No going to work because X died...

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

Apart from family and friends, there’s no one alive or from history that I’d take a day off for their death. My only real hero is the Greek Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope, who died over 2,000 years ago, and he just wanted his body left out for animals to eat.

I’d also distinguish between taking a day off because someone famous died, and going to the funeral of someone deserving. It’s entirely possible that I’d go to the funeral of someone ordinary who died in exceptionally tragic or heroic circumstances, even if I didn’t know them.

There was a guy in my secondary school who took a few days off when Freddy Mercury died. I thought it was really, really weird.

On a related but tangential note, I had a maths teacher in the same school who was the type who would strictly focus on the maths class no matter what happened. He never took a sick day, never chatted in class and gave homework over the summer holidays (and checked it when you came back in September). The day Margaret Thatcher resigned, he came into class with a radio up to his ear, declared “The bitch is gone!” and we sat for 45 minutes listening to the coverage, him with a big smile on his face. That was the one day in 5 years he didn’t give us homework.