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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not go to a funeral of a colleague I disliked/who was unpleasant/who I had nothing to do with.

379 replies

Jilly12345 · 17/11/2017 11:44

So I work in a place that has 5 floors, and 150 people. One guy from my department- I will call him Steve (who was lower management) has always been a curmudgeon, and a right old misery. Whenever I asked him for anything that I needed, he huffed and puffed and said for fuck's sake! under his breath. He was very rude to people, especially women, and could never understand why WOMEN were in higher positions than him.

He was often passed over for promotion, because of his attitude, and was disgusted when a woman 10 years younger than him, rose above him in rank. (This was last year.) After that, he did everything he could to make life hard for her.

His wife left him 7 years ago (after tolerating him for 10 years,) and he has been alone since. A miserable, bitter, angry little man.

So on Monday, he died. A brain embolism. The funeral is next Friday. Everyone is being asked to give to a collection (don't know why - or who it's going to - as he had no wife or kids,) and to give a fiver each. Maybe it's for flowers. F knows. Also, everyone in our department is expected to go. (35 people.)

I am not a hypocrite, I couldn't stand the man, and have no wish to mourn him. He barely spoke to me, he was rude, he was a misogynist, and he was a bigot. I have told my line manager today that I am not going. She has gone batshit, and said I cannot refuse to go as that would look TERRIBLE.

Hilariously we are all expected to use half a day's leave or lose the morning's pay to attend the funeral. I have spoken to several colleagues of mine since speaking to her, and they don't want to go either. Confused

What can I do? Why should I go, when I couldn't stand him, he was a miserable git, and we rarely spoke?

OP posts:
whiskyowl · 17/11/2017 15:44

"What about Jimmy Saville or abusers? Hitler? Stalin?"

Hitler: 'He was a character. He might have not had much love for those of the Jewish persuasion, but also a talent for art and rhetoric and was an extensive patronage of architecture, and was much loved by his dog, Blondi".

Stalin: 'A man of passion and conviction, he didn't brook dissent lightly, but he loved a good Western, and was a keen gardener whose large cabbages were the envy of kulaks everywhere."

Original poster
Jilly12345 · 17/11/2017 15:45

So don't say he was only horrible to me, coz he was horrible to ALL women,

OP posts:
surferjet · 17/11/2017 15:45

Op; hating a man who clearly hated you is fine, & of course you shouldn’t go to his funeral. But you are enjoying this a bit too much which is a kind of creepy tbh.

Blodplod · 17/11/2017 15:46

Whilst trying to ignore some of the replies and answer the original question... if I was asked to attend a funeral of someone I personally didn’t like

TinklyLittleLaugh · 17/11/2017 15:47

Have you also considered that what killed him may also been having an impact on his personality, brain problems can cause personality changes?

I was just coming on to say this because, purely anecdotally, the two most outrageously horrid people I have known both died of brain problems (one tumour, one sudden massive stroke).

Of course, he was most probably just a nasty person.

Don't think you should have to go if you don't want to OP, even if the guy was the loveliest person in the world.

Original poster
Jilly12345 · 17/11/2017 15:48

Do behave surferjet. I am just mocking the people talking nonsense on this thread. I think it's bloody obvious!

OP posts:
MissDuke · 17/11/2017 15:49

Do you not all have a mind of your own?

Says she who is going to call in sick if no colleague will agree to miss the funeral with her Grin

Blodplod · 17/11/2017 15:49

Stupid phone! To carry on, if I was asked to attend a funeral of someone I didn’t like and didn’t get on with in life I would find it a total hypocrisy to attend and pretend for the day on the pretence of compassion. Additionally I wouldn’t want anyone attending my funeral that truly didn’t like/love me for who I was. This is the main reason I don’t want a certain family member attending my funeral, they don’t like me alive, this isn’t going to change when I’m dead so I can’t see the point of them attending my ‘celebration of life’.

hotbutteredcrumpetsandtea · 17/11/2017 15:50

Well I and many others will continue to be honest about dead, horrible people

I know this is controversial these days, but it is actually possible to have thoughts that you don't voice to everyone else! I know, radical notion, isn't it? You could think these things and keep them to yourself.

Original poster
Jilly12345 · 17/11/2017 15:50

I should probably just ignore them trouble makers actually. I think THEY are enjoying causing trouble on the thread, instead of giving constructive advice.

OP posts:
OutwiththeOutCrowd · 17/11/2017 15:54

I think it is perfectly possible to feel sadness about the premature death of someone who has frequently behaved badly towards you. It’s not necessarily hypocritical at all. Hypocritical is going to the funeral and weeping and wailing.

In the case of the death of someone with anti-social tendencies, it would be a different sort of sadness to that associated with the knowledge you will miss the person, but sadness nevertheless.

The sadness would be in response to the end of a life that had been short and in many ways unsatisfactory for the person concerned.
.

LagunaBubbles · 17/11/2017 15:55

Maybe he was just an areshole to YOU because youre clearly a bit of a bitch !

