'Morbid' Work Message Tells Employees Dead Coworker 'Wouldn't Complain'

A workplace sign telling employees that their recently deceased coworker "wouldn't complain" about stress has prompted an outcry online.

Pizza restaurant employee Daniel, who declined to share his last name with Newsweek, posted an image of the sign on Reddit's "Antiwork" forum Monday. His post has amassed 12,800 votes as of Tuesday morning.

The sign in an alleged U.S. workplace was written on a whiteboard in orange marker.

It read, "If you are ever feeling STRESSED about how the day is going, just remember...Tyler wouldn't complain. R.I.P. Big Amish."

Daniel added in a caption, "He hasn't even been dead a week."

He told the Reddit audience that his coworker had died of a heart attack following a stroke at 28 years old. Tyler was a delivery driver for their small pizza restaurant, he said.

"He was a great guy," Daniel told Newsweek. "He was found dead in his apartment by my boss because they were worried about him after not showing up. Everyone loved him there, including the person who wrote that message. They just had no clue how insensitive it was."

Regardless of its intent, the sign stunned Daniel.

"I sat and stared for about a solid minute," he said.

Although the employee was not sure exactly who wrote the message, he claimed to believe it was one of their shift leaders.

"Nobody erased it," he said on Reddit. "I mean, I did after taking the picture, but lots of people were there before me, including the [general manager] and [deputy manager]."

The comments below his post brimmed with rage and disgust.

"What kind of employer would write something like that about a dead coworker?" one reader asked. "That's f**king morbid."

"If Tyler died at work from being overworked, they'd still write this," fumed another.

United States workers have less support for bereavement than employees in other parts of the world. Unlike countries such as France, Japan and New Zealand, the U.S. does not require companies to provide paid leave for grieving employees.

The U.S. Department of Labor specifies that the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) "does not require payment for time not worked, including attending a funeral." This benefit is "a matter of agreement between an employer and an employee."

Only four states—Illinois, Oregon, Maryland and Washington—have passed their own policies requiring employers to offer bereavement leave under particular circumstances, according to Xpert HR.

A lack of federal bereavement policies has hit U.S. workers harder since the country's tidal wave of COVID-19 deaths, which experts have predicted will produce long-lasting effects on nationwide mental health. In 2020, researchers for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) warned that the pandemic "may cause a worldwide rise of prolonged grief disorder (PGD) cases."

Workers frequently take to Reddit's "Antiwork" forum to share their struggles balancing grief with employment.

An employee went viral earlier this month for sharing how their boss told them to "get over" the sudden death of their brother and to "stop acting depressed" at work.

In May, another worker slammed a "heartless" boss who only allowed her two days of bereavement leave after her mother's death, requiring further days to be submitted as a formal leave of absence.

And in January, an employee claimed they were forced to choose between mourning their grandmother in the hours after her death and going to work on time.