places make like $18 an hour and are sure as hell not checking every single crevice of office space that people rarely use.

[quote] Security guards at these type places make like $18 an hour and are sure as hell not checking every single crevice of office space that people rarely use.

That's what I was thinking. Plus, you're talking about multiple FLOORS full of cubicles and offices.

Also, a security guard would be more focused on main points of entry and exit, not the labyrinths and inner sanctums on each floor.

But some posters opine that a low-paid security guard should be responsible for checking every nook and cranny.

Can her family sue?

R111 Being as she was dead for five days and no one knew it, I'm guessing she either had no family or was estranged from them.

Just imagine the next person to be assigned that cubical. Creepy.

Radio 📻 “You never can say goodbye”

[quote] Can her family sue?

On what grounds? Emotional distress?

[quote]Being as she was dead for five days and no one knew it, I'm guessing she either had no family or was estranged from them.

In 5 days? I could go a month and not speak with my biological family. They would hardly be a reliable reference point for where where I was in the world, or how my day at the office was, or my state of health in the past four days.

r116 made me think of how many DLers are estranged from their families or have difficult relationships with them. You see that all the time on here.

I understand about the underpopulated area, work from home culture, but this woman had to have had a direct supervisor and someone who reconciled her payroll. You don't have a system of clocking in and out without supervision. I'd hate to be that person.

[quote]Just imagine the next person to be assigned that cubical. Creepy.

"What's that smell? Do you smell that?"

She'll just replace the chair with one from an abandoned cube.

Must be she was single and didn't have plans with anyone over the weekend because nobody was looking for her.

If she had taken the free medalert we tried to send her when she called to pay the phone bill, she would have been saved!

Sadly the warranty on her pacemaker had expired the previous day.

[quote]R116 made me think of how many DLers are estranged from their families or have difficult relationships with them. You see that all the time on here.

Yes, and you also find DLers who gave up very promising careers in cockrings and poppers to rub salves on Mother and organize her doctors visits for 20 some years.

I'm not estranged from my own family, but I do live an ocean away. Mine was was never a family up its collective ass every few hours. (Nor do my straight siblings have a closer relationship despite living very near.)

My in-laws are much warmer and more engaged people and we have a much closer relationship. We do something together twice a month or so, but my partner and I can often go a week without communicating with his family. We might see them three times in a week then not for a month. It doesn't occur to any of us to have to check in daily or even every 4 days to make sure someone hasn't dropped dead at work. If someone has been unwell or had a doctor's visit, yes; otherwise no. Four days without communicating with them would not be at all odd.

[quote]I'm not estranged from my own family, but I do live an ocean away.

And I'm sure they're grateful for that.

Going for a whole month without hearing from an immediate family member would be a cause for concern for most normal families.

Could have been me. I usually spend my weekends by myself. I do chat on the phone, sometimes, with my one sister. But that sister wouldn't call 911 if I didn't pick up the phone (we don't talk every day).

It really depends on the family, R125.

My former office had the time clock feature. We were monitored to the minute (clock out 3 mins. early, the next day you had to stay an extra 3 mins.) monitored 15 min breaks and lunch. Eyeballed how long we were in the bathroom and how many times we got up from our desk. The software had some other lovely tracking features as well. Fucking nightmare.

R128, sounds horrible. What kind of office was it?

I guess you could at least say that Wells Fargo did not micromanage this woman.

R129: I was a county court clerk with the worst management you could imagine. I had a breakdown and quit after harassment. My harassers were eventually fired unrelated to my situation. I got suspended for 3 days for working 5 hours overtime without pay on a case that was important with a deadline.

Amateurs, the lot of them….

She was staunch!

Can't wait for the new mission statement.

Build a future oriented, worldclass organization that only allows dead employees to lie around for three days, max!

Wells Fargo is ROTTEN!

Sometimes the body POPS open from the gas decomp, nice

I can definitely see how this could have happened, sadly. Especially when I look at my own hybrid work habits.

No one is in the office on Friday, and she died on Friday. Add 2 weekend days, then Monday, which is the second most empty office day next to Friday, and there you have it. 4 days. And if she was in a high walled cubicle off the beaten path or in a corner of some lightly traversed floor, it's not surprising. This could never happen in my office because it's an open plan. People can see you from across the floor.

RIP. This will continue to happen with more frequency (dying at work, I mean), especially with retirement becoming unattainable for most. Makes me so sad.

Her epitaph will read, "She went to work, and then she died."

Anyone seed my dog?

She worked herself to death

I’m starting to see this article everywhere else now. DL is always ahead of the curve