my manager died, and one of my coworkers didn’t go to the funeral

by Alison Green on March 17, 2025

A reader writes:

My manager was one of the good ones, completely trusted their team, didn’t micromanage, would support and defend us, and was just generally a friendly person. Their death was sudden and devastating to a lot of people, to say the least.

Our team is fewer than 10 people, and most had worked closely with our manager for 5+ years and some had been friends for longer. Our company offered to pay for all expenses so we could all attend the funeral, since some of us are remote. One local coworker, Sam, didn’t go and didn’t even give an excuse as to why not, and it has caused a major rift.

On one hand, Sam is a pretty stoic and private person; to him, this job is a means to make money and doesn’t really socialize outside of the office and that’s fine. Everyone grieves differently, and I definitely get not wanting to do so around your coworkers and bosses. On the other hand, it feels really cold and rude to not at least pay some lip service, to show up just to say you did or explain why you couldn’t make it.

Some coworkers told me that Sam had always rubbed them the wrong way and him not coming to the funeral has greatly exacerbated this problem and they even talked about trying to kick him off the team. To me, he seems hard to read but has been friendly enough if I ever needed help or asked questions, so this feels extreme, but I also have never really worked that closely with him.

My problem is this: I genuinely don’t think Sam realizes how much not going upset the others, or that they’ve felt this way for a while, nor do I think it was his intention to offend. I know this is going to blow up soon and I feel terrible that Sam is likely going to be blindsided. At the same time the others told me this in confidence and would definitely know that I was the one who said something. I could really use some help. How do I navigate this?

Your coworkers are really in the wrong.

They’re talking about trying to kick Sam off the team?!

Hopefully this is just a grief reaction and will settle down on its own, but the right thing for you to do is to be a sane counterweight. Tell your coworkers you thought about what they said and you strongly disagree — some people are not funeral people, not everyone has the sort of close relationships with colleagues where they’d feel comfortable going to a boss’s funeral, and who knows what else Sam might have going on in his personal life right now. (As one example, when my mom was dying, I’m not sure I could have handled a work funeral, and I say that as someone who is a big believer in always going to funerals.)

He also may have been thinking along the lines of “treat others the way you’d want to be treated” and, as a private person, might see funerals as for friends and family, not coworkers.

Or sure, maybe it’s exactly what your coworkers think: he’s a cold person who doesn’t make personal connections even with wonderful colleagues and won’t bother to pay his respects to a beloved manager by attending a funeral. But even if that’s the case, it doesn’t warrant all this drama! If that’s what they believe about him, so be it. It doesn’t rise to the level of justifying a blow-up, and it would be a bananas overreaction to try to get him kicked off the team.

Tell them that if they dislike Sam for this or other reasons, that’s their prerogative, but their reaction is wildly disproportionate to what happened and you’re uncomfortable hearing the way they’re talking about him.

I know your question was whether you should warn Sam, but the above is far more important to do.

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    2. KayDeeAye*

      Oh, I do hope we get an update on this one. I suppose there are funerals at which one’s attendance is mandatory, or nearly so (it’s never ever absolutely mandatory), but this was not one of them! Lots and lots of people only go to funerals if they have a close relationship to the deceased or the family or both. Lots and lots of others can only grieve in private. Anyway, the OP’s coworkers need to cut it out right this very minute.

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        I think of David Spade, who could not bring himself to attend Chris Farley’s funeral. That’s a very public example, but seriously…funerals are hard and if someone can’t bring themself to attend a funeral you shouldn’t judge them for it AT ALL.

        (Minor exception for my uncle who didn’t come to his own mother’s funeral, but that’s a little different than a funeral for a work colleague. Leave Sam alone, OP’s coworkers! He doesn’t owe you an explanation as to why he didn’t come, and he wasn’t required to come at all.)

        1. Frieda*

          My mom didn’t go to her own mother’s funeral – my dad had had emergency surgery that week and she didn’t feel like she could leave him alone, and she also worried that showing up without him would lead people from her hometown to wrongly conclude that they’d divorced. She had cared for my grandmother very lovingly in her last years, was there immediately before her death, and did not feel like she needed the additional opportunity to say goodbye.

          OTOH, my awful uncle, who had committed some terrible elder abuse against my gentle, lovely grandmother? Showed up like nothing in the world should have kept him away. Totally unashamed. He at least did not attempt to sit with the rest of the family – at least some of the rest of the family would have Taken Issue.

          So you really never know what might be happening to prevent someone from being present at a funeral, or what happened behind the scenes between people before the person’s death.

          1. Myrin*

            I assumed Lizz has more background information on the uncle situation which could make it understandable why she’d make a judgmental exception for him in particular.

            1. Frieda*

              Oh, yeah – I wasn’t arguing she should think anything in particular about her uncle, just adding to the examples of why a person’s non-attendance at a funeral might be logistical rather than ideological.

              1. Zoe Karvounopsina*

                My manager was unable to attend her sister’s funeral because her daughter experienced her first epileptic fit that morning, and her husband was a pall bearer, so he had to go, and she took their child to hospital.

            2. Slow Gin Lizz*

              Yes, thank you, Myrin. My uncle’s reasons for not attending were pretty selfish so that’s why we judge him for it, but he’s pretty selfish overall anyway and not someone most of us are close to. So it’s just more fodder for why we don’t bother with him most of the time. But in general I don’t judge people for not attending someone’s funeral. I think it should be the other way around anyway – be thankful for people who *do* attend, no one is required to and it’s especially sweet for people to take time out of their busy lives to support others in times of need.

              1. pandop*

                Yeah, I have on of those Uncle’s too. His reaction on being told of my father’s (his elder brother) death, was ‘you don’t expect me to come, do you?’

                Yeah, I judged him for that. No I didn’t go to his funeral.

          2. Seashell*

            I’d say a husband’s surgery is a perfectly reasonable explanation for not going, although I’m surprised the person holding the funeral wouldn’t try to set a time that worked for all immediate relatives, unless there’s a religious reason for a quick burial.

            Caring what people from the hometown might falsely believe, which could be easily cleared up with a conversation, seems like something a grown adult should not be worrying about.

            1. Cmdrshprd*

              ” holding the funeral wouldn’t try to set a time that worked for all immediate relatives,”

              As someone who had the luxury (/s) of being involved in the planning of multiple funerals last year, I can say there are several logistical hurdles involved that go into scheduling, as much as you want to you can’t always find a time that works for all immediate relatives.

              The person above did say it was emergency surgery, so even so, the time may have been picked that worked for everyone but then the emergency surgery got in the way, or the date picked left out the least amount of people.

          3. Jay (no, the other one)*

            I didn’t go to my maternal grandfather’s funeral because he died December 23rd, which was also my wedding anniversary, I was working the holiday, and my husband’s entire family including his newly divorced parents were at our house for Christmas. I was very close to both my grandparents and would have liked to have been there for my mother, and there was just no way. Mom understood.

            A few years later she told me she was furious with my cousin for not going to the funeral. I pointed out that I hadn’t gone either and she basically said “you had a good reason.” I knew he had a “good reason” as well and I also knew that he hadn’t shared it with my mother. Taught me a big lesson about not assuming or judging the difficult decisions people make.

            1. AnonForThis*

              I visited my paternal grandfather just before his death, and I thought that if I didn’t go to his funeral and see the body, it would be better because all my memories of him would be of him being alive. (It, uh, really didn’t work and I ended up spending the next year in therapy for grief.) I’ve always regretted not going, but I hope people understood that sometimes we make irrational decisions when we’re grieving.

              OP, I don’t think your coworkers are monsters, but they’re acting pretty irrationally. I wish you all healing and I hope that the team comes back together.

            2. allathian*

              I missed my maternal grandmother’s funeral because I was in France as an exchange student and couldn’t afford either the travel or the absence from my classes. I’m not particularly religious, but I did go and light a candle in her memory at a church near the university.

              1. SimonTheGreyWarden*

                This was why my partner missed her grandmother’s funeral – she was on study abroad and couldn’t afford the flight home.

            3. Dog momma*

              Jay,
              I wasn’t able to attend my father’s funeral,( held in NYS, we live in the South), in the winter dt a nor’easter that closed every airport from Atlanta/ Charleston & further south to our destination. State of emergency/ stay off the road thru 5 states ( ice) we needed to drive thru, per the state police. I did not feel it was safe to drive through the mountains . And its a 14 hr drive/ or 2 days on dry roads. It did not go over well. I was somewhat estranged from my sibs for good reason, but that seemed to seal the deal. At least I didn’t have to deal with my sister. When we buried mom, 3 yrs earlier,, the blizzard occurred while driving home! Still lived in NYS at the time but it took 6 hrs in whiteout conditions to get home (2x as long)

        2. knitted feet*

          It could even have been simple logistics. I missed the funeral of a beloved family member because on my way there, the train I was on hit and killed a person. People closest to me know why I didn’t make it, but equally I didn’t spread the story particularly far and wide because I didn’t want to take away from the focus of the day, especially with something awful in its own right. Sometimes stuff just happens.

          1. Trixie melodian*

            Yep, I missed my grandfather’s funeral because I could only get two days of bereavement leave and I took it to be at his bedside before he died, then couldn’t get further time off to stay interstate for the funeral.

      2. Jillian with a J dammit*

        My grandmother did not go to my aunt’s (her oldest child) funeral. She was in her 80s at the time and said that she just could not bear it. At my mother’s request, I stayed home with grandma for the day and we looked at old pictures.

      3. Wayward Sun*

        Going to a work funeral just seems like a bad idea in general. What if you’re a cryer? Crying in front of coworkers is generally seen as unseemly.

        1. Meat Oatmeal*

          I don’t think it would be unseemly in that situation. But I would understand not wanting to be vulnerable in front of colleagues!

      4. Lexie*

        I’ve actually been to a funeral where attendance was mandatory. I was working at a nonprofit and a beloved volunteer died. They closed the office and all of the paid employees were required to attend the funeral unless the Executive Director excused them.

    3. Saturday*

      If I were Sam, it would never occur to me that my presence at the funeral would matter to anyone but me. It’s very unlikely Sam knows the family of the manager, so he wouldn’t be missed by them. How could he guess that the coworkers would be using his attendance as a test of whether he should remain on the team? Coworkers are being very, very strange.

      1. JustCuz*

        Yes. Like not everyone is raised with the same social norms, customs, or even common sense! To get so angry at someone for being a little different than you is alarming. Very alarming.

      2. Tea Monk*

        Yes, my boss is all well and good but Id feel awkward going to her funeral because we’re not close on a personal level. The only work related funeral I went to was to support the mourners who I was close to.

        1. Commenty*

          Hello! I’m not trying to question your choice, which is valid, but just to give you another perspective. At my fathers’ funeral, it meant a lot to me to say hello to his coworkers. Even though I wasn’t close to those people, it was nice to see them and not at all awkward. To each their own, but I was happy to see everyone, even the people I didn’t know.

          1. allathian*

            Were they his coworkers or his reports? Going to a coworker’s funeral I can understand, at least for a work friend. Maybe also an important mentor who’s helped you advance in your career.

            But to me going to your direct manager’s funeral smacks of an unprofessionally close, personal relationship. So the team sounds skeevy to me for judging Sam for wanting to maintain professional boundaries with his coworkers and especially his manager.

            1. Slothy*

              This is odd reasoning to me, because we were taught you show up at wakes/funerals. Last month my (3rd? their mom and I are same generation) cousins’ father passed away. If someone at your place of work who you knew passes away, you show up if there’s a wake or funeral, or at minimum send a card if logistics prevent your attendance. That’s how it works with everyone I know.

              That said, these co-workers are being real jerks about this whole thing.

        2. Chas*

          This is how I’d feel about it. An academic at a similar level to my boss died suddenly a few years ago and my department told us all the funeral arrangements and also held a reception for him after the funeral. I think if it had been my boss, I’d have probably sent either flowers or a donation (depending on what the family wanted) and only gone to the reception, rather than the actual funeral part.

      3. GammaGirl1908*

        Right? The coworkers seem to be using this as some sort of test of loyalty to the late boss, and Sam is now the scapegoat.

        I wonder whether the next boss will also get the cold shoulder, like in the letter here a few years back where the toxic team had frozen out and driven off everyone the company hired to replace the late colleague.

    5. Momma Bear*

      I agree. There are many reasons someone might not attend a funeral, none of which is anyone else’s business. I was waiting on something like Sam took money from the company but didn’t go, but it sounds like he just declined to attend and didn’t take anything from the company unfairly.

      This team needs to chill and remember that their grief is theirs. They need to leave Sam alone and if they continue to make his life miserable, they are creating a toxic work environment. If that happens, Sam should have a chat with HR. Return this to the coworker who is complaining about Sam. This is not a Sam problem. I feel sorry for whoever gets hired to be their manager. We’ve had letters about that, too.

      1. Momma Bear*

        Also, I feel remiss for not first offering LW condolences re: the loss of a manager they liked. I hope whoever you get next is good.

  2. Nilsson Schmilsson*

    Your coworkers do not get to dictate how Sam responds to a funeral. They have no idea what his personal situation is. They are completely out of line. And it’s none of their business.

    1. Laura*

      And we don’t have to justify why we’re not attending out of work commitments! (Or using PTO during work hours for another commitment) They want to know to help them understand his behavior, but they need to make peace with having that unresolved.

      1. HQetc*

        As a podcast I enjoy says: “live with the question.” (It’s honestly been a pretty helpful mantra for me as must-know person, and I encourage the coworkers to embrace it.)

    2. Anonym*

      Everyone grieves differently. Everyone deals with loss differently. Everyone’s right to deal with such a loss in accordance with their own needs should be respected.

      1. allathian*

        Yes. So is the attitude that death is a natural process that happens to us all and nothing to grieve over.

        I can’t imagine the loss of a coworker to invoke such strong feelings in me that I’d feel compelled to go to their funeral. I’ll sign a sympathy card but that’s it.

        I haven’t really grieved my grandparents. Either I was too young to understand what was really happening or that death was final (my maternal grandpa died when I was 5), or I’d already grieved for the death of their personality, as happened with my paternal grandma who succumbed to dementia. Or else I didn’t feel close enough to them to grieve (in the sense of being emotionally devastated for even a moment), as happened with an aunt and two uncles and my other grandparents.

        My parents and parents-in-law are in their late 70s and early 80s, and I expect to experience a more heartfelt grief when they eventually die…

    3. Saturday*

      Yes, and the claim that Sam,”didn’t even give an excuse as to why not”… give an excuse to whom? The coworkers? This is not their event, and funerals don’t usually require an rsvp.

    4. ursula*

      Ironically, I’m pretty sure that the departed manager himself would be horrified at them treating Sam this way.

    5. Reluctant Mezzo*

      My son Does Not Do funerals, not even his dad’s. He held down the fort and helped get the family get-together after organized. But it’s a thing that the family knows about.

  3. Not putting the fun in funeral.*

    Your coworkers need help. They are being wildly inappropriate.

    Everybody has different reasons for why they want or don’t want to attend a service. Personally, I’m not good with funerals. So I usually pay my respects privately.

    1. Putting the Dys in Dysfunction*

      I wonder whether the coworkers very cliquey in general, and whether Sam was being excluded or otherwise treated badly even before the manager died.

      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        This reads to me as a confirmation bias from people who already decided they disliked someone, and are now projecting their pain and grief onto him in a horrifically inappropriate way.

        1. Expelliarmus*

          Yeah, this is kind of reminding me of the thought experiment letter in terms of cliquey-ness.

          1. Irish Teacher.*

            Yes, that came to my mind immediately. Both just seem like some people are looking for a reason to dislike the person.

      2. Not putting the fun in funeral.*

        They have to be super cliquey. That is really the only thing that makes sense.

    2. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      This totally reminded me of the letter where the team chased off anyone hired to replace the beloved coworker who had died. While they haven’t risen to that level yet, they are prepared to chase off someone who didn’t grieve the way they thought the person should.

      In other words, this is not a healthy team. It might not be toxic yet but it sure as heck is headed there.

      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        I’m willing to give a break on the toxic thing given the recent death factor, but in general I feel like we’ve crossed the toxic line.

      2. Miette*

        It reminded me of that letter too–the next manager of this team will need to manage this group carefully.

      3. Heck, darn, and other salty expressions*

        My thought is that it is really just 1 person who feels this way, and they are probably the 1 person who always pushes their agenda or desires on others. The others go along to keep the peace and keep the target off their backs. I also wonder who would be in line to be the next manager? Would it be Sam or one of his detractors? Odds are they will treat anyone who gets that job like crap especially if they are an internal hire.
        Whatever the “reason” is it is wildly inappropriate and OP should watch for signs of targeting Sam by the others and document everything.

      4. Hannah Lee*

        If LW points out they are being ridiculous and they stick to their guns or double down, then I’d say they moved into toxic team territory.

        Right now, they’ve got one mis step ( really bad one, but just one) which is happening in the midst of grief in a situation where there is no real instruction manual for how they should be reacting to the death, the services, their co-workers etc etc (ie every work situation, company culture, manager-employee relationship, family circumstance and individual mourner’s circumstances are different, so what’s “normal” or “expected” can vary widely … I’m the person at my workplace who arranges company condolences when there is a death in an employee’s family, or an employee themselves, and every time I have to think through what is the appropriate response in each situation … flowers/no flowers?, food/no food, individually signed group card or card from the owners on behalf of everyone? or an employee’s preference to keep their family events private, with only 1 on 1 personal expressions of sympathy from those they are close to. So many variations, I hope no one thinks ill of me or my employer if I ever didn’t get it quite right.

      5. Smithy*

        I don’t know about toxic so much – but I do think that it’s definitely a warning sign for just some more broad attention to this team if/when a new manager is brought on. Either promoted internally from that team, promoted internally from another team or an external hire – regardless I do think this is indicative of a lot of big emotions that may make becoming the new manager tough.

        Any new manager would likely do some things differently from previous manager, and if there are just a lot of big emotions – and the chance for a lot of push back towards different could be a risk – even if it never gets to the point of chasing folks off.