The OP has stated he treated others the same. Victim blaming much? Hmm

Original poster
Jilly12345 · 17/11/2017 15:56

@blodpop

To carry on, if I was asked to attend a funeral of someone I didn’t like and didn’t get on with in life I would find it a total hypocrisy to attend and pretend for the day on the pretence of compassion.

Exactly! Why would anyone go to a funeral of someone they didn't like or even know really, just because it's the 'done thing?'

Bit weird. Smacks of trying to fit in, and trying to look good.

Bit sad really.

OP posts:
Original poster
Jilly12345 · 17/11/2017 15:58

Anyhoo, I'm off for a bit again! I really do have work to do. Blush

Laterz.

OP posts:
BakedBeans47 · 17/11/2017 16:00

I would just not go and turn up to work as normal. I wouldn’t donate to the collection either.

bunzie · 17/11/2017 16:03

Don’t go if you don’t want to... just say you were not close to him enough to attend his funeral... but I wouldn’t discuss it much with colleagues or give all your above reasons to manager... you don’t need to justify your feelings for him and you won’t be speaking ill about a colleague who has just passed.

DailyMailDontStealMyThread · 17/11/2017 16:11

I wouldn’t donate and I would just turn up,at the office on the day of the funeral. Surely some people have to be at work?

No way would I use my holiday to attend a funeral of someone I didn’t like.

Ta1kinPeece · 17/11/2017 16:20

Annual Leave for a work funeral = utterly inappropriate of your employer.

Three line whip for a work funeral = Utterly inappropriate of your employer

Stirring up other staff to not go = inappropriate of you

Any sanction from your employer for staying at your desk that day = asking for a constructive dismissal case.

Your comments about the guy = unpleasant but understandable.

I went to a client's funeral (with my managers)
because we wanted to see what would happen when
his wife and kids met
his mistress and other kids
it was worth it Grin

Polarbearflavour · 17/11/2017 16:32

hotbutteredcrumpetsandtea - you don’t have to voice your opinion either....you can like totally think that and keep it to yourself yeah?

I’m not one of those people.

Honeycombcrunch · 17/11/2017 16:44

Op, email your manager to say that you won't be going to the funeral and intend to work as usual. Unless the whole office is closed it is unreasonable to expect you to lose pay or take holiday leave.

Some years ago I left a job after being bullied by the boss. She died a few years later and some of the comments I got from people who had stayed there were far worse than anything Jilly has said on this thread. One former colleague said he was going to carry a bulb of garlic and a wooden stake with him at the funeral to be on the safe side!

BerylStreep · 17/11/2017 16:50

I definitely wouldn't attend the funeral - just say to your boss that you intend to be at work as usual on the morning, afternoon of the funeral but that you'll be thinking of him (just don't articulate what thoughts!).

Nor would I contribute to the whip round. If anyone queries it, you can say you'd rather make your own contribution to a suitable charity.

Sounds like a very unprofessional company if they really expect people to take annual leave / unpaid leave to attend when they are effectively making it compulsory.

I don't really get all the 'don't speak ill of the dead' thing. People die all the time, some nice, some horrid. Confused

PoisonousSmurf · 17/11/2017 16:52

Can't you all stand together and refuse to go? Why would you have to lose pay on someone you all clearly hated?
Is the manager only wanting to do this as a way to get out of paying you all?

Anatidae · 17/11/2017 16:55

Don’t call in sick - that puts you in the wrong and is risky.

You don’t need to go to the funeral. Do get some kind of evidence in writing that your boss expects you to forgo a mornings pay or use leave. If it’s compulsory you get paid for it, and that’s that.

I would honestly take the high ground here - short answers like ‘we were not close’ ‘I will be at work as usual’ are enough.

Any three line whip, you tell your employer calmly that if you’re expected to attend then you will also expect to do that on work time.

MipMipMip · 17/11/2017 17:11

I would guess part of the reason for letting the others know the OP doesn't plan to go is in case they feel the same but aren't in a position to say anything. It might give them the courage to say "actually, I don't want to waste my AL either". It's not necessarily to back up the OP- doesn't sound as if she needs it!

ReanimatedSGB · 17/11/2017 17:17

I think some of the pious whiners slating OP for being clear about how much she loathed this man are people who have never actually had to deal with a vile colleague or acquaintance they could never quite cut out of their lives. OK so he wasn't a serial killer, and by the sound of it his unpleasantness was never quite bad enough for anyone to start disciplinary proceedings, but it can be very, very draining to have to put up with a horrible person you can't escape. Sure, 'get another job', but you might not want to, or jobs in your field might be so scarce that you would really harm your career prospects if you just left. So you just have to try to endure Mr Shit as best you can.

(My friend announced her father's death by saying 'Ding dong, the bastard's dead' to me. He had been physically and psychologically abusive all her life, to the point she had emigrated to get away from him. She doesn't appear to have suffered any consequences from not going to his funeral or 'getting closure.')