I think somebody has told me that someone has died and they haven’t

[gingerbits]

How do I find out if they have?

You need to ask your manager

It could be the colleague who told you got confused, or they were given the wrong information or perhaps the news hasnt got out yet

Happened to me where a work colleague told me another work colleagues partner had died in a car accident and we should send a card with our condolences. Except said work colleagues DP turned out to be alive. It was a chinese whispersesque situation where someone had got muddled between two colleagues who were similar in age and appearance, wkth similar names

If it’s a colleague, ask HR

If you think this person has set you up. Stay Schtum completely and see what comes out.

Alternatively, record colleague covertly and ask them about it again ... hold this recording should you be turned upon!

Do nothing, assume it's a nasty rumour either malicious or Chinese whispers mixup.

What do people expect your manager or HR to do?
HR have to keep confidence, and can't discuss someone else's business. The company will announce officially, if true, in due course, the family may want the company to delay the announcement for various reasons.

I

@FAQs

This reminds me of that celebrity big brother episode, David I’d dead 👀

I have never laughed at anything so much I was literally in pain!

Wtf? The world is a weird place

I hope that you told these other colleagues where you heard the news.

faq that was the most extraordinary bit of tv. Could not have been scripted better. And the one person who could have cleared it up instantly was in the shower. Them checking on him in bed !!!

op I would ask to speak to your manager and calmly tell them what has happened. note down what happened , when and how you were told and by whom and who you then told add in what your manager tells you.

Reality is if your colleague is not dead he will have a serious complaint against someone about all of this.

Your workplace sounds pretty toxic !

They’ve probably gone on holiday camping for the week.
If this person lied, surely you’d say ‘Twat just told me Bob is dead, have you heard anything?’ This then implicates Twat as the rumour spreader.
Nasty thing to do if not true.

Hi Boss
Bit of an odd one and sorry if insensitive. X colleague told me that xx had passed away by (fill in detail) but when I offered condolences to xx they didn't know anything about it. I don't want to upset anyone so just wanted to clarify if it was common knowledge - x colleague didn't specify it wasn't.

It would be very peculiar to lie about a colleague's death, so I would imagine it is true. Unless she has MH problems?

If this was done maliciously it could easily backfire on her. Other colleagues (and him) would surely ask you why you said he was dead and your reply would be that she told you.

As you are questioning it, I would ask the HR dept.

If is does turn out to be false, I would also be reporting her fot it along with the other negative behaviours towards you that you mentioned

I agree, just ask your manager.
If someone had died I’m surprised there wasn’t some kind of email or something about it.

[quote Notredamn ]'The silver person'

Yeah, just ring him tbf. If he answers...case closed! [/quote]
I've no idea what I meant to say there!

Sorry I know this is serious but it’s just reminded me of the time how heartbroken my Grandma was when Robbie Williams died... turned out it was Robin Williams not Robbie and she had misheard the radio..

If it were me, I think I'd go to the manager and say "So-and-so told me that Mr X has died. Is that true, as if so it's really sad ....." Then if it turns out that So-and-so has lied for malicious reasons, you've made the manager aware of their rumour mongering.

If they're your friend have you tried contacting them?

I’m going to ask the manager today

Contact your HR department and inform them that you have been informed by xxxx of the sad news of X's death. Suggest that they contact xxxx so that an announcement can be made on the works internal computer system. If she's making it up, she will squirm.

Sounds very odd and I hope you find out the truth.

Weirdly, dh has just said to me "can you remember X's murder years ago (a school friend) well he's not dead!" The reason he knows this is he's just seen the dead person comment on a mutual friend's Facebook post. He said everyone he went to school with was at the time confirming that the victim was indeed the school friend. I wonder how many times over the years he's heard about his murder! Obviously it's been someone with the same name and over the years dh has lost touch with people do hasn't found out that it wasn't true!

UPDATE: They are not dead!!
I have reported my colleague's comments

I'm astonished

Gordon’s alive!!!!!!

This is crazy.

What a truely odd thing to do. If the friends ask you again just say your collegue told you with a baffled look. Leave it to the manager to deal with.

Though I'm staggered someone would do that as you will be found out, unless like you said she wanted you to be seen as the malicious rumour mill and didnt think you would stand up for ypurself. Is she usually this bat shit?

Do you know for a fact you were deliberately targeted rather than this colleague also being duped?

I think there would be an announcement in most workplaces. It's an appalling thing to lie about.

Two of my colleagues have passed away since lockdown and there was an announcement and memorial pages were put on out intranet. So, OP if someone had passed away, your HR would more than likely to have made some sort of announcement (esp if they were closing down email accounts etc)

So you were absolutely right to go to HR and get this whole thing on record.

Mind you, there was a thread on here about the weirdest rumours people have heard about themselves - it turned into a one-woman saga about having an ex-friend announce on her social media that X had died and then people rushing to commiserate (if I remember correctly). People were actually shocked to find the "deceased" pottering round town doing her thing.