    3. Funko Pops Day*

      Your first sentence really struck me. I actually wonder if part of why the coworkers are being so inappropriate is from their own misdirected, stuck grief at what sounds like a fairly traumatic loss. Often times people who are mad and sad about something big will find a convenient target for it– so all the mad and sad about a beloved manager dying young becomes “I’m angry because Sam did something unforgivable”. OP, in talking to your team or your grandboss, I wonder if having EAP or other grief resources available to the team might be useful (thinking of something along the lines of “We all miss Manager, and I’m sure for a lot of us it’s still hard to accept. It is not OK to belittle or ostracize members of the team for responding to this loss differently than you. I’d encourage anyone who’s struggling with this to talk to our EAP [and/or other available resource here], as it’s really common for traumatic losses like this to take a while to fully process.”)

      1. Not putting the fun in funeral.*

        Absolutely! I hope there is an EAP. That would be helpful for all of them.

    4. Coelura*

      I am also not good with funerals and don’t go to any except very close family members. I just can’t handle them. I had a traumatic experience as a young kid at a funeral & now I just can’t.

      1. Wendy Darling*

        I also had a traumatic funeral experience as a child, and then in my 20s a family member died very traumatically and their funeral was one of the most excruciating experiences of my life. My entire extended family mostly just doesn’t have funerals anymore. When someone dies there’s generally a small family get-together at someone’s home and that’s it because none of us want to go to another funeral ever again including the person who passed away.

        I am very selective about what funerals I go to because I find them excruciating, and particularly with people I wasn’t close to it’s VERY hard work for me not to have an inappropriately large emotional reaction.

        I have no idea if I’d go to my boss’s funeral but probably not? And if I did someone like LW’s colleagues would probably find a lot of ways to take issue with my behavior because it would be odd.

      2. Not putting the fun in funeral.*

        I went to a lot of funerals as a child which really didn’t impact me as they were all great uncles and great aunts that I really didn’t know. It wasn’t until my great-grandmother passed away that I really struggled. And lord have mercy, when my ex-husband passed away I was a train wreck and am still recovering from the trauma. (He suffered a widow maker at home. And was only 41)

        1. Despachito*

          I am very sorry for your loss.

          The coworkers should realize they have no idea what happened in Sam’s life. Maybe he has some recent traumatic experiences, maybe not, but going to the funeral is generally to help yourself, as the grieving one, to close this chapter of life, or to support other grieving persons. I don’t think the coworkers need this support from Sam. They are acting very weird and toxic, and I wonder what the atmosphere at this workplace was before the death of the beloved manager, because this weird dynamic probably did not appear out of nowhere.

          I dare say that a healthy team should be able to absorb that someone is slightly different without wanting to ostracize him.

    5. Her My Own Knee*

      A few years ago I had a coworker pass away very unexpectedly. It was literally a month after my dad passed away, also very unexpectedly. I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle the funeral & wouldn’t have felt comfortable breaking down in front of my coworkers. These people are really out of line, and if I were Sam I would want to know just so I could find a different job where the people I work with aren’t so judgmental and catty.

  4. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

    Holy cats.

    All those reasons Alison gave. Plenty of people had bad experiences around death as a kid, and won’t go to any funerals.

    It’s not on Sam to explain himself, either.

    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Yeah, an acquaintance of mine passed away last year and several friends who were a lot closer to him went to his memorial service. I’d only met him a few times and I have a really hard time at funerals no matter how close I am to the person, so I couldn’t bring myself to go to the service. Honestly, it would have felt pretty weird to go anyway, given that I didn’t know his family and I didn’t really know him that well anyway. I’m a bit socially awkward and find making conversation with people I don’t know too well to be very draining in the best of circumstances. Sam may be the same way, or not, but whatever Sam’s reasons are for not attending, they aren’t for OP and their coworkers to deliberate about.

      And talking about kicking him off their team just for not attending??? Wow, what a toxic work environment, to say the least! I hope Sam gets out of there or gets a big raise to justify working with such terrible people.

    2. Buffy will save us*

      Within a span of a few years, I had an aunt, an uncle, a cousin, a first cousin once removed’s husband, my uncle’s mother, and now another aunt die. I’ve had coworker funerals’ in that timespan but I just have not had the bandwidth. It’s enough to go through this with family.

    3. Miss Chanandler Bong*

      And if they’re remote…who knows what is personal situation is and if it was feasible for him to travel.

      Still none of their business; there’s a million reasons why someone would choose not to attend a funeral and it’s none of their business.

  5. Sometimes I Wonder*

    The coworkers need help dealing with their grief in a way that doesn’t punish Sam. Even aside from the effect on Sam, not only will that not make them feel better about manager dying, it might result in negative consequences to them for harassing Sam.

  6. Amber Rose*

    LW please ask your coworkers to try and see things from another perspective. Sam has the right to not go to a funeral. I went to my boss’s funeral years ago and wished I hadn’t. It felt disrespectful and wrong to be involved in something that intimate with coworkers and my boss’s family.

    Funerals are for the living. If they cause harm, then that’s counter productive.

    1. MigraineMonth*

      As a counterpoint, I attended a coworker’s funeral, and I’m glad I did so. It felt like a respectful thing for me to do, even if I didn’t know the family. However, I would *never* judge anyone who didn’t go under similar circumstances, or assume I knew their reasons.

      1. Antilles*

        I agree, it’s a respectful thing to do, even if you don’t necessarily know the family. I’ve had family members pass and their co-workers attend and not once have I ever felt like it’s “disrespectful” for them to be there. If anything, it’s been touching that someone who only knew the deceased at work still cared enough to show up and express their condolences.
        And honestly if Sam was writing in ahead of time to ask “should I attend the funeral”, my answer would have been suggesting he goes to the funeral (or perhaps calling hours the evening before), barring some specific reason why not.
        The judgment by OP/co-workers is totally off-base, but as a general thing, I don’t see anything wrong with a co-worker attending a funeral.

        1. Name (Required)*

          I attended my boss’s memorial yesterday, and a fairly large percentage of my coworkers attended. I agree that it is generally a thing that would be respectful and appreciated, and it really felt that that was the case yesterday.

          All that being said judging a person for not attended is wrong.

        2. Ellie*

          Absolutely. In fact I know several people who took real comfort from the fact that their son was ‘so popular’ that all his friends and co-workers came out for him, and I know of at least one who was devastated because there were only about 10 people in total who came. Unless you’ve done real harm to a person, attending their funeral is never going to be seen as disrespectful. Please take this gently, but I think a lot of people use ‘I didn’t really know them very well’ as a way to get out of attending, because it makes them uncomfortable, not anyone else.

          Even if Sam’s reasons were entirely selfish though, it’s still wrong to hold that against him. Funerals and death in general are pretty unpleasant, and people make excuses not to go to them all the time. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they didn’t care.

          1. Mgguy*

            I think too that there’s some cultural and personal differences in funeral attendance.

            I rarely attend funerals for friends or co-workers, but always make an effort to go to the visitation where possible. I’m from the south, and that’s just what you do. With that said, a visitation CAN be awkward since really it’s more for the family, and the funeral is more about the deceased.

            Still, though, I’ve never felt out of place standing in line, walking up to the surviving family, introducing myself and how I knew the deceased, then just making a short and to the point comment about how much I liked/cared for/respected/etc the deceased.

            With that said, my wife’s family is very much private about funerals. I was not invited to attend a family one with her until we were engaged. They rarely publish more than a death statement, and sometimes even omit that. If I’d happened to walk into one of those services as not part of the family, I’d have felt very out of place.

            I’ve noticed in the Midwest, where I live now, that this a lot more common, although I’ve also gone for family of coworkers(i.e. the coworker’s spouse, parent, etc) passed and not felt out of place. Maybe, though, it’s just also part of a bigger cultural trend. A great aunt of mine passed away in the fall, and although they did publish a full obituary, the services were explicitely stated as private and the only non-family in attendance were the pastor and my aunt’s next door neighbor.

            1. MigraineMonth*

              Yes, this was the point I was trying to make. Some funerals are private affairs, some are not. If you have been invited or the details are published in the paper/staff newsletter, it means you are welcome.

              1. Mgguy*

                And I used a lot of words to agree with you!

                I also agree with your point, though, that there’s never an obligation to attend unless you have some sort of active role in the service(pallbearer, officiant, etc). Presumably even then, you wouldn’t have accepted that role if you didn’t fully plan to attend.

                I’ve known plenty of genuinely good, caring, kind people who for various reasons just couldn’t handle funerals.

                When my grandfather died, the caretaker who was with him at the end(along with my dad and uncle) came to the visitation and sat at the back of the chapel. He apologized profusely and just said “I’m sorry, but since my dad and son both died, I just can’t handle services. I wanted you all to know that I care about(grandfather’s name) a lot and it was such an honor to be with him in his last moments.” That honestly meant a lot more than him being there for the service.

  7. I'm A Little Teapot*

    Honestly, this is a shut it down with the individuals and then let an appropriate person in management know what’s going on situation, so they can monitor and handle things further if necessary. No one is required to attend a funeral, regardless of who the deceased is. Your coworkers are really going off the deep end.

    1. alice*

      YES someone in management needs to know asap because this is absolutely going to blow up even if LW tries to talk people down, and it would be a shame if Sam somehow gets in trouble in the inevitable blowup

      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        Yes OP should definitely be a cultural counterweight if possible, but probably doesn’t have the power to actually protect Sam if people are trying to push him out. Someone with that power should be looped in.

      2. Beveled Edge*

        Agreed. Honestly, I’m surprised that AAM didn’t recommend escalating this to whomever is managing the team, because this sounds like it’s going to get ugly. This might be a case of super social people feeling rejected by a quieter coworker, and that can lead to bullying without the extra weight of their grief. A manager needs to shut this down; I doubt a single team member will be able to do so on their own, especially since it sounds like the LW isn’t on Sam’s side and also thinks he’s cold and rude for not attending the funeral. LW likely isn’t going to be an effective counterweight, even if they parrot AAM’s wording. Unless the commentariat’s response is their wake-up call, fingers crossed.

    2. Nightengale*

      This is where I am landing. Talking to someone in authority (whoever is covering the management of this team, perhaps, unless they are also part of the problem) before the team tries to push Sam out. That probably trumps talking to teammates or to Sam directly.

      And I am saying this as someone who generally goes to funerals and memorial events (including work/school memorial events.) It’s a choice and there are many reasons why a person wouldn’t go.

      1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

        I think OP could also give Sam a heads up. Say something like “I don’t agree with them, but this is what is happening. I want to let you know because I’m going to grandboss/HR over the things they have said about you to me.

        1. Ellie*

          Honestly, I wouldn’t go that far. This isn’t on OP to fix, and I’d be wary of putting myself in the middle of this when grief and emotions are running high.

          Honestly, I think that gently pointing out that there might be other reasons why Sam didn’t attend is about all OP could and should do here. She doesn’t have to risk being seen as defending Sam if she doesn’t want to. It doesn’t even sound like she particularly likes Sam. OP could have a discrete word with their manager about this, but only if they trust them to keep OP out of it.

    3. Seal*

      Agreed. The coworkers are offended by the fact that Sam didn’t attend an event that they considered to be mandatory and refuse to give him the benefit of the doubt because they already didn’t like him. Would they have judged a coworker who didn’t rub them the wrong way as harshly if they didn’t attend the funeral? Probably not. What they’re doing is mobbing and unless someone steps in and shuts it down hard they’re going to escalate until they force Sam out.

      1. Despachito*

        I am very sorry for your loss.

        The coworkers should realize they have no idea what happened in Sam’s life. Maybe he has some recent traumatic experiences, maybe not, but going to the funeral is generally to help yourself, as the grieving one, to close this chapter of life, or to support other grieving persons. I don’t think the coworkers need this support from Sam. They are acting very weird and toxic, and I wonder what the atmosphere at this workplace was before the death of the beloved manager, because this weird dynamic probably did not appear out of nowhere.

        I dare say that a healthy team should be able to absorb that someone is slightly different without wanting to ostracize him.

    4. English Rose*

      Yes this. Someone in the management team needs to be aware they must be ready to deal with this, in addition to OP being the sane counterweight.
      I am so angry on Sam’s behalf. As others have said no-one knows what’s going on in his personal life or history. After the year I’ve had I could not have coped with one more funeral.

  8. Whoopsie*

    Yeah, you need to shut this down hard unless you want your team to turn into that one that ran off three different people that tried to fill the role of a dead coworker. Grief does not give people the right to be assholes.

    1. MsM*

      I was thinking of that team, too. There’s a difference between wanting to honor the memory of a coworker who passed and forming a weird little cult around the loss.

    2. London Calling*

      I read this and thought immediately of that one. Sam could have any number of reasons why he didn’t attend that are none of your colleagues business. They are WILDLY out of line with this and IMO laying themselves open to accusations of bullying.

      Holy cow. This is just not on.

    3. Samwise*

      OP is not their manager. OP should do what they can , as Alison advises, if they feel they can.

      OP can alert a manager about the situation. Not sure of the wording…

    4. Spinner of Light*

      Since the OP describes the Sam-slammers as colleagues rather than subordinates – and doesn’t identify him/herself as a manager – it’s very unlikely that OP is in a position to “shut this down hard”, much as that should be done. OP may be able to help by quietly interjecting a more balanced comment when people start piling on about Sam, but they’re not likely to be able to simply tell the team to knock it off.

      1. Expelliarmus*

        Sure, but they could let their deceased boss’s boss know (or whoever is overseeing the team in the interim since the boss’s passing), and hopefully they could shut it down.

      2. Insert Clever Name Here*

        OP may not have any authority to shut it down, but can absolutely say “whoa, that is really out of line! Everyone deals with grief differently and judging someone for dealing with it differently is not ok!”

      3. AngryOctopus*

        OP can shut it down hard as pertains to when the coworkers are speaking to OP (or around OP where they can hear). They need to hear some pushback about how inappropriate they are being about Sam.

  9. Mouse named Anon*

    Some people just don’t do funerals. Esp for those that aren’t close family or friends. This was me in my 20s. I really disliked funerals, thought they were awful and unless it was my grandparent that died, I wanted nothing to do with them. I softened to them as I got older. This maybe Sam, maybe he just can’t to do them. Maybe a close family member died when he was a child and its too traumatic. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to. That should be ok.

    1. LadyMTL*

      I’m in my late 40’s and I still avoid funerals (family and very close friends excepted.) Two of my colleagues passed away, in 2019 and 2023 respectively, and I didn’t attend their funerals despite the fact that we were “work friends.” It would have definitely felt performative at the very least. These people need to stop with all of this Sam hatred.

    2. ThatGirl*

      My husband really hates funerals. I don’t blame him. We have gone to some together that he felt obligated to attend, but it was purely family pressure that got him there.

      Meanwhile, I didn’t attend my maternal grandfather’s funeral, because he was awful and abusive and I wasn’t mourning his death. Don’t know what my cousins/aunts/uncles thought of me, don’t care.

      1. SimonTheGreyWarden*

        I only went to my maternal grandmother’s to make sure she was actually in that box.

    3. Decima Dewey*

      It is none of the coworkers’s business why Sam did not attend the funeral. Or to punish Sam for not going to the funeral.

    4. iglwif*

      I come from a community where attending funerals is a really important way of honouring the deceased and supporting their family. I’ve been to a lot of funerals for people I didn’t know well, because I feel it’s important; I’ve travelled out of the country for funerals to which my mom really wanted to go but couldn’t; I’ve “attended” funerals via zoom or youtube; not too long ago I spent my own money to go to a former manager’s funeral in another country in the middle of winter.

      AND ALSO!!! I do not judge other people who feel differently, or take attendance at funerals for the purpose of snarking people who didn’t show up, or interrogate people’s reasons for not going to funerals. People have reasons! And they are not my business!!

      OP’s coworkers are being deeply and extremely weird here.

    5. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      Yeah I still don’t really like funerals. However, my position as president of my Lions Club meant I had to go to a couple when we lost beloved older members. I sucked it because I considered the others and how they were feeling. But, if I had the option, I might have skipped them all together.

      I don’t need to see someone in a coffin to say goodbye to them.

      1. allathian*

        I’m so glad the Lutheran tradition I grew up in doesn’t do open casket funerals. I don’t think I’d be able to look at the remains of someone I cared about and not throw up.

    6. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      Yeah. I don’t do funerals. Period. Including my own – my instructions specify that there is to be no funeral, viewing, wake, whatever other traditions people want to come up with – my cremains and I want no part of it. My husband attends funerals but only reluctantly, and has also signed onto the “no funeral for me” instructions – I told his friends, they can do whatever they want to fete him after his passing but I don’t ever want to hear anything about it.

    7. MtnLaurel*

      My mother always believed “funerals are for family.” So she always paid her respects to the family at the funeral home, but stayed away from the funeral. Let’s give Sam some grace.

    8. Kitty kitty meow meow*

      I explicitly banned anyone from creating funeral for me after I die. So yeah.

  10. Lynn*

    The OP mentions the company paying travel expenses. Even with direct expenses paid for, traveling for a co-worker’s funeral is simply not in the cards for any number of reasons (pet care, child care, medical conditions, fear of flying, being in a best friend’s wedding, not wanting to go, or any one of a million other reasons that are not his coworker’s business if he chooses not to share). Heck, maybe his experience of boss was different than the others and he didn’t feel like going because he didn’t like boss as well as everyone else seems to have done.

    Whatever his reasons, wanting to kick him off of the team for not having the same reaction is pretty darn toxic, IMO.

    1. Lynn*

      Oops. Rather than “is not in the cards,” I meant to say “may not be in the cards.” I very often wish we could edit our posts. Sorry for any confusion!

    2. Bunch Harmon*

      I think you missed the bit where it said Sam was a local employee. Some of your points still stand.

      1. Lynn*

        I sure did. Darn it.

