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L.A. County Employee Dead in Cubicle a Day Before Being Noticed
KTLA ^ | 02/15/2011 | NA

Posted on 02/15/2011 10:49:18 PM PST by prisoner6

L.A. County Employee Dead in Cubicle a Day Before Being Noticed

DOWNEY (KTLA) -- An L.A. County employee apparently died while working in her cubicle on Friday, but no one noticed for quite some time.

51-year-old Rebecca Wells was found by a security guard on Saturday afternoon.

She was slumped over on her desk in the L.A. County Department of Internal Services.

"I came in Saturday to do a little work, and I saw them when they were taking her out," co-worker Hattie Robertson told KTLA.

The exact time of death is not clear, but detectives say that, at worst, she had been dead for a day before her body was discovered.

The last time a co-worker saw her alive was Friday morning around 9:00 a.m., according to Downy police detectives.

Wells, a USC graduate, was a longtime compliance auditor, and had recently become a grandmother, according to co-workers.

Investigators have not determined the official cause of death, but they say foul play is not suspected.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: cubicle; dead; employee
Video at link.

Sad on so many fronts.

She worked in an office and apparently interacted with others. For no one to notice a worker slumped over a desk amazes me.

That said many of us - I do - work by ourselves for hours or even days at a time. Anyone else ever wonder about the reaction of others if something happened?

Personally I'd be LMAO...well...if I could.

1 posted on 02/15/2011 10:49:28 PM PST by prisoner6
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To: Aaron0617

Vincent: 17 million people. This is got to be the fifth biggest economy in the world and nobody knows each other. I read about this guy who gets on the MTA here, dies. Six hours he's riding the subway before anybody notices his corpse doing laps around L.A., people on and off sitting next to him. Nobody notices.

2 posted on 02/15/2011 11:08:58 PM PST by Aaron0617
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To: prisoner6
For no one to notice a worker slumped over a desk amazes me.

Have you been in a Gov't facility lately? This seems just about right. Everyone napping on their desks. Her coworkers just thought her alarm didn't go off to wake up and go home for the day.


3 posted on 02/15/2011 11:13:09 PM PST by Lazlo in PA (Now living in a newly minted Red State.)
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To: prisoner6

Condolences to her family.

But on the other hand, this proves two things.
1) Government (union) employees work so hard and fast, no one can tell if they are moving. And,
2) I’ve always heard the joke, that on Fridays you can see people coming back to life, well, she must have missed that memo.


4 posted on 02/15/2011 11:16:23 PM PST by Nitehawk0325 (I have the right to remain silent, but I lack the ability...........)
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To: prisoner6

Good enough for government work...


5 posted on 02/15/2011 11:28:57 PM PST by DesScorp
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To: prisoner6

Talk about a liberal break policy!


6 posted on 02/15/2011 11:30:44 PM PST by BigCinBigD (Northern flags in South winds flutter...)
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To: prisoner6

I wonder how long they'll let Ginsburg snooze next time before they start poking her, or if she snores enough that they can tell she hasn't gone off to the big Chamber in the sky.

7 posted on 02/15/2011 11:31:42 PM PST by jiggyboy (Ten percent of poll respondents are either lying or insane)
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To: prisoner6

I have a confession: back in the 80s, I briefly worked for FEMA.
We had a supply clerk named Roger. He was a long-time career employee and was quite literally the laziest person I have ever met. His indolence was so great, so much in excess of what we normal goof-offs and goldbricks could manage, that it is actually admirable. He should be in the Guiness Book of World Records.
Roger was paid about $18 an hour (remember, this was over 20 years ago) to sit in his chair all day and briefly rouse himself if someone needed a new pencil or perhaps some sticky notes. He would sit there and stare catatonically at the wall for hours at a time.
Naturally he would doze off pretty frequently. I walked by one day and shook him. He awoke, startled, and demanded to know what I needed. I said “Nothing, I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t died on us. We’d look pretty stupid if you started to decompose before anyone realized it.”
He just said, “oh” and went back to sleep.
The San Francisco earthquake came along the FEMA center was a beehive of activity. Several of us went there and worked about 100 hours a week taking relief applications. Not Roger, though. He had to do a lot more work, perhaps an hour or more a day, but they hired four temporaries to help him, apparently so he would not miss his rest.


8 posted on 02/15/2011 11:53:49 PM PST by atomic conspiracy (Victory in Iraq: Worst defeat for activist media since Goebbels shot himself.)
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To: atomic conspiracy
Roger was paid about $18 an hour (remember, this was over 20 years ago) to sit in his chair all day and briefly rouse himself if someone needed a new pencil or perhaps some sticky notes. He would sit there and stare catatonically at the wall for hours at a time.

I think I would die at my desk doing a job like this. From boredom.

9 posted on 02/16/2011 12:06:11 AM PST by He Rides A White Horse (unite)
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To: He Rides A White Horse
Roger was paid about $18 an hour (remember, this was over 20 years ago) to sit in his chair all day and briefly rouse himself if someone needed a new pencil or perhaps some sticky notes. He would sit there and stare catatonically at the wall for hours at a time.

I think I would die at my desk doing a job like this. From boredom.


Yup. Sounds like being in prison. If someone was faced with either doing this or panhandling - well, why not at least get some fresh air and sun?
10 posted on 02/16/2011 12:39:21 AM PST by AnotherUnixGeek
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To: prisoner6

Doesn’t amaze me at all. I worked in Civil Service. Some of the places I worked had people stuck there as political favors. One department in SF had the former speaker of the California house working there. After being bumped out of the state assembly, Mayor Willie Brown gave him a cushy job making over $100 thousand. To do basically nothing. I was working my butt off. I’d go there to interact with contractors and engineers, and Brian would be chatting up a storm with me, offering to get me coffee or answer the phone for me. I asked him what it was he did there. He honestly answered that he didn’t know. He lost the job when he was sent to prison for some former corruption charges. Some people sleep on the job and it’s accepted.


11 posted on 02/16/2011 12:50:53 AM PST by roadcat
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To: Nitehawk0325
"on Fridays you can see people coming back to life"

LMAO! :-)

12 posted on 02/16/2011 3:44:22 AM PST by Average Al
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To: Average Al

But did she get the memo about the new cover sheet for the TPS report?


13 posted on 02/16/2011 4:14:19 AM PST by maine yankee
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To: maine yankee
Ah! Yeah. It's just we're putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports before they go out now. So if you could go ahead and try to remember to do that from now on, that'd be great. All right!


14 posted on 02/16/2011 5:22:59 AM PST by WaterBoard ("PBR Street Gang this is Almighty, over..")
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To: prisoner6

Sad that her new grandchild won’t know her grandmother. RIP.


15 posted on 02/16/2011 6:39:50 AM PST by newzjunkey
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