Recently a coworker’s mother had passed away suddenly. I responded a comment to his Facebook post saying “I’m sorry for you loss. That sucks man.”
I am being told by several people at work that my comment was inappropriate and that I shouldn’t have even said anything if that was what I was going to say. Can someone please explain how it was inappropriate?
6 comments
The first sentence was great. The second sentence is what your coworkers are being picky about.
You were being sincere and expressing genuine concern from your heart. Tell everyone that. You meant to be empathetic but you’re not a poet and you don’t work for Hallmark so it came out sounding different than how you really feel. Tell everyone that too.
Next time, leave off the “that sucks man” sentence. Next time say “I’m sorry for your loss. You are in my thoughts.” (Or Your family is in my thoughts.)
When someone’s very close relative dies, they want to hear soothing things that sound like a hallmark card. It’s a stressful and very sad time when a mom dies. So everyone will be extra emotional. You didn’t do anything mean or cruel. You just didn’t speak in the traditional way and it upset people because it happened while everybody’s emotions are running hot. When a mom dies, it makes everyone kinda panic inside bc they immediately start thinking of their own moms are worrying their own mom might be next. Or if their own mom is already passed away, the grief hits them all over again when they hear about another mom dying.
Basically just tell your coworkers that you were being sincere and you were speaking from your heart, but you accidentally said the wrong thing because you’re not good at writing. Remember DONT bring this up to the person who lost his mom. He’s not even thinking about you or what you wrote. Don’t interrupt his grief to discuss Facebook. The only people getting upset are the other coworkers. That’s just bc emotions are high right now. It will pass.
It can be a good thing to just validate that it’s terrible. When I lost a loved one, I would’ve appreciated that response a lot more than sympathy cards and “it gets better” “I’ll pray for you comments”. I wanted someone to just say wow that really fucking sucks man. I’m sure that’s not a hot take.
However, a lot of people do agree with the other comment. When you do not know someone personally/socially, the canned responses are safe responses. Using the word “sucks” is what makes it seem too casual and almost sarcastic or unsympathetic. A sentiment more like, “I know that is really tough” or “I’m sorry to hear you’re going through something so difficult” would probably come across better via text.
I would have been fine with hearing that. It’s sincere. Don’t EVER say anything like “she’s in a better place” because, unless they are super religious, that’s so… meaningless. It invalidates the person’s grief.
I think your response was fine. When my parents died, I was shocked by some of the sympathy comments I received. I was grateful for any words of condolence offered, but some sounded like they googled “funeral words” and strung a bunch of them together. Even in grief, I am still me and you can still talk to me like a normal person. I would have appreciated your words.
Your response was fine but the “that sucks man” part is somewhat problematic. The reason being is that is is informal. Serious situations call for formal speech to let the other person know you are taking it as serious as them. This is a part of “mirroring.”
If a customer called your work to complain and they were really upset you wouldn’t want to use informal speech and be happy go lucky because it would make them feel that you aren’t taking thier complaint serious. You’d want to slow down your speech and match their seriousness to show them that you care. Similarly if someone was really excited about something they were telling you, then that would be a time to show excitement as well to show them that you are acknowledging how exciting their accomplishment or whatever it is they are taking about is.
Formality is preferred when talking about death seeing as it’s a VERY serious subject. For example, you wouldn’t refer to someone dying by saying “they died” you would say “they passed away.” If a lot of time has passed or no party involved in the conversation was close to the deceased person then saying that “they died” becomes more appropriate as the seriousness of the situation is lesser. So to correct your informal speech and make it formal you could say “I’m so sorry for your loss, that’s so unfortunate my friend”. “That’s so unfortunate my friend” means the same thing as “that sucks man” but it’s more formal.
Do those people at work show empathy?
Some people have about zero empathy and they like to tell others they are wrong/should feel shame, when they really have no idea about compassion themselves. Up to you whether you’d take zero empathy people seriously.