        I guess it is a good thing I am doing rote paperwork and emailing follow ups today rather than trying (and failing) to do detailed analysis work!

  11. JO*

    While I’m sure there was good intent, the company opened this can of worms by offering to cover the expenses for what is inherently a personal decision and event.

    1. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

      I disagree. The act of paying travel expenses for those who wished to attend does not somehow require another worker to attend just because he was local.

      The rest of the team needs to be respectful. End of.

    2. Crencestre*

      But if someone who wanted very much to attend the funeral but couldn’t pay for their transportation had to miss it, would that have been fair? Given this team’s attitude towards Sam, I’m afraid they’d have found fault with anyone who missed the funeral for ANY reason

    3. Skippy.*

      It’s crossing the streams of personal and work, but that always happens when you’re dealing with humans. The degree varies by person and by company, so while it might seem excessive for some individuals/companies/regions, it would be expected and/or appreciated in others.

      This sounds cold, but this was an unspoken team-building expense for the company.

    4. Saturday*

      There wouldn’t have been any worms in the can if the coworkers had acted normally. The company probably knew some people would want to go and offered that option. It should have been a simple, personal choice.

    5. iglwif*

      I don’t think so? Offering to cover expenses is just levelling the field so people can make the decision to attend or not based on what they want rather than what they can afford.

      Whether someone else had their flight covered has (or should have) no bearing on whether Sam chose to attend. OP’s coworkers are just focused on the wrong things.

    6. Eldritch Office Worker*

      No, this was a lovely thing for the company to do. Without more information, it’s possible the messaging didn’t hit the required “this isn’t required or expected but please reach out to finance if you desire to come” note, but even so this reaction is entirely out of line.

    7. Ellie*

      The company did a kind and gracious thing by removing a barrier that may have prevented people who wanted to attend from attending. That has nothing to do with Sam or Sam’s choices.

      To be frank, I’m kind of on the side of the other employees here in that I think Sam probably should have attended, or at least shared a reason why he couldn’t. I can see how not doing that has negatively affected his reputation. But they are obviously taking this too far. People can’t expect to be friends with all their co-workers, and they need to remain professional. Sam might have a good reason for not attending, or he might not, but not going to an important occasion like a wedding, a funeral, or a milestone birthday often has social consequences. If you have a good reason not to go, you’re almost certainly going to be better off sharing it.

      1. Unter den Linden*

        Thank you for this comment.

        While I think ostracizing Sam from the team would be a wild overreaction, I disagree with the rest of the advice given here.

        Sam needed to read the room. He absolutely should have attended the funeral. Funerals may not be about “taking attendance,” but it’s clear that this funeral was an important communal experience for the company — they were giving people time off to attend and reimbursing their expenses. The deceased was obviously a beloved and respected figure without the company. Not showing up is a way of saying that, when the chips were down, you’re distancing yourself from the company culture.

        Attending would have cost Sam nothing but an hour or two of his time when he’d be at work anyway.

        If there was truly some highly idiosyncratic reason he couldn’t attend (“a close relative died last week and I can’t stomach two funerals at once”), then he should discretely have let his supervisor know that.

        1. Ellis Bell*

          I think that some actions can be positive without framing the absence of those actions as a negative. It’s definitely a gesture of respect to attend a funeral, and it can create something positive and communal but it doesn’t follow that not going is disrespectful or negligent. Not doing something which is over and above the norm is simply neutral. This person literally did nothing! Funerals are also a big deal: that’s a lot of emotional labour no matter how close you live, and if you struggle with social occasions or bad memories of funerals, it multiplies infinitely. Completely unreasonable for it to be a baseline expectation.

        2. allathian*

          No.

          This company/team is fully out of line with the way it applies social norms about funerals (that Sam may or may not agree with) to the workplace. I can’t imagine any situation where that would be appropriate.

          That said, I think that Sam needs to start looking for a new job ASAP, there’s no future for him in this pile of toxicity.

  12. Blue Pen*

    Your coworkers are completely out of line and need to get a grip by channeling their grief in more positive, productive ways. They can take offense by Sam’s absence if they need to, but that should be the extent of it. Campaigning to get him off the team is utterly ridiculous, and without knowing your former manager—I’m so sorry for your loss, by the way—I have a feeling they would be upset to know this was all happening in their name and memory.

  13. Education Mike*

    As someone going through a personal loss right now, I can tell you that the kindest thing to do for absolutely anyone going through a loss (besides reaching out to let them know they have your support) is giving everyone the grace, space, and time to process the loss on whatever terms is necessary for them. No one grieves the same way. No one can know exactly how a person is processing a loss, even if you spend 8 hours a day Monday through Friday with them. If you try and control their grief, it will make your own grief worse. Let Sam do his own grief, and you all should do yours.

    1. learnedthehardway*

      That deserves to be repeated!!!

      The co-workers are COMPLETELY out of line in their reaction to Sam. Sam gets to grieve – OR NOT – in his own way.

      I would be talking to HR / management about the coworkers’ plans for retaliation. (And I’m sure that a good manager would NOT have wanted this to be their legacy.)

    3. NotAnotherManager!*

      Thank you! I feel like the coworkers are expecting Sam to react in the same way they are and behave the same way they do, which is just not how grief works. The fact that they are talking about removing him from the team is beyond the pale. I think the company needs to intervene and consider bringing in someone who specializes in grief to get these folks back in line. It almost feels like they’re channeling their own grief into aggression toward Sam.

    4. Blue Pen*

      Agreed. And I don’t mean to sound blasé about it, but there’s also a possibility here that Sam isn’t grieving or felt like they had a strong relationship with this manager. I know the LW says this manager was beloved, and that may very well be true from their perspective, but it might not be true in fact. I’ve had managers who were well-liked on the surface but their direct reports would tell you a different story. I doubt they would’ve attended those individuals’ funerals.

      All the same, I just find it very odd these coworkers feel like they’re entitled to others’ emotions after the sudden death of a colleague. They don’t, and it’s giving a bit of a “we’re all family here” workplace where the boundary lines are blurred. It’s not Sam’s job to exhibit grief in the workplace.

      1. allathian*

        Absolutely.

        People grieve in different ways, and suprise surprise, some people who aren’t sociopaths in general simply shrug their shoulders and go on as if nothing much had happened even after the death of someone they have a warm and loving relationship with. For some people sticking to routines and going on is what makes them feel better.

        This company culture feels toxic and enmeshed to me, and I hope Sam finds another job quickly.

  14. Les*

    I like a good portion of my office’s leadership but I wouldn’t attend their funerals if they were held in my backyard.

    1. Sparkles McFadden*

      Agreed. I’ve had a couple of really great bosses but no, I’m not going to show up at a funeral like we had a personal relationship.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        I would only do that for TechExBoss, and that’s because we’re still friends on Facebook. She gave me a stellar reference for ExJob and helped me get the eff out of OldState.

        I did write a nice memory on the website for LabBoss, whom I found out passed away last month.

    2. Admin Lackey*

      +1 Right there with you – not everyone is or wants to be close to coworkers and that’s up to them. Unless Sam was hired specifically to be their bestie, everyone in this office is being completely bizarre

    3. London Calling*

      Maybe the manager wasn’t as beloved to Sam as they were to the other members of the team.

      1. Seal*

        Entirely possible. Just because someone is considered “beloved”, it doesn’t mean that everyone likes them.

    4. Eldritch Office Worker*

      Right. I might know, like, and care about someone but a funeral is inserting yourself into their family and friends’ grief, which is a completely different comfort dynamic. Some people may still want to do that and that’s great but it’s not a direct corollary to how much you care.

    5. The Kulprit*

      Right? I’m with Sam, this is a job, I’m here to earn money to support my real life.

      1. Unter den Linden*

        Part of a job is building relationships with co-workers and reading the culture of the company you work at.

        1. London Calling*

          Which applies as much to colleagues as it does to Sam. While it might be the case that he doesn’t make much effort and keeps to himself, it doesn’t sound like the other workers make much effort with him. Perhaps he’s ‘read the culture’ and finds it toxic.

          I really feel for him. Going to work every day in that place must take a lot of his stoic attitude.

          1. allathian*

            Yes, this. It doesn’t sound like the team’s done anything to make Sam feel welcome on his own terms.

    6. hypoglycemic rage (she/her)*

      there’s only one of my managers – past and present – whose funeral i’d maybe attend, but that’s purely because we became friends outside of work. had we not, there’s no way i’d feel close enough to them to go.

  15. Mona*

    I’ve had several work colleagues pass away in the last few years and didn’t attend the funerals because I didn’t know them very well. Putting myself in the place of their grieving family, I don’t think I would have liked to see virtual strangers who didn’t know my relative that well show up. I saw it as more respectful not to intrude.

    1. Safely Retired*

      On the other hand, having a stranger show up and talk about how much the deceased meant to them can be positive for the family. Such can provide another point of view of the deceased. Of course I am not talking about wailing and gnashing of teeth, just sharing their experience.

      1. UKDancer*

        Yes. One of my grandfather’s carers came to his funeral and it was lovely hearing from him at the tea how much he liked my grandfather. We didn’t know him but it was touching how much of am impression Grandpa had left on his life.

      2. a long long time ago*

        Many years ago, as I was about a year into a new job, I heard that my boss from my previous job had died. I decided to go to the funeral, thinking that his family might be comforted to see as many people in attendance as possible.

        I didn’t expect to feel emotion — we’d had a good enough working relationship, but no personal connection at all. He had been a humorless drudge in my experience — he even initially refused to let me attend my own farewell party on my last day at that job, because he didn’t want to lose even 5 mins of my work time (a different manager finally asked him to let me drop by the farewell party for a couple minutes, and he reluctantly agreed).

        To my surprise, I started sobbing at his funeral and COULD NOT STOP. I had to leave the room in order to get myself under control. It was because there was a photo montage, and it included pictures of him laughing and having fun. In the years I’d worked for him, I had *never once* seen even a hint of a smile on his face — and I was so relieved and grateful to know that he HAD actually lived-laughed-loved during his lifetime.

        It was very embarrassing for me, and quite possibly upsetting to his actual family/friends, that I sobbed so hard at that funeral. And I couldn’t even explain it to them — I imagine they were wondering what my connection was to him that would make me cry so hard. How could I tell them I was crying because I was so *happy* to find out that he hadn’t been as relentlessly miserable as he’d seemed?

        Emotions can be unpredictable…

        1. Just say non*

          I can imagine myself crying if I saw that someone who had been hard on me wasn’t always that way. I would have wondered why he couldn’t have been his more positive self with me.

    2. Unter den Linden*

      It ought to clear that in this particular case, close family *wanted* co-workers to show up.

  16. Ma Mere*

    Yeah, shut this down. Funeral attendance, has many factors – their perception that he is terrible for not attending is inaccurate. Culture, the relationship, the travel effort (some people cannot leave due to caregiving needs/excessive burden on other family members) and let’s not forget trauma. A child dragged to a funeral at an inappropriate age/developmental stage/emotional maturity can be scarred well into adulthood.

    1. Anonymous from Long Island*

      Ten family deaths between age 8 and 10. No funerals or wakes for me after that until my late 20s. I am not proud of that, but I admit it now: I was going to crumple if I went.

      1. Lime green Pacer*

        Something similar happened to my husband. He participated in a high-risk, highly-skilled activity in his late teens. This was a group activity that attracted other teenage risk-takers. After attending ten funerals of friends in two years, t
        it took him a long time until he could handle another funeral.

    2. CityMouse*

      My brother told me it was a huge mistake to bring my nephew go to the viewing (open casket) when his granddad (my sis in law’s dad) died because my nephew didn’t understand and got really upset (he was only 4).

    3. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Sam is probably like many who post here:
      minimises social ineraction with coworkers, especially outside work. Doesn’t mean he keeps putting foot in mouth as some have suggested, just that his coworkers are very social in a “family” group whereas he just wants to do his work and go home to his private life.

      Sounds scary for those who are not social at work, to hear that at some places it may cause their coworkers to gang up and force them out of their job.

      1. allathian*

        Yes, indeed.

        I’m warm and friendly at work and make a point of chatting with my coworkers when I’m at the office, and I also post reasonably frequently in our casual team chat. But I don’t do after-work events anymore.

  17. Nancy*

    No one is required to attend a funeral and no one is required to give a reason. How others feel about it is not the person’s problem. I believe that each person should do what is right for them, and if that means skipping a funeral so be it.

  18. Not your typical admin*

    The coworkers are totally out of line. There’s so so many reasons that people choose to not attend funerals. Funerals can bring up lots of emotions and feelings about past events, or even current situations someone is going through. Lots of funerals are religious, and some people who aren’t a member of a particular faith may not be comfortable attending. Most reasonable people would not be reacting like these coworkers.

    If I had to guess, Sam doesn’t fit in socially with this team, and this event was just the icing on the cake for them to ice him out.

    1. Katydid*

      I agree with your guess. The OP wrote, “Some coworkers told me that Sam had always rubbed them the wrong way.” Sounds to me like they’re using his nonattendance as an excuse to distract themselves from grief with ‘righteous’ anger at someone they never liked. It’s a form of scapegoating.

    2. Spaypets*

      And in certain religions it’s forbidden for certain people to go to a cemetery (members of the Jewish priestly class, the kohenim, are not allowed to go to cemeteries or go to open casket funerals).

    3. Brain sparkles*

      I also think this might be the case. Sam is ‘stoic and private’ and doesn’t socialise – that might be true if them as a person, it might also be someone who doesn’t feel with the overall culture. And the boss was friends with a number of employees before they became employees – that sets off alarm bells for cliquey and potentially unprofessional behaviour from the boss…

      But even if none of that is true – I’m reading some subtext from the LW that Sam owes the boss something, just because the boss was a good’un. That just means they did they’re job well – nothing else owed!

  19. Elizabeth*

    Did he perhaps not go to make sure someone was still in the office? I have been the person who provided coverage while the rest of my team went to a funeral for a colleague. It didn’t mean I didn’t care; I just wasn’t as close to the individual as they were, and it gave my team the opportunity to attend without being glaringly obvious that no one was available to manage an urgent issue.

    1. Hiring Mgr*

      Possibly, but I don’t think we need to come up with a reason – Sam might have hated funerals, the manager may have been awful to Sam, Sam may have come down with Covid, etc etc.

      Doesn’t matter either way – colleagues are incredibly out of line and immature here

    1. Percysowner*

      Yes. I’ve told my kids that when I go I prefer that they spend as little as possible to bury me and spend the money on a nice wake with food and drinks. OTOH if they want or need a funeral they should do what they need to do because I will no longer care

      In any case I also don’t care if anyone shows up for whatever they do. Everyone gets to choose what works for them.

      1. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

        I’ve told my family and friends that when I finally go I just want them to have a party or something and share memories (good AND bad!) if they want to and attendance isn’t mandatory at all. If there’s people who’ll be glad I’m gone then that is perfectly okay for them (I am a pain in the arse) too.

        My grandmother was, shall we say not liked. Her funeral consisted of me, mum, dad and my sister. Then we went to the pub.

      2. Not putting the fun in funeral.*

        Yep. I’ve told my kids that when the time comes to take the money they would spend on a service and go on a vacation together. Or at the very least, do what they feel is going to help them start to heal the most.

      3. JustaTech*

        Years ago when my grandmother died the family got together for several days for her funeral. Parts of it were really hard for me, but other parts were kind of nice (a pleasant conversation with my brother, seeing family I rarely see). At the end of it all we were having dinner with immediate family and one of my little cousins (about 6 at the time) announced “this is the best vacation ever!”.
        Her parents were horrified, but my mom and my uncle laughed and laughed.

      4. WS*

        That’s what my grandfather said – he wanted no funeral service, cheapest possible cremation, and everyone to have a good time paid for by him. And we did!

    2. Snarky McSnarkerson*

      Came here to say the same thing. Also, some people consider that funerals are for the living. Maybe Sam just didn’t want to attend an event with his co-workers?

  21. Angstrom*

    Judging someone for how they do or don’t appear to grieve is way out of line. What if he had come to the funeral but didn’t appear to be sad enough to satisfy the others?
    Sam may have very clear work/personal boundaries, or be uncomfortable at public displays of emotion, or have one of many good reasons to not attend. It’s nobody else’s business why. He was not rude or disruptive and did not prevent anyone else from mourning as they wished.

    1. MsM*

      Good point. I bet these same coworkers would be mad at him for seeming insufficiently bereaved if he’d been there.

  22. Productivity Pigeon*

    Oh my god, poor Sam!

    There are SOOOO many reasons why someone can’t attend a funeral.

    When a good friend of mine died from a brain tumor, one person in our friend group didn’t attend her funeral because she had lost her dad traumatically not that long before and just couldn’t handle it.

    We didn’t expel her from the friend group.

    God, this makes me genuinely angry.

    1. Quoth the Raven*

      When my friend’s father passed, I didn’t attend the funeral because my dad had survived, not a week earlier, a health event similar to the one that caused her father’s passing. I couldn’t manage staring what could have happened to my dad face on, and I also felt guilty about feeling that way.

      No one, in any way, tried to shun me over it.

  23. mango chiffon*

    Hell, I don’t even like going to goodbye happy hours because most of the time they are indoors at a bar and I wear a mask all the time and don’t drink much, so it’s not an environment that I enjoy being in. I’m more than happy to say my goodbyes in the office, but if people were taking attendance at those happy hours and judging me, I’d be very upset.

    A funeral is even worse and more sensitive, because everyone has different reactions around death. I remember performing music at a teacher’s memorial service in high school (a teacher who never even taught me so I had no personal connection to her other than seeing her in hallways) but I was practically sobbing the whole time. I’m a very sensitive person around death and funerals and will break down crying (even while typing this) at thinking about strong emotions like this. Someone else’s family event seems like a private thing I wouldn’t want to be a part of, and funerals in particular make it more complicated

    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      I cry at every single funeral I attend, even the one for my friend’s grandmother, who I’d never met. I don’t think I’d want my coworkers to see me in that state.

