Happy Halloween and Happy New Year. This has been a heck of a day to celebrate the dead. Today started off like any other day, up early and off to work. I arrived at work at roughly 6:30 and had my normal tough time in the warehouse sorting out orders. Truthfully everything was great. Around 8:40 I asked if anyone heard from Rose. Rose is the woman that sits next to me. She’s one of the few people that I like, I have known her for ten years and she has always been supportive of me and we help each other out a lot. The reason I asked if Rose called out is because when she’s out I run some of her reports and sort of fill in for her. When I asked if she called out nobody had an answer so I checked with Human Resources to see if she called out on their line. Just as I was approaching the office the Human Resources person was getting off the phone. She was just hanging up the phone with Rose’s son, Rose passed away last night. Rest in peace Rose. Of course this came to a shock to everyone. The reason this came as a shock is because Rose was at work yesterday and the day before that and the day before that. She missed all but two days due to illness all year. I ended up being the person to tell everyone including my boss. Needless to say we were all pretty bummed out. I have a good friend in the warehouse and I knew she would not take this well. So I went out there to talk to her one on one and let her know what happened. As predicted, she lost it. She REALLY took it hard. She sobbed in my arms for about five minutes. I helped her pull her self together and brought her in the office conference room where we were asked to gather. Our GOM did an excellent job of pulling us together and allowing us to express our feelings. He offered for us to have an open forum to speak our minds and or to speak in Rose’s name. No one spoke. Truthfully I don’t think they were able to. So I spoke. I talked about that our new job is to make sure her spirit lives on and that we have the power to let her fly. I also said that this should be a very easy task for us.I went on to say that no spirit is made to stay in one place forever; it's a time for grief, celebration and remembrance. Later on someone came over to me and said my words got us through this and that I was an inspiration. That was odd. Then I was appointed to notify the other facilities and Rose’s close business contacts. So I broke the news to them too and dealt with more emotions and being grief counselor. Well what can I say; this was simply a downer of a day. I ask us this question, have we appreciated that we woke up this morning? Have we told our leather, bio and maybe even our work families that we love and appreciate them? Just some food for thought. Luckily the rest of the work day was slow. Certainly I didn’t have my groove on. I did get everything accomplished and I do intend on going to the gym. No matter what I want to move forward. I found myself in a very interesting leadership position today. I feel proud of how I handled the situation. I just hope I don’t need to do that again, at least not for a very long time. I did go to the gym but my workout was flat. That's to be expected. On a much more positive note Basketball season starts today as does the Nets season. So tonight I'll give trick or treaters some candy, watch the Nets and watch the season finale of LA Ink.

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