  24. Tradd*

    I wonder if the rest of the team calls themselves “family,” which means they’re in and out of each others’ lives and have little boundary between work and personal life. In my experience, that type get very offended when someone doesn’t go along with the herd mentality.

    1. Sparkles McFadden*

      Yes, stuff like this is what happens when people buy into the whole “We’re like a family!” nonsense. It’s great if you have a good boss. It’s great if you like your boss as a person. It’s fine if you want to attend the funeral to pay your respects. But some of us definitely want the separation of work life and personal life and no one should be judged or punished for having boundaries.

    2. Ellis Bell*

      Yeah to be honest, they sound like they have all become completely boundary-less as well as cliquey. I’ve worked in cliques where you were either in or out, but to actively go after someone who is merely keeping their distance is really alarming. I hope it’s a temporary grief response, but honestly they sound like they’re still in high school.

  25. kjenkers*

    i think even taking the emotional/personal feelings out of it, for all you know, sam had every intention of going. something physical or traumatic could have happened that day!

    a close friend of mine died and i had to cancel my RVSP to the celebration of life the day of because my lower back had a flare up and i could not physically move.

    sam does not owe any of you that explanation, nor is sam responsible for having the exact same personal feelings you all have towards your boss. maybe their working relationship was different than yours! maybe he sent flowers! maybe he made a donation in their name! you don’t know, so leave him alone and tell your coworkers to back off because trying to ruin someone’s career over a perceived slight is insanity.

    1. Seeking Second Childhood*

      Yep. I missed the memorial for a beloved former manager because of weather. My house is just enough north of the gathering hall that they had rain –and my town was covered in a sheet of ice.

  26. Other Alice*

    A team that treats a coworker like this is not at all wonderful. I hope I’m wrong but it feels like the team is friends outside of work and they’re reaching for a reason to get rid of the person who (quite legitimately) treats this as a job rather than an extended social group. Quite shameful to use the manager’s death as an excuse to try and push Sam out.

    1. LegoSucculent*

      This is what I’m thinking. Can’t imagine why Sam wouldn’t want to discuss his attendance (or lack thereof) with these people.

    2. KateM*

      Also makes me wonder what does that say about the wonderful and beloved manager that the team they just recently led has such an attitude. Maybe Sam didn’t go to the manager’s funeral because Sam’s experience was different in the trusting, supporting and defending part.

      1. hellohello*

        I don’t think you need to make up mean things about the deceased boss to explain why judging Sam for not going is wrong. A jump like that feels especially callous when the person in question literally died. It’s enough to just say Sam’s coworkers are overreacting her.

        1. AnonymousForThis*

          It doesn’t seem like a leap. OP says the team had already formed opinions of Sam as standoffish… so it seems the team dynamic may have already been there. And that is at least partially on the manager.

          1. allathian*

            Absolutely. The manager allowed this culture to develop on his team. I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that Sam quite possibly resented that just a bit. Or maybe not, maybe he thought that being frozen out was a fair price to pay for getting to skip the, in his view excessive socializing. Only it stopped working when his refusal to attend the funeral pushed the rest of the team over the edge.

            But regardless, wanting to punish a coworker for not attending their manager’s funeral is simply so out there that it might as well be in orbit.

  27. Anon for now*

    I recently lost a friend, young, under traumatic circumstances. Some of their coworkers did attend the funeral (which required travel for most/all of them) and I appreciated seeing them there—it was nice to see how my friend had positively influenced people in other spheres of their life. But like, I wasn’t taking attendance to make sure Sally from Accounting showed up. Jeez.

    Sorry for your loss, OP.

  28. Brian the librarian*

    David Spade did not go to Chris Farley’s funeral. Some people just aren’t funeral people and there’s nothing wrong with that.

    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      I mentioned this too in another thread. Funerals are hard, don’t fault someone for not attending one.

  29. Jackie Daytona, Regular Human Bartender*

    From the description of your late manager, I imagine they would be dismayed to learn members of the team are using the funeral as an excuse to turn toxically against another team member.

    3. Expelliarmus*

      Someone in a previous thread said that the manager likely caused this environment on the team and is therefore not as shining of a person as this post would suggest, but I hope that the manager would indeed be dismayed because I don’t want to think ill of someone who is deceased and was loved by people around him.

  30. London Calling*

    *Some coworkers told me that Sam had always rubbed them the wrong way and him not coming to the funeral has greatly exacerbated this problem and they even talked about trying to kick him off the team*

    There’s a lot more going on in your team than just Sam’s non-attendance at a funeral, isn’t there? for some reason he doesn’t fit the team and that’s being used as an excuse to ostracise him and oust him. It sounds to me (having been on the receiving end of something the same) that there’s a nice cliquey vibe going on that Sam couldn’t or didn’t want to fit into and someone sees their chance to sort that out for once and for all.

    Office politics. How I hate them.

    1. Heffalump*

      “Some coworkers told me that Sam had always rubbed them the wrong way” could cover all sorts of things, not necessarily anyone’s fault.

    2. Hyaline*

      I agree that there’s some longstanding Thing brewing about Sam, but it’s really hard to diagnose or guess what it is from the info here. He could be being ostracized by a clique, but he could also be a jerk. But last I checked, being a cold fish or distant or even kind of unfriendly isn’t usually a fireable offense–it just doesn’t make you any friends.

      1. Heffalump*

        A had a coworker, “Rose,” some years ago, who was rather standoffish and all business. I was mildly disappointed, but that was her right.

        My workgroup moved on from this company, but I went to lunch monthly with a couple of my ex-peers. One day at lunch, one of them said that an uncle of Rose’s had previously worked there and had a poor work ethic. She felt a need to go to the opposite extreme and show that she wasn’t like her uncle. In that light her standoffishness made sense.

      2. Niles "the Coyote" Crane*

        He could be a jerk but the LW doesn’t seem to have much evidence of that (it could have been left out of the letter of course).

      3. allathian*

        Indeed, and some people are very much not into making friends at work.

        I do my best to be friendly with my coworkers, and mostly that’s served me well. I’ve had a few work friendships in my time, but I haven’t made a friend-friend at work, the sort of person I’d jump at the chance to spend my precious leisure hours with, since my days in retail 30+ years ago. One work friendship that misfired badly involved a boundary-stomping then-manager. I’ve told the story here before so I won’t go into it now, but I think that friendships at work are only appropriate between peers and always subject to ending if one becomes the other’s manager. Anything else is simply asking for trouble.

        I strongly suspect that the late manager was a part of the clique while Sam was excluded for being perceived as standoffish.

  31. StarTrek Nutcase*

    I (65+F) don’t do funerals, and don’t care if anyone else (family, friends, coworkers, strangers) does or doesn’t. While if pushed I’m more than willing to discuss my personal (and unpopular) view on funeral traditions, the interrogator usually walks away even more judgmental. More than a few commented on neither of my parents having funeral events despite being assured neither wanted one.

    I’ll never understand why people feel justified in judging others’ choices in life that don’t impact them. (Though when impersonal, like comments here, I find it interesting how varied we are in our opinions.)

    1. PhyllisB*

      Interesting you should mention your parents not wanting a funeral service. My mother also stated she didn’t want a service and wanted to donate her body to science. My brother and I were prepared to honor her wishes but my sister just stripped gears and wouldn’t hear of either thing. I tried to reason with her but in the end she talked my mother into agreeing to a service but didagreetocremationinsteadof fullservice. ( I had to coordinate because it was in our town.) Granted, it was a lovely service and in the end I was glad we had one, but I felt pressured into it
      I guess my point is no one should feel pressured into holding or attending a service.

      1. Safely Retired*

        My personal preference is what my wife also wanted and received. Cremation, with no wake and no funeral, but a month or two later a celebration of their life. Get together to remember them and swap stories. The delay can let the pain fade a bit, and give people time to fit it into their schedule. Holding it on a weekend helps with scheduling too. For my wife we held it at a restaurant. When we had one for my sister it was more of a pot-luck at a rented hall.

      2. Hroethvitnir*

        That is infuriating. It makes me so angry when family members block someone’s wishes *with their own body*. Just. No.

        The funeral is a bit more complex, given it’s a route for processing for the living, but it would probably also make me furious on principle if it was my family. I’m glad it was helpful for you in the end.

      3. allathian*

        Indeed.

        I’m in Finland, and here it’s illegal to go against the written and notarized wishes of a dead relative, unless following said wishes to the letter would mean financial hardship for the heirs. Many people plan their funerals out in detail, and people who can afford it usually specify a sum in their will to be used for funeral expenses.

        Granted, the penalties for not following this law aren’t particularly harsh (a smallish fine IIRC), but for some people who’ve never even had a parking ticket or been fined for speeding, the idea of being a lawbreaker is offputting enough to make them follow the law.

        But if you, say, want to donate your corpse to science here, it’s up to you to contact the pertinent authorities who process such requests. Sometimes such requests can’t be followed because there’s nobody to donate to.

        1. PhyllisB*

          No, we paid for everything from my mother’s funds.
          When we had this discussion Mom was still able to make decisions for herself and after everything was agreed on (cremation, a church service, lunch at the church she attended) she made it very clear that she expected us to use her money to pay for everything. We didn’t pay for the lunch, the church members wanted to do that (we’re in the South and this is the way THINGS ARE DONE now. I’m glad we didn’t end up with three dozen casseroles and fifteen cakes and pies at home. That’s the way folks used to do it.)
          I just realized tomorrow will be the first anniversary of her death.

        2. PhyllisB*

          Also meant to add I would have pushed harder for donating her body (she had made arrangements for this over twenty years ago) but the hospice nurse told me they would not accept her because she was too old and didn’t weigh enough. That’s all my sister needed to hear. I don’t know if that’s really true or not, but I decided not to fight it anymore, we had too many other things to deal with by then.

  32. Pride & Prejudice*

    I did not attend the funeral of a beloved aunt, not out of disrespect, but because she died under traumatic circumstances and I knew I would not be able to stop crying. I did not want to disrupt the service. Your coworkers should stop judging. Although it’s possible it’s easier for them to feel angry right now than grief. That happens. So poor Sam becomes a target.

    1. London Calling*

      A much loved aunt died and the funeral was held while I was on holiday. In retrospect I’m glad I wasn’t able to attend because I was a mess just hearing the news, never mind confronting the physical reality of her death in the shape of a funeral and burial. My uncle moved soon afterwards and even now a couple of decades later I get a bit emotional thinking of her in that cemetery with no visitors to her grave.

      And really, OP, Sam is not responsible for the feelings of his co-workers, they are. They’re turning him into a scapegoat for their grief. Out of interest, is this being led by someone who has problems with Sam generally?

      1. Butterfly Counter*

        The first family member whose funeral I could have gone to and remembered died while I was out of the country. My family all got together and buried and mourned him before I got back and they only told me the day after I had returned to the country. I understood, but was a little upset that they had made that decision for me, but what was I to do? Dig him up and rebury him? No thank you.

        I grieved him in my own way and it really made me understand how going to funerals can be a comfort and not a sign of how much you appreciated the person who passed. Funerals are for giving solace to the living, not a measuring stick of how sad you are that someone is gone.

    2. mango chiffon*

      I lost the only grandfather I knew to covid within the first year when vaccines weren’t yet available and travel restrictions were still there. I couldn’t go, and my mom had to get expedited passport renewal so she could go, and the whole thing was very awful and I still today am processing the grief over that

  34. CityMouse*

    Traveling for a funeral is extremely complicated. I didn’t go to my own aunt’s funeral because my kid had the flu.

  35. soontoberetired*

    I have only gone to 3 funerals that were tangently work related – someone’s spouse, sibling, child – but these people were also friends and I would have gone anyway. But lots of people didn’t go who were close to the spouse, sibling and parent and no one judged them for it. What awful co-workers.

    1. 40 Years in the Hole*

      While we were living and working in Europe, a colleague’s child died suddenly, tragically from an undiagnosed genetic anomaly. Our entire community, as well as fellow NATO colleagues and their families, attended the packed memorial service. Except for my spouse, who had just lost both parents back home, within a year of each other. Much grace was given…

  36. DramaQ*

    Gee I wonder why Sam is standoffish with the rest of the team? I can’t imagine this is the first time they’ve dogged on him it is just the biggest and most obvious.

    My grandmother and my MIL saw funerals as a competition and keeping score. You’d be playing Six Degrees of Separation with Kevin Bacon trying to figure whose funeral they were attending. It was about propriety and the risk of other people judging you for NOT attending than it was about the person themselves.

    I’ve always hated that. I view funerals as something for family and those that knew the deceased well. I would not go to a boss’s funeral unless I was particularly close to them. I would attend a visitation if there was one. Send flowers/a card but I am not going to the funeral because I don’t view it as my place.

    And I should have every right to do so without having to justify myself to anyone. It is none of your business why Sam chose not to attend and I am sure any reason he gave would be viewed with disdain by your coworkers.

    You need to shut this down HARD and talk to a manager who needs to enforce proper work boundaries and ensure Sam is still treated with professionalism. The fact they want to go so far as to drive him off the team is unacceptable. Clucking about him is distasteful but unfortunately there will always be work gossips. Trying to run him off the team is bullying pure and simple. This is not about a funeral, the funeral gave them motivation and a cover. Their manager needs to get involved before it escalates even further.

  37. iglwif*

    Good lord.

    OP, I say this as someone who recently spent a non-trivial amount of her own money and time to go to a beloved former manager’s funeral in another country: Your coworkers are unhinged.

  38. MI Dawn*

    I’m older, but don’t do funerals unless I absolutely must. I did attend one for one of my managers, who had died suddenly and everyone was shocked. Other people, family of coworkers, etc – no. I attend family funerals because they are family but rarely extend that to extended family.

    I would never consider ostracizing someone for not attending a funeral, for all the reasons given by others.

  39. Working under my down comforter*

    People respond to grief in their own ways. Maybe Sam didn’t feel comfortable going.

    1. allathian*

      And who’d blame him?

      Assuming of course that he feels any grief at all for the loss of his late manager, who at the very least enabled this toxic “we’re family” culture to develop on his team and possibly participated in it himself.

      People die every day and honestly I don’t feel anything except sorry for their loved ones when I hear about the death of someone I either don’t know well (or at all) or otherwise am not close to. The most grief I’ve felt in years was a few years ago, when one of my close friends lost her daughter to a chronic but generally not lethal illness.

      But then, I’m in Finland and here urban funerals tend to be private affairs, and death notices, if any, are published after the funeral. In rural areas things are different and a funeral service is like any other church service, open to the public.

  40. Clizia*

    I’m afraid that, whatever he does, poor Sam is in the “b***h eating crackers” territory

  41. Not Australian*

    Apart from anything else I try to avoid anything that involves religious observance. I still attend occasional funerals when I’m close to the bereaved, but only to show solidarity. (The same is true for weddings, baptisms etc.) My relationship with (a) the deceased and/or (b) the deity is entirely private and not a matter for public scrutiny, and I reserve my right – and that of every other individual – to mourn, or not, in a way that feels appropriate to me. We need to stop judging people on their personal response to any given event, whether local or global: if the guy isn’t actively picketing the funeral, or trying to disrupt it in any other way, IMHO that’s more than enough.

    1. CityMouse*

      Yes they had an altar call and affirmation of faith at a coworker’s funeral and we had a lot of people from work there, most who were not from her religion. So it ended up those of us just sitting there were a bit awkward with the minister trying to get us to join in. It was messy.

      1. iglwif*

        I went to a Christian funeral (unsure what denomination other than Not Catholic) for one of Spouse’s aunts), during which the minister harangued her four deeply sad adult children that they shouldn’t be sad because she was in a much better place now.

        Presumably some people would find this comforting? I, as a somewhat atheist Jew, found it weird and insulting. If someone presumed to tell me not to be sad at my own mother’s funeral, I might punch them.

      2. Hroethvitnir*

        Oh no. I feel awkward in churches, but I’ve never had a religious ceremony that tried to force participation. :/

    2. toolegittoresign*

      I was hoping someone would point out this aspect. I was not raised in a religion and funerals can sometimes involve a lot of rituals in the service that can leave you feeling really awkward if you don’t know what you’re supposed to do. And if you had a bad experience with religion, could even be upsetting.

    3. Coverage Associate*

      Also surprised it took so long for religion to come up. Coworkers may be uncomfortable with religious expression in general, or could belong to a religion that puts limits on their attendance at other religions’ services. Or even certain parts of their own religious services. The rabbi who came to the burial of my in law aunt couldn’t attend until the casket was closed, for example.

    4. Expelliarmus*

      A college acquaintance passed away shortly before Christmas, and I went to a prayer vigil they had the day after because I thought it was going to be more of a candlelight vigil thing. While it was mostly about Christian prayer, I (a Hindu) nonetheless prayed for her and her family in my own way, and I pet some of the provided therapy dogs before going home. Not much, but I wanted to do something to honor her even though we weren’t close. I believe they had a visitation later, but I didn’t attend that because I didn’t know her or her family enough for that to not feel awkward.

  42. JASSON*

    Let the coworkers try and get him fired. Then he can explain he doesn’t attend funerals due to religious beliefs and was retaliated against due to these beliefs.

    Might want to mention this possibility to your coworkers before they do something dumb.

    1. HonorBox*

      I think pointing this out to management will be better. They have better standing than OP to shut this down before there is a lawsuit. And I think if OP points out what you’ve perfectly pointed out, management will see the need to shut it down.

      1. JASSON*

        Reporting to management would probably the right thing to do

        I guess it is the meanness coming out in me when I see other employees attacking another (apparently decent) employee for no good reason and they deserve a little “payback”.

    2. Kay Tee*

      This! There’s no getting around the fact that funerals intersect with religion. One side of my family wouldn’t attend the funeral of their close relative because it was held in a church other than the one they belong to. They probably wouldn’t attend a secular service either on the same principle. On the flip side, I know atheists who won’t attend religious funeral services because they feel it’s a rite specifically for people who share the faith of the deceased.

      I have my own opinions about each of those stances and what I think a funeral should be. And I would share them with a loved one if they asked me. But I would never broach that topic with a coworker, it’s just not appropriate for a professional relationship.

  43. CatDude*

    1) There’s nothing wrong with seeing co-workers as co-workers, not friends. It’s great if you want to be friends with co-workers, but not everyone feels that way.

    2) There’s nothing wrong with not going to funerals. Not everyone grieves in the same way.

  44. The Rural Juror*

    I was extremely judgmental for a while towards a close friend who didn’t attend the funeral of another friend we shared. I couldn’t understand how they could just “skip” the memorial of someone who had been so kind and generous to them. What I didn’t realize until later was the person had been struggling for a while with depression. It’s not that they didn’t care about the service. They later described to me that they were doing everything in their power to keep up their routine and get to work and make it through the day. The service was not something they could have handled at that time. No one knew their struggles because they were trying very hard to hide it.

  45. Endless TBR Pile*

    I’ve been my mother’s emotional support daughter for every funeral she’s attended for the last couple decades. If I can’t go, she doesn’t go. For context, my mother is VERY sensitive, and her grief takes up physical space and has a presence like another body in the room. It is exhausting to be around. I don’t mind doing it for her – draining though it may be – because she is my mom and I care for her deeply.

    But because of this, I find funerals incredibly challenging. I go if I feel I have to, but I’d rather send cards, flowers, or a donation then be surrounded by so much grief. I process my own grief privately. If I learned my coworkers thought I was a heartless monster because I didn’t attend a funeral, I can’t imagine how upset I’d be.

    I really hope OP’s coworkers are just reeling from the loss, and will back off once the sharpness subsides.

    1. Bossypants*

      “Emotional support daughter.” I didn’t know there was a formal name for us! I was this for many years, until I moved away. I’ve never before heard such an accurate description of my own mother’s grief, but this has led me to avoid funerals for all but my own family members.

    2. cncx*

      My mother is similar and uses me to money launder her feelings and it sucks everything out of me. I had to “be strong for her” and make it all about her because she was making it all about her,

      So the last two friend funerals I went to without her, my grief response was inappropriately strong (hyperventilating crying) and it was because I realized she had hijacked my grief for my father (ironically from whom she had been divorced for decades) with her huge demanding fee fees and it was coming out at these other, less close funerals. I do not think I could go to a work funeral without making a fool of myself crying. That’s why I would have pulled a Sam. Because if I have any space at all for my grief, the grief my mother stole from me is gonna come out.

  46. Hush42*

    Not quite the same thing but over this past summer the founder of the company I work for passed away. He had retired 15-20 years ago at which point his sons took over the company. However up until COVID he used to come around the office about once per week to chat with everyone and see what was going on. He also attended all the annual parties. When he passed the family invited employees to the calling hours but not the funeral (which I felt was appropriate). I guarantee that not a single person could give you a list of who showed up and who didn’t. Because that isn’t anyone’s business and no one was paying attention to attendance anyway. The vast majority of the people who attended were the long time employees who were here when he was hanging around the office and got to know him. It’s so weird that anyone thinks its appropriate to “take attendance” in any way to who goes to a funeral and who doesn’t.

  47. HonorBox*

    OP, don’t go to your coworkers to shut this down. Go to whoever is managing your team now – and I’d even go farther and say go to everyone in upper management – and let them know that you have members of the team who have suggested that they kick Sam off the team. Now I’m sure they can’t just take a vote and kick Sam off with the right number of yes votes, BUT I would bet that they could cook up ways to make Sam’s life and work difficult. I have to believe that your company wouldn’t want to be in that position because it’s not an easy place to defend yourself out of.

    I’m sorry that your boss passed away. I’m also sorry that your coworkers aren’t allowing Sam to grieve in a personal way. No one HAS to attend a funeral, and no one owes anyone an explanation for why they didn’t attend. And as a peer, you’re certainly equipped to say that, but it sounds like it has escalated enough now that management needs to say that.

  48. CzechMate*

    I’m kind of shocked that no one is considering that Sam could have just had a conflict that they didn’t want to share with anyone (sick child, caregiver to a parent who can’t be left alone, a different funeral, that kind of thing). It sounds like everyone wants to assume the worst about Sam without considering that people don’t attend funerals all the time for very mundane and not weird reasons.

    1. CzechMate*

      To add to this: one of my best friends from childhood was murdered. I didn’t attend her funeral.

      We hadn’t talked in a while, and I only found out what happened and that there was a service a day or two before it was going to be held. At that point, we were living 3,000 miles apart. I actually started having a panic attack trying to figure out how to take time off, get on a flight, book a hotel, order flowers, in time for the service. My husband had to talk me down by saying, “Trying to attend this service is going to add to your stress and grief. Take the day off to reflect and feel your feelings. She would have understood.” In the end, I sent flowers and made a big donation to a charity that was set up in my friend’s name.

      So yeah, it’s entirely possible that Sam was trying to figure out a lot of logistics that the rest of the office is not privy to and just decided not to attend. It’s also entirely possible that Sam sent flowers and a card to the manager’s family, or that they made a donation in the manager’s name, or something like that.

    2. HonorBox*

      Reason or no, if people already felt like Sam was a bit chilly, they might also have some understanding about Sam’s choice not to attend.

      I think that in many, MANY situations, it is worth assuming positive intent first.

    3. DramaQ*

      Well he doesn’t need to give a reason first of all.

      Second I have a feeling it wouldn’t have mattered with these people. They strike me as similar to my grandmothers there is NO excuse to miss a funeral except maybe your own death and I am not sure even then. You drop anything and everything to attend a funeral even if it was for your neighbor’s cousin’s third wife’s cat. That is the respectful thing to do.

      With people like my grandmothers there is no white lie that would solve the problem.

      Third it almost sounds like they’ve been looking for a reason to get rid of Steve and now they found one. Who jumps to kicking someone off their team over a funeral? That is a pretty big escalation. I am thinking if it hadn’t been the funeral it would have been something else.

      Maybe Sam didn’t want to attend because he knows where he stands already with his peers and didn’t want to deal with them at a funeral on top of 8 hours a day at work.

      This is a situation for whoever is acting as manager right now or the deceased manager’s manager to handle.

    4. Coverage Associate*

      Yes, or even, Whom do you give the “excuse” to in such a situation? Even for work events outside of normal hours or at strange locations, I might explain to the organizer why I can’t attend, or to my manager, but I wouldn’t share that with my co workers, certainly not to several at once.

      I don’t know if these co workers have been so rude as to ask Sam why he didn’t attend, or to hint after an excuse, but that would be rude and deserves a non or vague response.

  50. SB*

    I’m in agreement with the advice. Sam’s coworkers are out of line and OP should shut it down. There are lots of valid reasons to not attend a funeral.

    But I am baffled by Sam’s behavior…I don’t think that Sam has a good pulse of his teammates if he’s not even offering an explanation of why he didn’t attend. (and if there’s a super personal reason, just make up a lie. It’s fine. Coworkers love polite lies. Professionalism THRIVES on polite lies) Funerals are for the living. You aren’t going to show your respect for the deceased. You show up because people you care about are grieving. You show up for your community.

    I understand your colleagues aren’t your friends, usually. That’s fair. It’s fine to have boundaries. But your colleagues are still people, and you still need to pretend that you care about them as people.

    Again! Not on the coworkers’ side for getting rid of Sam. They are wildly out of line. But Sam’s behavior feels weird to me.

    1. HonorBox*

      I agree that a small lie in a situation like this would go a long way. OP, maybe just make the suggestion to Sam that they may need to give a reason because coworkers are having an outsized reaction to Sam’s absence.

    2. tabloidtainted*

      Sam doesn’t owe that explanation to his coworkers. I don’t disagree that we each owe our community something, but it’s a stretch for me to believe that coworkers are within that community by default. They might be, but that would depend on each individual’s relationship.

    3. Naomi*

      As others have pointed out, there are MANY conceivable reasons that Sam shouldn’t have to discuss with his colleagues: medical crisis, family emergency, personal bereavement, religious observance, mental health issues, etc. I mean, yeah, I guess he could lie, but it feels icky to insist that he lie for the sake of placating people he doesn’t owe any answers. Preemptively lie, even, since it sounds like no one has actually asked him about it. (Which they definitely should not do! But the gossiping behind his back about it is not better.)

    4. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      I disagree. This is work, not family. Like many of us, Sam probably just works to get paid and has only superficial social interactions with coworkers and managers.

      Even with family and friends, I only attend funerals of those to some I am very close. I never explained or excused not attending, just like I never expected explantions from those who didn’t attend the funerals of my loved ones.
      I understand some people feel the need to attend every funeral o wedding to which they are invited – but an invitation is not a command.

    5. Hyaline*

      I…am getting the feeling that Sam has not done a fantastic job reading the room of the team culture, or if he has, he doesn’t care. Which is his prerogative! But it also feels like he may have misjudged how his coworkers felt or what their understanding of norms and expectations were, and as a result, is coming across as callous and unsympathetic. Something as simple as “I’m sorry I won’t be able to travel to be there, please pass along my condolences” would have been wise from a relational perspective, I would think? (I do not condone the coworkers’ reactions or think the coworkers’ move to get him booted is AT ALL appropriate, but Sam seems to be doing zilch to help himself here.)

    6. Green Post-Its*

      100% agree. The co-workers are in the wrong (getting him fired? What?), but Sam might have saved a lot of stress with a short email or remark in a meeting ‘I’m unable to attend because of [something appropriate] but I’ll be thinking of you all on Tuesday.’

      Of course you don’t owe co-workers details of your personal life, time outside work, emotional intimacy, etc. but a small amount of social play-acting will make life at work much smoother, especially on teams that are more close-knit.

      Hell, , I feel awkward making chit chat with most people, and I’m far outside my comfort zone attending a funeral. But I understand that some kinds of events require at least an acknowledgment so that you don’t appear rude and accidentally alienate people.

    7. Coverage Associate*

      I’m trying to think of an office culture where I would present such an excuse, true or not, to a group, especially after the fact. It’s not something I would drop in a Teams chat. Maybe ahead of time, if the group was coordinating carpooling or something, I would say I wouldn’t be able to attend, so that they weren’t waiting on my input. I did that once when the office was gearing up for team Halloween costumes, and I don’t celebrate for religious reasons. But I wouldn’t state my non participation out of the blue, and I wouldn’t think to give a reason for something like this, which was at least at a non office location, and might have involved non office hours.

      And I can’t imagine just dropping “There’s been lots of talk about why I didn’t attend the funeral. I didn’t attend because…” in the team chat.

    8. ThisIsNotADuplicateComment*

      I would bet good money that any reason Sam gave for not going wouldn’t be good enough. Medical appointment booked months in advance? Just reschedule – funeral only happens once. Feeling sick/sick family member/disability flaring up? Just go anyways – you’re not dead the poor manager is. Trauma around funerals for whatever reason? Just get over it, everyone else is sad and they’re going.
      I can’t imagine Sam being able to avoid the wrath of this team without giving up all the gory details, and even then would they be gory enough?

    9. Irish Teacher.*

      I dunno. It’s very likely Sam just took the message as “we’ll pay if you want to go” and may not have thought anybody would even notice if he was there or not. He may not have even realised all the rest of his coworkers went; he might have assumed it was just those close to the manager.

      Two years ago, one of my colleagues died and our school closed for the day to allow anybody who wanted to attend to do so. Most people did, even one teacher who had only been in the school for a few weeks or so before the colleague got ill, which surprised me, but there were certainly a couple who didn’t and to be honest, I’m sure there are people who didn’t attend and I didn’t even notice they weren’t there. Most didn’t give us a reason because…why would they?

  51. Seeking Second Childhood*

    Is anyone else starting to fear that the sniping coworkers are already jockeying for who will get the manager’s position?

    The more I think about this the more it feels like Survivor shenanigans. I agree with Alison that OP should try to get their co-workers to back off, but think that next-level management should be let in on the potential tempest in this teapot.

  52. sarah*

    I am a little disturbed by the comments saying “I don’t go to funerals because I really hate them / they’re upsetting to me.” I assure you, the rest of us don’t like them and find them upsetting too. You are not different in that way. Most of the rest of us go anyway, even though it’s hard and awful, to support the family and pay our respects.

    I am not talking about people with genuine trauma or other cause to miss a funeral, I’m talking ONLY about “I don’t go because they’re upsetting to me.” THEY’RE UPSETTING TO ALL OF US.

    I would never ever say this to someone who didn’t go, but would I judge them privately? Yes. My relationship with a cousin will never be the same after she couldn’t be bothered returning from a beach vacation 90 minutes away to attend my parent’s funeral, my parent who had been an enormous support to her throughout her life. We needed her there. I will always see her as selfish (which frankly fits what I already knew about her but this crystallized it for me).

    This is not about Sam or work funerals, this is just a reply to the “oh it’s too upsetting for me to attend funerals / I don’t like funerals” above.

    1. Von*

      They’re upsetting to all of us so why attend the funeral of someone you have no connection with? Save that for meaningful people.

    2. mango chiffon*

      This feels a little ungenerous. I am very sensitive and cry easily around death, but I also don’t want attention drawn to me. I would feel very uncomfortable attending a funeral of someone I am not super close with and then end up sobbing and crying because of the situation I’m in and drawing attention to myself. Ultimately the funeral is not about me, and I don’t want to make it about me to the detriment of the people who are close to the deceased.

    3. Nancy*

      Nope, people can choose to not attend for whatever reason, other should focus on their own grief instead of judging.

    4. CatDude*

      I think you would be happier in life if you were less judgmental and more understanding that people grieve differently.

    5. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

      I know when people state personal feelings that don’t mesh well with your own it’s a common human reaction to immediately label them as wrong.

      But if their views are not harming anyone then trust me, it’s a lot less stress to just accept that people are different and let it pass. Someone not turning up to a funeral isn’t a personal slur against another person (unless of course they directly voice that it is).

      For what its worth I very rarely attend funerals. My family structure is…complex and there’s a lot of feelings and politics involved.

      1. Hroethvitnir*

        I know when people state personal feelings that don’t mesh well with your own it’s a common human reaction to immediately label them as wrong.

        But if their views are not harming anyone then trust me, it’s a lot less stress to just accept that people are different and let it pass.

        Widely applicable! ❤️

    6. London Calling*

      Peoples’ reasons for not attending funerals – WHATEVER they might be – are not yours to judge.

        2. Workerbee*

          It almost certainly affects how you treat the person on the outside of your head vs just staying fermenting on the inside, however.

    8. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      If you are inclined to judge me based on whether or not I attend a funeral, then we’re probably not close enough that I give a hang what you think and you are welcome to escort yourself right out of my life and let the door hit you.

    9. NotAManager*

      First I want to say, I’m really sorry about the passing of your parent and the fact that your cousin really hurt you by not attending their funeral. Grief is a REALLY difficult brain-space to be in, it’s a lot of emotion with nowhere to go because the only thing that will genuinely alleviate it is having your loved one back. It’s awful.

      However. Funerals are, at the end of the day, cultural rituals devised to help the living deal with the enormity and tragedy of death. Attendance or non-attendance is not mandatory, nor indicative of what kind of person someone who chooses not to attend funerals is. I say this as someone who grew up in a religion (Roman Catholic) where attending wakes and funerals is normal and expected, even for people with whom one has an extremely tenuous social connection. For some people, partaking in this ritual is comforting. For others, it’s upsetting. There’s no one good or true or right way to deal with death and I would caution against judging people so harshly on this particular issue.

    10. ArlynPage*

      I disagree entirely; I usually attend funerals because I find them a necessary part of the grieving process, and I am filled with warmth and love for the other people who loved the deceased. I don’t consider them upsetting, generally, although maybe I’ve just been lucky. Even when I cry at funerals (which I do almost every time), it can be a catharsis and I’m never the only one crying.

      Having said that, I don’t expect everyone to have the same mindset as me, and I would never judge someone who didn’t attend, for any reason. You seem to be taking your cousin’s non-attendance as a personal and intentional act of disrespect toward yourself; have you talked with her about needing her there and have you asked in good faith why she didn’t attend?

    11. My Brain is Exploding*

      I understand what you are saying, and I agree that (most) everyone finds funerals upsetting to attend. I think the would-be-attender needs to carefully balance the amount/way they will be upset v the amount of help and comfort they can bring to the family by being there. If it is someone very close to you or the deceased, then an explanation of non-attendance would probably be helpful for the relationship. I also think that the visitation is a good place for those who want to show up and say a few words to the family but don’t feel close enough to the deceased/family to attend the funeral or perhaps are unable to attend. I very much appreciated seeing some of my dad’s former coworkers at his visitation. I have to decide whether or not to attend a funeral this week, for a young adult child of an acquaintance of mine at church. There is no visitation (which is where I might land if there was one), and I think the church people solidarity will be helpful to her. Would she notice that I wasn’t there? Maybe not. Will she notice that a LOT of people were there, and maybe remember that I was there? Probably.

    12. PhyllisB*

      I feel this so much. When my dad died many years ago my sisters- in -law didn’t attend (not even the visitation) because “you weren’t that close to your dad and I can’t handle funerals.” We were all very young then, and even though I wasn’t thrilled I could understand, because who really loves funerals and they didn’t know him well, but the next week they all attended a funeral for one of their acquaintances. Not even a close friend, and I was extremely hurt. It took me a number of years to get past that.

    14. Myrin*

      FWIW, I haven’t found any of the funerals I’ve been to so far particularly upsetting. Granted, they’ve not been for the two people closest to me but I feel like even then, it wouldn’t be the funeral that would upset me.

    15. Andromeda*

      Nope. Absolutely not.

      When my beloved grandma died, my mum actively forbade me and my brother from being at the funeral; we were teenagers at the time. She hates funerals and I think wanted to shield us from it all.

      The idea that someone would be trying to quantify how much I loved my grandma based on my non-attendance, or making assumptions about my character, makes me genuinely angry.

      That’s not to say, to be clear, that your relative specifically wasn’t actually just being quite thoughtless. But you *have* to take people’s word for it when they say they can’t put themselves through that. You cannot extrapolate that person’s thoughtlessness and use it to make assumptions that others are… what, just too lazy to attend funerals? I’m sorry, but no.

    16. Insulindian Phasmid*

      Respectfully – what would you have needed her there for? How would her presence have helped you?

      I only went to my grandmother’s funeral because I knew my mom would make a scene if I didn’t. I didn’t get anything out of the funeral for myself. I didn’t need the closure, and although I did bond with my grandfather on hearing some of his stories about her, that didn’t need to take place at the grave site.

      Going to a funeral or not is a balance of (How much it hurts you to go, emotionally or logistically) x (how much it hurts you not to go) x (how much it hurts or helps the other people there). That’s complex math and people don’t always have all the information.

    17. Sigh*

      I feel like some people here are just piling on. Sarah said she judges people …don’t we all? She gave a specific example, and she provided an OPINION. She is judging them PRIVATELY. You can agree or disagree with the “funerals are upsetting” bit but please get off her case for the way she thinks. She isn’t hurting anyone.

      1. Jennifer Strange*

        Just as Sarah is allowed to provide an opinion, others are allowed to provide their opinions as well. Disagreeing is not piling on.

    18. Hroethvitnir*

      That’s an interesting take. I don’t find funerals upsetting – mostly, I find them awkward, and a few times they’ve been really great because they bring together people who you wouldn’t see otherwise.

      Anyway, I’m not a terribly emotionally expressive person, and would go to a close coworker’s funeral if culturally appropriate – my partner is a manager and has been to funerals of employee’s family members (and they really appreciated it).

      I still disagree strongly with you! Pushing yourself to go to a funeral to support someone you love is one thing. Attending for some kind of social performance? Hard no, and not remotely a universal expectation.

    19. Lab snep*

      I’m certain that I have family judging me for not going to a cousin’s funeral, but I am mostly estranged and nobody told me she was ill, let alone dead, until weeks after her funeral.

    20. Darcy*

      Sarah, you and I think a lot alike. One of my parents died many years ago, and to this day I remember who did and who did not show up to pay their respects. Neighbors that I hadn’t seen in decades showed up. Cousins that I’d seen two weeks earlier couldn’t be bothered to put in a 10 minute appearance. No one that showed up thought that it would be a fun time, but they did so and to this day I remember who they are and am grateful to them. I remember them now when a co-worker or acquaintance dies and I think “oh, going to the funeral would be a real drag”. Most of the time, I make an appearance at either the visitation or the funeral and I’m always glad to have done so. It’s a matter of thinking of others rather than myself, to be perfectly honest.

  53. I can't enter a cemetery.*

    Everyone handles death differently. Some people cannot handle funerals.

    Being Jewish and from a family of Cohens, I know that we are not allowed to set foot in a cemetery for religious reasons. Does the writer know that they might be ostracizing someone for a religious practice they know nothing about?

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      Truly curious – what is the actual prohibition? Like, is this a Jewish thing or a Cohen thing (?) or something else?

      1. iglwif*

        It’s a Cohen thing.

        The nicer of the several Jewish funeral homes in my city has built a separate area where Cohanim can watch the service via CCTV. That doesn’t affect the cemetery prohibition though.

      2. Indolent Libertine*

        The name Cohen derives from the Hebrew word for “priest.” In the time when the Temple stood in Jerusalem, the priests were charged with performing certain ritual functions. Contact with a corpse renders an individual ritually unfit to perform those functions. So, a traditionally observant Jewish man who is descended from a priestly family will not do things like go to a cemetery that would cause him to acquire this state of unfitness. It’s a bit of an anachronism, because those duties cannot be performed now anyway by anyone since there isn’t a Temple and hasn’t been one for centuries, so the notion that any random Joe Cohen from Boca Raton might be called on to fill in as High Priest on a moment’s notice and therefore has to stay always ritually “pure” is… a bit of a stretch, but that’s the origin of the custom.

    2. NotAManager*

      I was also wondering about this, whether there was a religious element to their non-attendance (not that it’s any of Sam’s coworkers business either way). I’m honestly really taken aback by how harsh the coworkers are being, there are about a thousand reasons why someone would not go to a funeral, it doesn’t make them a bad person or a bad coworker.

    3. Hyaline*

      This! And there are other religious prohibitions, too. Not as specific but just as legit, especially if it was an overtly religious funeral service, but even if it was just sort of vaguely so, there are plenty of faiths and sects within faiths that do not attend services or “participate” in services (for which many feel attendance is participating) outside their own faith.

    4. Irish Teacher.*

      Good point. There was a time when Catholics weren’t allowed to enter Protestant churches which caused a rather awkward situation when Ireland’s first president died as he was Protestant and…most of the Irish government were Catholic. They stood outside the church, but yeah, a state funeral that most of the population of the country couldn’t attend…

      So yeah, it’s not at all impossible that there is a reason like that that Sam could not attend.

  54. Von*

    The dead giveaway of OP’s motivation: “[To] him, this job is a means to make money and doesn’t really socialize outside of the office and that’s fine.”

    That’s what jobs are for. OP sounds like someone who believes in “we’re a family, not coworkers” nonsense.

    Are “others” upset? Maybe, but this letter really is about the perceived personal affront to OP

  56. I Am Sam?*

    Oh, my. This just happened to me – my beloved boss died and I was so grief-stricken that I fell ill and was bedridden for weeks and missed the funeral. Several people who didn’t work as closely with my boss as I did have been giving me trouble ever since.

    Maybe I’m not Sam. Maybe Sam is just a cold person. But maybe Sam was actually too devastated by the death to be there. Maybe cut Sam some slack.

  57. Juicebox Hero*

    My cousin’s wife sadly passed away last November. I made it to the wake and hobbled around with a cane, because I was having such a bad sciatica flare-up I could barely walk. The funeral was in a city I’ve never driven to at a church I’d never heard of, and the pain was in my right, ie driving, leg. There were about 20 people in the receiving line. I knew four: my cousin, my aunt, and my cousin’s two kids. The next day the pain was agonizing from hobbling around all night. I didn’t go.

    My sister drove from her house to show off her new Land Rover and brag about organ donation stuff to the wife’s family (long, infuriating story) but refused to go to the funeral because there’d be no one to watch her two adult, healthy, no special care or feeding requirements, crate trained dogs for the afternoon.

    Who’s being frozen out by my aunt’s family? Me. Who’s their golden girl? My sister.

    I’m 85,000,000,000,000% on Sam’s side here.

  58. ThisIsNotADuplicateComment*

    LW, at best you and your co-workers are in shock and lashing out in fear. At worst you are toxically enmeshed with this job. Why does it matter that Sam didn’t tell you why he didn’t go to the funeral. Why does it matter that he didn’t go at all.
    Are you afraid he wouldn’t be sad if you died? (Would you be sad if he died?) Do you think your manager was such a good person the lives of every person they ever spoke more than three words to should be rocked to the core by their death? Are you mad Sam’s reaction implies that might not be the case? Are you mad he isn’t pretending that’s the case?
    Talk to a grief councilor, figure out the answers to the first two points, and tell your other co-workers to knock it off. Would “one of the good ones” be happy to know a lack of public grief tore apart their team and had a good employee kicked out? Focus on that if you truly can’t accept that Sam isn’t the type of person to rend his garments and break down in the hallways.

    1. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

      Talk to a grief councilor

      Excellent advice! Sadly I’ve had to consult one this year and they’ve been very helpful at helping me process a few things.

  59. Bugs*

    Is anyone else wondering if Sam is neurodivergent? The letter writer didnt indicate that, but when i’ve seen groups turn against a member with no good reason besides dont liking their vibe, often the person targeted was on the spectrum.

    1. Office Plant Queen*

      Yep, I was also wondering this. We don’t have enough information to know or even to guess if that’s the case. But it wouldn’t surprise me, because I’ve seen that kind of thing play out several times. Usually the person in question gets labeled as “annoying” when I’ve encountered it, but I know it can happen when people have quieter presentations of neurodivergence, too

    2. Andromeda*

      This doesn’t really change the advice in the letter (which is basically “please stop and try your best to get your coworkers to stop” anyway). It doesn’t and shouldn’t matter *why* Sam is treated as the odd one out.

      1. Hyaline*

        Well–it might matter why if the difference is “Sam is a callous and aloof jerk who has shown little regard or sensitivity for his coworkers in various ways over the years” vs “Sam is a little awkward and maybe neurodivergent and has through no fault of his own become a cliqueish set of coworkers’ BEC.” I said below–I think OP should keep an eye for where any longstanding resentment toward Sam came from so she can be sure to avoid any toxic backwash from it, either from the coworkers or from Sam or from both.

  60. Ping*

    I learned today a coworker’s father is in the process of dying. I wouldn’t have known if he didn’t tell me. You never know what your coworkers are going through, especially the more reserved ones. Assume the best in people, not the worst. Etc.

    (Also, sorry for your loss! That must be hard to deal with given that it comes ala drama!)

  61. Not A Manager*

    I was sure the “you may also like” links would include the one where the team was pushing out new members *years* after a co-worker’s death.

    The manager’s passing sounds like it was really traumatic for many team members. They don’t get to punish Sam for it, though.

  64. Turingtested*

    The deceased was a wonderful boss to you, OP but perhaps they weren’t to Sam.

    I have skipped funerals because I wasn’t sure I could make the appropriate reactions based on my relationship to the deceased. And there is no way I’m ever going to someone in mourning “Oh that person was a total jerk to me, no way am I going to their funeral.”

  65. Cornelius*

    We really have no idea as to what kind of relationship Sam and the late manager had. Maybe Sam wasn’t one of the “favorites.” Just because you think your boss is great and fights for the team doesn’t mean they really fight for everyone on the team, nor does it mean your fellow team members feel that way towards your manager.

    This office sounds incredibly clickey and it might be better for Sam to get out before they put him out!

  66. Justme, The OG*

    Story time. One of my employees died late last year. He was an adjunct professor under my supervision. He was probably the kindest man I ever met. I got word from his family and was the one to spread the news to the departments.

    Did I go to his funeral? Nope. I hate funerals. I would rather have an unmedicated root canal than go to one, so I save that for very close family only.

  67. not nice, don't care*

    I was the Sam when a dearly loved coworker died suddenly. I just couldn’t go to the public grieving session. Not after dealing with multiple deaths of close family a few months before.
    No idea how my coworkers felt about it. I felt like a jerk, but I knew my coworker would have absolutely understood.

  68. Eldritch Office Worker*

    Everyone else has made terrific points about Sam but I’m also pouring one out for the poor manager who is going to inherit this team.

    1. Jennifer Strange*

      Oof. Good point. I hope it doesn’t become a repeat of the team that kept driving away people hired into a deceased teammate’s role.

  69. Abogado Avocado*

    LW, I’m sorry for the loss of your manager.

    If life has taught me anything, it is that everyone grieves differently and it is not my place to judge those who grieve differently from me. Some people appreciate the support that funeral attendance brings; others want to grieve in private. No one owes anyone else an explanation of why they grieve as they do — and particularly not at work.

  70. Former Retail Lifer*

    My former co-worker just died and his co-workers, despite visiting him in the hospital daily and talking to family members there, were not even invited to the funeral. We respected that they wanted to keep it small.

    If Sam wasn’t close to his boss, he may have not felt right going.

    1. And thanks for the coffee*

      Do people actually issue invitations to funerals? This is an honest ask. In my experience the funeral and wake/visitation information is out there and people choose whether or not to come.

      1. NotAManager*

        Sort of? In my experience when there’s no location/date listed in the obituary, it doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s not going to be a memorial, but that however the family is remembering their loved one isn’t public. Sometimes it does means nothing specific is planned, but more frequently it means that the service and burial will be private, so only a small number of people would be “invited” (not in the sense of getting a written invitation, but more getting a phone call or text).

      2. I Have RBF*

        For celebration of life/wake, yes, sort of. The notifications of the time and place are sent out, often by email these days, and if there is food planned, they will ask for an RSVP.

  71. ReallyBadPerson*

    I confess to judging my MIL for not going to her granddaughter’s funeral, but only for the reasons she gave, “I’ve been to enough funerals in my life” and “It would be all about the baby and no one would pay me any attention” rather than the fact of her absence.

    But I would not judge a co-worker for not attending a beloved boss’s funeral.

  72. queue*

    “Sam is a pretty stoic and private person; to him, this job is a means to make money and doesn’t really socialize outside of the office and that’s fine.”

    Apparently it’s not fine. Yikes.

    “Some coworkers told me that Sam had always rubbed them the wrong way”

    I’m sure the group has done a fantastic job hiding this. Can’t imagine why Sam doesn’t want to go try to show the socially-acceptable-to-this-group amount of grief at the funeral of a work acquaintance.

    1. London Calling*

      Colleagues who have their little cliques and exclude and ostracise ALWAYS think that their victims don’t know and don’t notice. Then something like this blows up and they realise that actually, the target of their behaviour knows exactly what’s going on.

      I’ve been the stoic and private person and this sort of situation hurts like hell because you want to belong but realise that someone has decided for whatever reason that you don’t. Team Sam here.

  73. Worker Bee*

    Between the ages of 15 and 17, I was made to attend three funerals — one for a childhood friend, one for a longtime family friend, and one for my maternal grandmother. They all died very tragic deaths. And they all had open caskets at their funerals, which I was forced to view, since that was the expectation. No amount of makeup could hide what they had experienced in the last few minutes of their lives. It was, understandably, shocking and horrifying to see them like that. It took years before I could think of them without that final image being the first to pop into my head. I also refused to go to funerals for the next 16 years. When my 36-year-old brother-in-law died unexpectedly of undiagnosed pneumonia and sepsis just a couple of months after my wedding (my husband and I later learned he was very sick at our wedding but did not want to miss it), I attended only because my in-laws were so beside themselves with grief they could not handle the arrangements and I was asked if I could do so for them. I was able to busy myself with all that entails instead of focusing on the reason we were gathering. We all have lives beyond the four walls of the proverbial office. No one knows why Sam did not attend, no one has the right to know why he did not attend, and no one should presume bad intentions. These coworkers are so completely in the wrong, and it makes me wonder if one of the reasons Sam is as aloof as the OP suggests is because of these coworkers.

    1. Justme, The OG*

      Open caskets are the worst. My first funeral was my grandfather and he had an open casket. He had died of natural causes so there was nothing bad to cover (only him being old). And it was still not something I would want to see. Open casket funerals are not something I particularly understand.

    2. iglwif*

      That’s awful, and I’m sure you are not the only person it was awful for.

      I am always going back and forth on whether my strongly negative reaction to open casket funerals is a Me Thing or a Being Jewish Thing or some of both, but either way, I don’t get it.

      When I’m at a funeral where this is the expectation, I go up to the casket, close my eyes, and say Kaddish yatom real quick or just think good thoughts about the person—something that looks appropriate but doesn’t require me to stare at the body, which to me feels deeply disrespectful.

  74. Sunflower*

    Even if Sam is a jerk who don’t care about anyone but himself, he has the right not to attend. All that ultimately matters in a job is that he gets his job done correctly and he’s not harassing others, gossiping, or acting like a mean guy.

    I also seriously hope it’s grief because the only one I see who is acting in a professional manner is Sam.

  75. librarian*

    This is absolutely insane. There are a million reasons someone would choose not to attend a funeral. Any funeral. Regardless of their relationship to a person. It is quite literally no one’s business who attends someone’s funeral.

  76. Dawn*

    Just because the company is “paying all expenses” doesn’t mean you can just up and disappear to a distant place on short notice. Surely some folks have other responsibilities (like children, maybe? Or caring for elders? Details of their personal life that they don’t necessarily want to share?) which would preclude this, and your coworkers are being very obnoxious in not even trying to acknowledge this.

  77. Jennifer Strange*

    Sam doesn’t owe anyone his presence at this funeral. I suspect (hope?) your co-workers’ reactions are due to a combination of grief and existing misgivings about Sam (which may or may not be warranted). If your late manager was as kind as you say he was I’m sure he would be horrified that his funeral has set off this kind of reaction on your team. Please stand up for Sam.

    I’m also very sorry for your loss.

  78. HalesBopp*

    This letter is wild to me. I have had many wonderful managers over the years, yet I cannot imagine attending a funeral for any of them! I do not tend to socialize with my managers outside of work. I understand that funerals are often open to all who knew the deceased. But it also would feel strange to me to go be in a space with a person’s family and close friends, all of whom’s grief far outweighs mine, for someone I have a limited relationship with. I would sent a nice arrangement and move on.

  79. Somehow I Manage*

    The vendetta against Sam is the big problem. That needs to be pointed out to management. What if Sam didn’t attend because of some protected reason? Then Sam is forced out, files a lawsuit, and the company is forced to defend themselves not only in court, but also in the public eye. These coworkers need to knock it the hell off.

  80. Hyaline*

    Yes to all of this, but also–what’s up with the weird brewing resentment of Sam? That’s a separate issue (though related) and the reaction to him not attending the funeral is so outsized that I can’t help but think this is a “straw that broke the camel’s back (despite a huge overreaction to the straw)” situation. That is–OP states that others said “Sam has always rubbed them the wrong way” and adds that “they’ve felt this way for a while” which since the funeral seems to have been recent, can’t be ONLY about the funeral.

    It doesn’t change the advice, which I think it solid, but I think OP needs to be aware of this weird dynamic that seems to be, at its most benign, “Sam is our BEC,” but could be more toxic (and could be partially Sam’s fault if he’s been a real prick before, which OP hasn’t experienced it’s possible “rubbed the wrong way” was “he was a real twatwaffle”? Who knows?). So yes, shut down the Funeral Attendance Policing talk but also, tread carefully and keep your eyes and ears open IMO.

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      It sounds like the rest of them have decided they are “family”, so Sam who regards work as somewhere he goes because he is paid to, has become a pariah. I’m with Sam

      1. Hyaline*

        Maybe! But LW should still keep a weather eye, IMO, to avoid stepping-in-it-itis, foot-in-mouth syndrome, or related social/work politics maladies.

    2. Dawn*

      It sounds an awful lot to me like they just really don’t like Sam being standoffish. But some people are and it’s not inherently rude.

  81. Seashell*

    Maybe Sam privately sent his condolences to manager’s family?

    I had a supervisor who died unexpectedly at a young age. I had worked with her off and on over the years and I liked her, but we didn’t socialize outside of work. Her funeral was far enough away that it would have required staying overnight, so I didn’t go. I sent condolences to her family otherwise. I later found out that two co-workers did go to the funeral, and I was surprised based on the distance. If I died tomorrow, I wouldn’t expect far away coworkers to come to my funeral.

  82. D C F*

    Something I’ve seen time and again when people are grieving, which I think gets forgotten, is that there can be a lot of anger. There’s often no good focus for that anger, because you can’t be angry at the person who died, or at death itself, but you’re still angry. Grieving people can end up lashing at out in illogical ways, especially when they’re already bothered by someone. I wonder if some of this situation is driven by that kind of emotion.
    It’s no excuse for their behavior. But if that’s part of the problem, it might be worth seeing if there’s any extra support available through your EAP or similar – just to get some help for people struggling with processing what’s happened.

  83. kiki*

    Anger is one of the stages of grief and it’s not uncommon, in my experience, to see folks misdirect that anger in odd ways.

    As much as I understand that, it is important to push back of the hive mind of anger all being misdirected at Sam, like Alison described. We can be sympathetic to everyone grieving, but it’s unacceptable for the outlet for anger to be Sam.

  84. Office Plant Queen*

    There are so many reasons not to attend a funeral, many of them being nobody else’s business! Sam could have felt like it would be out of place for him to attend as someone who wasn’t personally close. He could have some kind of issue that would lead to him having a very public panic attack at an event that’s not about him. He could have not had any appropriate clothes to wear and only realized at the last minute. He could be going through a tough time in his personal life and not have the capacity to take on others’ emotions. He could have a disability that was flaring up that day, making it impossible to attend. He could just really not like funerals for a number of reasons. He could’ve had an important appointment scheduled that took months to get and wasn’t realistic to reschedule, but didn’t want to tell anyone because they’d judge him for not skipping it anyway. He could have a socially inappropriate reaction to grief that he didn’t have the energy to mask at a funeral.

    So many reasons. Your coworkers are absolutely out of line and while I understand why they’re upset at Sam, they need a reality check. Sam did not do anything wrong. They’re mad because they’re grieving and perceive him as not grieving enough/grieving incorrectly. The logic probably goes “I care so I attended the funeral, therefore anyone who didn’t attend the funeral must *not* care.” Which is obviously flawed logic! Their lack of imagination/empathy is understandable in this context, but it doesn’t mean they’re right

  85. Bossy*

    Wow I don’t know if I have advice for this situation other than to say your coworkers sound utterly awful and perhaps the LW should watch their back. Who are they to judge anyone about anything at all, but for funeral attendance? All of the comments LW listed about what the coworkers said about Sam generally just sound so stupid – basically he should’ve showed up to “perform some grief“ and he didn’t so now he’s bad. Really reminds me of the Sunday church attendees who are committing debauchery all week – as long as you perform correctly in the “right” places as deemed by some randos it’s all good. Give me a break. Small minds really just don’t have much to do, do they.

  86. Rick Tq*

    Yikes on bikes, is this going to blow up into another Jane situation? I’m referring to the team that actively rejected any replacements (for a legally mandated role as l recall) for their Jane, a beloved coworker who died unexpectedly, enough that other employees were willing to quit rather than be assigned to fill her position.

    OP needs to crush this behavior now before Sam moves on and the team gets the same bad reputation in the company

    1. Just Two Cents*

      Sam moving on won’t fix the team’s core issues, either. If they lose their scapegoat they’ll either pick someone else or the group will eventually fall apart.

  87. Kerr*

    I disagree with Alison (and several others) as actions have consequences. If the team has been together for a long time and is as a close-knit as the OP describes, Sam couldn’t expect to blow off the funeral (with no stated reason) and expect no reaction from his coworkers. It’s one thing if he told the team (in advance) he couldn’t attend for a reason, but some coworkers interpret his “no comment” as an F-you!

    I don’t know whether his coworkers can realistically remove someone from the team or not, but Sam shouldn’t be surprised to receive some cold shoulders for the next few months.

    1. Anonny*

      Yeah, no. This type of action should not have consequences. The rest of the team is being terribly rude to Sam and should mind their own business.

    2. Seashell*

      Maybe LW thought they were close knit and this was a devastating loss, but Sam didn’t feel the same way. That’s allowed. He can be stoic and private and not share his reasons for not doing things outside of work with everyone at work. Maybe he would only be devastated by the loss of family or close friends, rather than a co-worker who may have been perfectly nice but not a close part of Sam’s life.

      If someone interprets a co-worker not going to someone else’s event as an F-you to them, that seems like their problem, not the co-worker’s.

    3. MsM*

      The team has known Sam for long enough to know that Sam maintains a firm separation between work and personal life. If they had a problem with that, they’ve had plenty of opportunity to address it with Sam directly before now – although Sam wouldn’t have owed them an explanation for his stance then, either. And I don’t know that he particularly cares about people being coldly professional as long as they’re staying professional; he might even prefer it. It’s the part where they want him gone for not bonding the way they want him to bond that’s a problem.

    4. ThisIsNotADuplicateComment*

      But why? Why does it matter that he didn’t go to the funeral? Why do they have to know why he didn’t go? Why does the LW’s view of them being a close-knit team matter more than Sam’s (possible) view of the team as co-workers not friends?
      There’s a million reasonable reasons Sam might not have gone, any of which could be assumed instead of just saying “well fafo” (medical appointment with a specialist that was booked months in advance, dying family member, etc.). What reason could Sam give for missing the funeral that would both respect his privacy and satisfy his co-workers? Would anything other than all the gory details satisfy them? Would the details be gory enough?
      This team is lashing out in grief and probably fear. There’s no reasonable explanation Sam could give because they aren’t looking for reason.

    5. Jennifer Strange*

      but some coworkers interpret his “no comment” as an F-you!

      Sure, but that is indicative of who they are, not who Sam is.

      1. Saturday*

        Right – their out-of-whack interpretation of Sam’s perfectly normal behavior is the problem. This team sounds awful to work with – do things our way or you’re out.

    6. AD*

      Umm…no.

      It’s no one’s business who attended this funeral and who did not, and OP’s team is one-hundred-percent in the wrong here.

      You do not get to sabotage a colleague you don’t like….that’s not a “reaction from his coworkers” that would be tolerated in any well-adjusted workplace.

      What an odd comment.

    7. NotAManager*

      Coworkers actively trying to negatively impact Sam’s professional life is not a reasonable consequence for his actions. They can think whatever they like, but where they crossed the line is discussing the possibility for removing him from his position at work.

    8. Irish Teacher.*

      This isn’t about whether or not actions have consequences. It’s that what Sam did was totally normal and unremarkable and the consequences should be related to that.

      He had no reason to tell his coworkers whether or not he was going to the funeral and the fact that some coworkers interpret his comment in that way is odd behaviour from them.

    9. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      Only if his coworkers are really a closeknit gang of bullies rather than a closeknit work team.

  88. Irish Teacher.*

    Honestly, this is bizarre. I am from a culture where funerals are a big deal, but I still can’t imagine judging anybody for not going to one. There are all kinds of reasons somebody might not, from being sick to finding funerals very difficult to having difficulty getting there.

  89. Orange Cat Energy*

    Wow. This is some “mean girl” crap over how to grieve. (Apologies for the “mean girl” phrase coming off as sexist, better phrasing isn’t coming to me right now.) Your coworkers sound really narrow minded. There are a lot of acceptable ways to grieve. Just because Sam’s way doesn’t align with what your coworkers do, it doesn’t mean that Sam is wrong. Your coworkers should be careful because this could turn into an HR complaint.

  90. hereforthecomments*

    Where I’m from, this level of acquaintance would be attendance at a visitation. Even then, it’s iffy. Coworkers who have never met their manager’s family aren’t going to provide any sort of comfort by their presence. I’ve always found it awkward to introduce myself and my connection to every person in a receiving line (who mostly won’t remember and/or care since they have a lot more important things to think about). If I worked with someone that I socialize with outside of work, knew some of their family, etc., then I’d go to the funeral. Lots of places I’ve worked, staff sign a card and collect for flowers and we are all covered that way. In a related story, I worked somewhere where the staff was REQUIRED to attend a funeral or take a vacation day. It was not for a coworker, but for her spouse. I’d never met the spouse and barely had interaction with the coworker as we worked in different places doing different things. I was not happy about it at all. Not because funerals trigger me, but because I’d been forced to use a vacation day right before this when my uncle died. You know how you get secondhand embarrassment? The coworker’s spouse’s funeral was that. She chose a really inappropriate song and I was hoping the floor would open up and swallow me for the entire time it played. I had a hard time looking her in the eye at work after that because it was all I could think about. Sometimes we don’t need to know so much about the people we work with.

    2. Ellie*

      One of my friends had a very inappropriate song play at his funeral. The reason behind it was because it was the song he and his 7 year old used to play in the car and sing along to, when he picked her up from school. The 7 year old was at the funeral, and she requested it be played, so they did.

  91. Another Academic Librarian too*

    I am horrified by the team’s reaction of Sam’s not going to the manager’s funeral. They are definitely the asshats in this situation.

  92. Lady Lessa*

    There have been about 3 deaths where I am currently working. First, my boss for about 2 weeks: a number of us (including me) went to this funeral. (I think it was just at the cemetery)
    Ex-wife of owner and mother to his children who are co-workers: viewing only. Not sure who may have gone to the funeral.
    Boss of about 2 or 3 years: viewing only. Not sure who may have gone to the funeral.

    Personally, I think that going to the viewing and being able to speak to the main mourners is more appropriate than just attending the funeral.

    1. Mark This Confidential And Leave It Laying Around*

      This assumes a viewing. Not every religion/culture/custom does this. I too would just go to the wake—if there’s a wake. But there might be a completely different set-up that changes the etiquette.

    1. Ellie*

      If I’d worked there for at least 5 years, and I respected them, and every other member of the team was going, and that notice came out that the company would cover any expenses…. then yes, absolutely, I’d find a way to go. I’m actually thinking that Sam must either have a concrete reason why he couldn’t, or else he has a problem reading social cues. I think you’d have to be very naïve not to see that this might be a problem.

  94. And thanks for the coffee*

    I had a very strong reaction to this post. It may seem obvious to coworkers that he should have gone to the funeral. But as others have commented you just don’t know what else is going on in someone’s life. No one is expected to provide a reason why they attended or why they did not attend a funeral, especially those who worked with this man, as they are not even family or relatives. The team needs to move on. Death and funerals are obviously fraught with emotion, each person has to handle losses in their own way. I wish I could be more articulate about this, but I can’t find the right tone and words.

    1. HB*

      I also had a very strong reaction. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people’s reactions shift from genuine into performative and this seems to particularly happen in response to tragedy. Now, even though performative grief disgusts me, it’s also something I recognize as my *own* reaction that has nothing to do with the other person. To start, I don’t know that it’s performative and not genuine. And second, even if I *knew* it was performative, I recognize that grief/emotion/being human *is* weird and so there’s always a possibility that someone is being performative because that’s *how* they process/trigger their emotional reaction.

      But when you start judging people for *not* performing, then I have a major problem with you.

  95. Workerbee*

    OP, review your own words: “Everyone grieves differently.” Those are the only words that matter in your entire post.

    Repeat them out loud until they sink in and believe it yourself. Then repeat them to your coworkers.

    Hopefully this will result in fewer people who take it upon themselves to legislate how someone who is not them responds to death.

  96. Anonny*

    I’m sorry for the loss of your manager.

    A few points:

    1) We can only control our actions and responses, not those of others. Sam has a right to decide what is best for him and everyone else needs to understand that. (Agreeing is different – but that’s an inside thought not an outside thought in this situation).

    2) Sam doesn’t owe anyone an explanation (see 1 above). He gets to decide what to share and not to share.

    3) Being seen and visible is important, but that’s not the end all be all. I’d rather someone not come than come but not be engaged.

    4) Some people (myself included) view our job as a place to make money and go home. Am I great at my job? (yes I am). Do I give my students 110% (yes I do). Do I want to socialize with my co-workers? (heck no I do not) I have my job to make money so that I can life a full life – I can do lots of jobs, and am lucky to have one that I genuinely enjoy, but it is transactional at its core.

    1. Anonny*

      And also, I’d shut that ish right down if I heard it by saying “you know, it’s really not cool of us to speculate on why Sam didn’t attend the funeral – regardless of the reason. I’d prefer if you didn’t talk about this issue any more in my presence.”

  97. BigBird*

    Shortly after my husband’s death I made the mistake of attending the funeral of a friend’s son, whose death was unexpected, untimely and especially tragic. I thought I had it under control but the funeral completely set me spiraling and in retrospect I should not have gone. No one should judge anyone in this situation.

  98. cloudy*

    I too am a stoic/private person when it comes to the office.

    One of my closest family members died unexpectedly last summer and while at the funeral (the first funeral I’ve ever been to for someone who I was very close to), I came to the conclusion that funerals may be the highest form of psychological torture. It was the most physically painful thing I’ve ever had to endure. I was completely unable to even look at any of the other guests and had to stare at the floor and cover my eyes to avoid seeing the photos that showed up on the screen. I think I spent the whole hour trying to devise new ways of blocking out sound so I couldn’t hear the speakers.

    I get that some people may find that the experience of a funeral puts them at ease or provides comfort/closure… but man. I’m so not cut out for them. I would hope people would understand that funerals are emotionally intense activities that some people might not be equipped or able to handle.

  99. Michelle*

    My uncle is a Vietnam veteran who has not attended a single funeral since he returned home. Not his mom, not his dad, not his brothers (including my father). He will quietly attend the graveside ceremony, always in the back or off to the side and then leave immediately.

    The coworkers trying to kick Sam off the team are wrong, period. Maybe Sam has trouble attending funerals or has some trauma around them. My adult son cannot do funerals as it overwhelms him and he has an anxiety attack.

  100. Jam on Toast*

    A lovely and long-serving team-member passed away last summer after a brief battle with cancer. Our managers gave everyone (70+ people) permission to leave work early so we could go to the local funeral home during the afternoon visitation if we wanted to. Many people from our team went. We spoke to his family together and shared some of our favourite remembrances of him with them. It was sad but cathartic and I was glad I got to go.

    But some people also chose to stay at work and when we were at the funeral home, no one took attendance. Because that’s what decent people do. They let people manage their own emotions and make their choices. Like adults.

  101. Database Queery*

    I skipped the funeral of a beloved-by-all coworker with decades of tenure because I’m uncomfortable with public displays of grief. Funerals evoke a ton of difficult and intense emotion which tends to result in me sobbing uncontrollably. Since the late employee’s adult son also works at our company, I felt the risk of drawing attention away from the family (I was friendly with the deceased but we didn’t work closely) was worse than the fallout from my not attending.

    And there *was* fallout. The person’s closest colleagues implied I was arrogant and cold for skipping it. I eventually took aside the person in that group I felt most comfortable with and explained my reasoning, and the fuss blew over in time, but years later my absence is still something that many colleagues have heard about me.

    I know I made the right choice at the time, but if a similar issue arises again at work I plan to take a Valium and get through the funeral however I can to avoid drawing attention after the fact with gossip.

    2. Kerr*

      That’s the point I made above. In the absence of a stated reason, a reaction from the other team members is not unexpected.

      I hope that one situation is the only one you’ll have during your career.

      1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

        No, such a reaction is totally unreasonable and should NOT be accepted at any workplace that claims to take bullying seriously.
        Those like DatabaseQueery should not have to make this forced choice.

      2. vb*

        A reaction that is “not unexpected” is miles away from a reaction that is appropriate, fair, reasonable, kind, and healthy.

  102. Sparkles McFadden*

    I am ambivalent about the company providing transportation. On the one hand, it’s a kind gesture, but it also puts pressure on employee to attend when they might not want to for a variety of reasons.

    I worked for a large company that didn’t normally do things like this, yet they did this when one VP died – and that VP had retired the year before. Another manager and I approached our boss to make “excuses” for everyone on our staff (“Fergus has child care issues and Jane is on a tight deadline”) and we also “volunteered” to stay and work so our boss could go and “properly represent all of us.” My boss seemed a bit taken aback, but he didn’t push it. Other managers grilled anyone who said “I’m not going” which horrified me. Maybe people judged me for not going, but I also judged those people for using their authority to pressuring their subordinates to attend a funeral they didn’t want to attend.

    Your coworkers are completely in the wrong.

  103. Mark This Confidential And Leave It Laying Around*

    I didn’t see this mentioned, but many funerals involve a religious service. I’m not religious but have been to funerals (and weddings, more fun) in several different faiths. Some people aren’t comfortable with that and some religions forbid entering another sect’s house of worship. Just a data point, but this whole thing boils down to mind your own business.

    1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      This was my thought as well. And who knows, maybe Sam had a traumatic upbringing around religion and if the funeral was held in the same faith that might have been triggering.

  104. Just Two Cents*

    The LW’s attitude and that of her coworkers is absolutely, 1000% part of why Sam did not go to the funeral. Having boundaries at work is much more normal than LW and her colleagues literally taking attendance at a funeral. The team has been dysfunctional and is now grieving and they are taking that out on the easiest person to scapegoat. I’m sure your amazing boss would also be very upset you all are acting this way. This is pretty cruel to Sam.

    I hate to use a buzzword but having strong, appropriate boundaries at work needs to be normalized more so than this weird “work family” culture nonsense that’s been too present for far too long. Letting yourself get caught up in office politics, or working with people who have awful boundaries and work behaviors, can affect someone’s mental- and physical health. It can get really dicey and affect people’s lives in other tangible ways, too.

  105. KelKel*

    OP – your coworkers are handling their grief so horribly by taking this out on Sam. I wonder if your company has an EAP that offers some grief counseling? We had someone suddenly die in my office a few years ago, and people were really struggling with the unexpected nature of it. We had a grief counselor come from our EAP and help facilitate an optional gathering for people who wanted to share memories and talk about how they were coping. It was completely optional, and some people chose not to attend and everybody understood.

  106. Box of Rain*

    show up just to say you did

    I would be MORTIFIED if people who attend my funeral felt like this. It’s not an open house or something. If you’re there, I want you to want to be there. That even goes for family.

    1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      I KNOW!!! I could maybe see saying this for the wake, which is often held the day before the funeral or possibly a few hours before the funeral.

  107. ScottishSalmon*

    Many good points have been made here but I’d like to elucidate another: I lost a teenage sibling to suicide. After that, I just could not go to funerals for the elderly. Too complex, too much for me. Nothing could ever be as tragic as my sibling’s loss so young. Frankly, traumatic. Point being is that everyone everywhere is dealing with many things in their lives that coworkers know nothing about. This was not a work event, and it is absolutely unhinged for your coworkers to be treating Sam this way.

  108. I'm just here for the cats!!*

    I can think of a lot of reason’s why Sam might not have gone to the funeral.
    They don’t feel comfortable around large groups of people they don’t know.
    They aren’t religious or have an issue with the religious aspect of the funeral.
    They have an invisible disability and navigating the funeral would have been difficult (this especially if he works remote too. It’s not clear if everyone on the team works remote or just a few who aren’t local. )
    He didn’t have reliable transportation to get to the funeral, and didn’t want to be a burden to coworkers.
    He doesn’t do well with grief or death.
    He’s never had anyone close to him die, and didn’t know what to do about the funeral, how to act, etc.

    1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      Oh and I forgot he may have a fear of dead people (necrophobia). Which might explain why he didn’t say anything.

      1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

        Of course. And I’m not discounting that. What I’m trying to say is that the OP could give their coworkers all of these reasons and say Regardless of the reason or why he didn’t say anything its none of our business and he’s allowed to grieve how he wants.

  109. Hyena*

    The coworker’s judgement is wild to me. I guess this is just a situation where people’s messy emotions are being projected outward unfairly – they’re outraged at the universe, but that’s not actionable, so they’re finding another target – but there are so many reasons to not attend a funeral in general, let alone for a colleague rather than a friend or family member.

    I think all the comments about “everyone grieves differently” are absolutely correct, but I also just don’t understand this expectation of grief at all. Work is work. Even if I would feel a momentary pang of “wow how awful :(” at the sudden tragic passing of a colleague, I certainly wouldn’t spend my off time going to a funeral, and I would never expect my work colleagues to do that for me. Maybe I am unusually cold or pragmatic for feeling this way, but I don’t know. Life is for living.

  110. Caz*

    Oh, poor Sam. Someone needs to warn him and/or have a serious conversation with his colleagues.

    I nearly didn’t go to my own mother’s funeral. I didn’t go to the wake, or to the scattering of the ashes. People were shocked! Horrified! Trying to solve the problem for me (without understanding what the problem was, of course). I’ve had very complicated feelings about every funeral I’ve ever gone to and I’m not sure I’d be able to go for a colleague’s – no matter how I felt about them, or the job.

  111. Danmei kid*

    thank you for this answer allison. I was horrified reading through how this coworker is being treated. suggesting that he put on some sort of performative show of grief or team building to go to a funeral is unfathomable for me. he doesn’t owe the team an explanation why and he doesn’t owe his attendance either. this team sounds awful and I hope Sam is able to find a place where he can thrive and be appreciated for the actual work he does and his professional contributions instead of being measured by some arbitrary social scale.

  112. Coverage Associate*

    One thing I haven’t seen mentioned: Generally, I don’t think co workers owe explanations to other co workers about why they can’t attend a work event at an unusual place or time, especially when their non attendance doesn’t add to co workers’ work burden. For example, when most of my coworkers live at one end of the region, and I live at the other, occasionally the office will have some special event at the distant for me region. I usually don’t attend such events because they make my already long commute a super commute. I might make sure my manager understands, but I wouldn’t tell the whole office.

    Different if it’s something like a court appearance on a case I usually handle. Then I thank the co worker who has the disrupted but shorter commute so I don’t have the very long commute.

    Anyway, something like a funeral, combining work and social aspects? Where my not attending has 0 influence on co workers’ work? Where they don’t even have to plan for my non attendance by ordering less food, etc? Yeah, maybe I will explain if it comes up in conversation, but I am not bringing it up, and unless my “excuse” is very sympathetic, I am not providing it even if asked, both as not to detract from the family’s grief and because, as comments here show, for some people, no excuse is going to be good enough.

  113. e271828*

    Great example of toxic groupthink (even the LW has their doubts about Sam because Sam didn’t go to the funeral). The coworkers are all feeding each other’s resentment and Sam is being given horns, hooves, and a tail.

    A compelling reason to keep private lives and friendships out of the workplace, this ugly cliquishness. They were excluding Sam even before this and now they’re out for blood.

  114. Audrey*

    I have a friend that doesn’t attend funerals except for very specific circumstances, because they have had two children pass away. Hardly anyone knows this, as they are very private. He is absolutely the kind of person who would have skipped this funeral and given no explanation.

  115. River*

    The coworkers sound cliquey and almost as if they are in a club of sorts and really want to ostracize Sam. Quite frankly it sounds like they just wanted this situation to really gang up on him which is disgusting. They’re almost making this more about Sam than the deceased manager. It baffles me how some people behave when someone is a little different than them. It’s borderline bullying tendencies. As long as Sam gets his work done and isn’t doing anything inappropriate, there shouldn’t be any issue with this situation. Everyone is entitled to their own privacy.

  116. Southern Violet*

    Some people just dont like funerals, period. I have to be talked into going to memorials for actual loved ones, I’d never go to a manager’s funeral, no matter how nice they are. Let your coworker be.

  117. Lab snep*

    A coworker of mine died under horrific and tragic circumstances. I couldn’t go to the funeral because I was working and couldn’t afford to take an unpaid shift to go, and I grieve in my own way.

    I was worried people would judge me like people are doing to Sam, but it didn’t happen and everyone understood.

    Sam’s coworkers are being jerks.

  118. Jonathan MacKay*

    Speaking as someone who has studied grief and bereavement from a counselling perspective – funerals can bring out the best and the worst in people at the same time. It is the responsibility of those in attendance to be as respectful as the context demands – (I have been to funerals which were quite energetic and upbeat, but behaving as we did there would’ve been horribly insulting at other funerals) but at the same time, some may feel it is more respectful to keep their distance and not attend.

    Grief is a funny thing in how much it is a communal thing at the same time as being exceptionally personal.

  119. But not the Hippopotamus*

    Sam could have very good (and private) reasons to not go. For one, it might actually be against his religion (often funerals are inherently religious), in which case, much of this reaction could be borderline illegal harassment.

    Nobody should have to explain their absence at a non work event anyway, but especially at one that is likely religious in some way.

  120. Seen Too Much*

    I am someone who can’t do funerals – I can barely do a wake and I can’t go up to pay respect to the body. I physically can’t do it, I get shakes and can pass out.

    Not saying it is the same for Sam, but maybe it is. You don’t know. He doesn’t owe anyone an explanation. Your colleagues need to show some grace.

    To me, it feels like they never liked him and are using this as an excuse.

  121. Elizabeth West*

    For what it’s worth, I didn’t go to the funeral of my coworker at ToxicOldJob either (he passed away over a weekend). We liked each other okay but weren’t close, and I didn’t know any of his family. His supervisor went, and I think the big bosses went too, and some of his buddies on the floor. I worked — everyone knew I was sad about it, as they were. Other people didn’t go either, and no one said anything about us staying at work instead.

    OP, Sam is your coworker. You say he doesn’t really socialize outside of the office and that’s fine, but clearly, somewhere in there, it’s not fine. Sam’s friendly and responsive and does his work (I assume). That’s why he’s there and what he’s paid for. It’s all he owes any of you, and all you owe each other.

  122. Niles "the Coyote" Crane*

    I’m actually disgusted by your coworkers.

    What do they think the purpose of a funeral is!?

    This reads to me as bullying, like they’ve decided against Sam already and this is just feeding a narrative they already have. (And it doesn’t matter if he is indeed a bit cold or rude, what could justify this from the whole group?)

  123. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

    Sam is probably like many who post here:
    minimises social ineraction with coworkers, especially outside work. Doesn’t mean he keeps putting foot in mouth as some have suggested, just that his coworkers are very social in a “family” group whereas he just wants to do his work and go home to his private life.

    Sounds scary for those who are not social at work, to hear that at some places it may cause their coworkers to gang up and force them out of their job.

  124. Anon for This One*

    If you’re going to be someone who doesn’t attend “work funerals”, please be consistent from person to person. Go to funerals for everyone or skip all of them, especially if you’re in the C-Suite. I will NEVER forgive the owner of a company I once worked for not showing up for the funeral of my boss. My boss directly made this man a boatload of money over the years, yet he couldn’t be bothered to show up for his funeral OR at the very least, send another management representative in his place. I suspect the “issue” was that my boss wasn’t one of the “in crowd” at the office – he got his job done but wasn’t one of the popular “cool guys” with the owner. It probably didn’t help that the funeral was held on a Saturday on a particularly glorious summer day (tee time? Wouldn’t shock me). In contract, the owner attended two other employee funerals prior to my boss’ for a couple of the “important/cool guys” in the office, which were held during business hours and “hosted” after parties for each of them.

  127. Shelby*

    My thought isn’t anything that hasn’t already been said, but I’ll add it for the sake of the majority.

    The issue is with the team, not with Sam. Sam doesn’t need a head’s up – the team needs to be shut down. You said your manager was one of the good ones – they would never want something as trivial as this to create a rift in their team.

    My mom died when I was 20 and for about 15 years, I didn’t go to a funeral. A coworker died at work when I was in my early 30s and the whole office shut down to go to her funeral. I offered to stay behind and keep the office open so our customers wouldn’t be put out and when my boss pressed me to go, I was suddenly overcome with emotion, teared up, and said “Please don’t make me go.” It wasn’t anything about my coworker – it was simply that I couldn’t face the funeral.

    Or perhaps your coworker has been completely misunderstood. Perhaps he was afraid of being so overcome with grief he felt he would be conspicuous and didn’t want to be a burden at the event. I was at a funeral last year where two guests were so overcome with grief and crying at the reception the family of the deceased actually ended up having to comfort them. No one wants to be that person.

    I’m not a funeral person. Don’t like them, hate attending them. And I do NOT want to go to a viewing. My sister is the exact opposite. She has to see the person in the casket, touch their skin, and go to their funeral before she can move on.

    Anyone who has been through grief should understand it looks different for everyone and while I understand the kneejerk reaction of your coworkers to think Sam is heartless and he could “just be a grown-up about it” (has that been said to me? yes, it has), it makes them look just as heartless back to him to not consider he has a valid excuse.

  128. Mira*

    Funny how this website won’t let me post a dissenting opinion calling out this commentariat’s behaviour towards anyone who isn’t going with the grain.

      1. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

        If you wish to report a comment then include a link in a reply to it and Alison will check it. She’s not deliberately blocking anyone.

      2. Heinous Eli*

        No one is “bullying” Sarah. Sarah chose to share an opinion that’s highly judgmental and is getting judged right back. Sarah isn’t making as big a deal of it as you are, for the record.

  129. S*

    OP and their coworkers don’t know what is going on in Sam’s life.

    My dad took his own life, and I found his body. I barely made it through the funeral, and then I needed treatment for PTSD.

    I probably wouldn’t attend a colleague’s funeral, and I wouldn’t explain why either (because I don’t want to tell everyone all of my trauma).

  130. AnonymousForThis*

    I’m dealing with similar…sort of… so the timing of this is crazy.

    Someone at my job passed suddenly. I didn’t know them (met them once) and didn’t really work with them but am torn about attending the funeral and worried how it will look if I do and if I don’t.

    Apparently some people really do keep track of this. I don’t know of it tips my decision one way or the other, but it definitely adds to the calculus of the decision.

    And back to OP for a second…has anyone considered that, for whatever reason, to Sam, this boss might not have been the best ever and going to a funeral of people who saw them that differently would have been awkward for everyone? Not trying to speak badly of the person, just wondering if this might be part of the reason.

    1. London Calling*

      I’m sure the people who were part of the manager’s clique at exjob thought she was lovely. As someone not in the clique I didn’t, for various reasons. If Sam wasn’t a fan of the late manager it’s entirely possible he didn’t want be a hypocrite and to go to the funeral to display performative grief for someone he didn’t much care for.
      Whatever his reasons, his colleagues are so far out of line over this they’re disappearing over the horizon.

  131. Southern Diva*

    This sounds very much like misdirected anger resulting from grief. Your coworkers need to lay the heck off of Sam.

    And possibly get some grief therapy.

    Reminds me a bit of a funeral I attended for the doctor of a small town. Tons of folks showed up with lots of heartwarming stories about this doctor’s care, including late-night & weekend calls. Eulogy was delivered by a family friend.

    His sons could barely get through the funeral. Turns out, he was verbally & occasionally physically abusive towards his own family, but no one in the community wanted to hear about that, and the sons felt like attendance was mandatory to avoid really awful professional/social fallout from the small town gossip churn if they hadn’t gone. Even simply attending but not delivering a eulogy wasn’t enough for that community – almost a decade later there’s still people mock-stunned by “how cold” the sons were to not deliver a touching eulogy to “their wonderful father”.

    Not everyone’s relationships are the same with every person around them.

  132. just tired*

    It is no one’s business why he didn’t go to the funeral. I personally won’t go to a funeral ever again, and have only been to about 4 in my life. And I absolutely refuse to go view and open casket, I think that is a barbaric and unnecessary custom.

  133. princessbuttercup*

    I think all the points here are correct: no one should be forced someone to go to a funeral, who knows what Sam’s relationship to their manager/funerals is like, and the coworkers are taking this insanely personally. Sam should do what is right for Sam, and isn’t deserving of this level of scorn.

    But I’ll throw myself to the wolves here and say…… I don’t find the “Sam doesn’t owe anyone an explanation!” argument to be very valid in this situation. Sure, Sam doesn’t OWE anyone an explanation, but like… it doesn’t seem absurd to have said to his colleagues: “I’ll be missing the funeral for personal reasons” (and maybe a “thinking of all of you attending”, even if he didn’t mean it).

    I don’t think it’s that toxic for someone to genuinely wonder (without malice, and without retribution) if there’s a reason Sam isn’t attending. Sam could’ve circumvented that with pretty simple, polite communication. I’m all for work being work and not a place to make friends, but workplaces are made up of people, and people have emotions. Sam can decline to participate in certain cultural or community rituals…. but those rituals are still important to some people. I think it would’ve shown empathy for his coworkers if Sam acknowledged they weren’t attending and gave a basic milquetoast reason why.

    Sam’s coworkers are now showing him zero empathy (which I fully agree is ridiculous and unfair) and it’s clear the coworkers suck (and yes, I know someone will say no ‘communication’ from Sam would’ve satisfied them), but I guess I can’t help but feel like that if SAM had written this letter prior to the funeral (eg. “I won’t be attending my manager’s funeral”), good, helpful advice would’ve been: yeah, it’s probably worth sending a brief message to your colleagues.

    (this is more a comment about the comments on this post; obviously the LW is dealing with the situation as is)

    1. Lily Potter*

      Seconding this. Sam needs to learn how to play politics at the office. As princessbuttercup says above, if he’d given a “milquetost reason” for not attending (keeping the reply breezy and matter of fact rather than hostile or guilty) I bet that much of this drama wouldn’t have happened. By not saying anything, Sam’s co-workers free to imagine the worst in him. My suspicion is that there was no DRAMAH reason for him not going to the funeral – he’s not neurodivergent, he didn’t hate the deceased, he doesn’t have PTSD, it isn’t religion and it isn’t necrophilia. My best guess is that he just didn’t feel like going, which is IMO a pretty crappy reason to not attend a co-workers’ funeral and Sam knew that, which is why he kept mum about the real reason for not going. But Sam has the right to not attend if he’d rather stay home and if he’d just told everyone “I’m not going to be able to go to the funeral tomorrow; I’ve got a conflict that I just can’t get out of” or something along that line, much drama could have been avoided.

  134. Kimberly*

    There is also the possiblitly that Sam is a member of a religion that prohibits them from stepping foot in another house of worship.

    That was a Catholic rule when my Mom was growing up – and part of the reason she did not allow me to go to church with friends who invited me. I did go to services for my Dad’s family, and the funeral of my Best Friend’s brother.

    I had a coworker who had to get permission from her Preacher to attend convocation for our School District, because it was held in another demoninations church. Technically it wasn’t a church service – but it is a hate church. I found supremist literature out, and caught them actively trying to recruit kids who were performing to come to their church even if it meant sneaking around the parents.

  135. Regina Philange*

    Was this funeral religious? I had a beloved coworker pass away last year, and her funeral was a full Catholic Mass. Some of our team found it really triggering to be at mass, and I for one didn’t feel right being there as I am a fairly observant Jew. We stayed for the eulogy and then left. You just never know why someone doesn’t want to participate in a funeral.

    Have a memorial lunch at your workplace. this is something we never got to do for my coworker, bc it was assumed that everyone was comfortable with going to the funeral. I still regret not having a workplace gathering.

  136. The Rafters*

    I am so relieved to have had the coworkers I did when a dear friend from work died. I couldn’t go to the funeral because my own mother was dying and in fact, died a few months later. My time away from work was spent helping to care for her. You and your team have no clue what the coworker is going through. Your team is way out of line.

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