There's a Dead Fish in the Office

I came into work today to find a dead fish in a little fish tank and it made me really sad. Probably sadder than it should have.

One of our recently hired engineers had this beautiful blue fish on her desk at her old job. She had it on her desk here for a bit too but came to the realization that there wasn't enough natural light for it, so she put it in the common/kitchen area. (Her office was one of the darker ones.)

When that fish got moved to the common area I was already sad and worried about it. A couple years ago somebody thought it would be a good idea to have a fish there and everybody fed it and it died pretty quickly. Our office is really bad at taking care of things.

Also, a couple years ago they spent some serious money to get some really nice large plants for the main room that most employees work out of, and it didn't take more than a couple months for most of them to die or be rapidly on the path to death. And the thing is.. most folks didn't even notice the dying plants. That's what always suprised me. They're right in front of everybody, but nobody can see them. (I can. Maybe I'd be a happier person if I didn't notice things like that.)

The fish did fine for several months, then my coworker went on vacation for 3 weeks. She had a responsible coworker take care of the fish, and all was fine. Then he went on vacation and I started to worry more. There just aren't that many people here that I would entrust with not forgetting about the fish in another part of the office.

Today I walked in and the fish tank was all cloudy and the fish was floating at the top with this film around it. It's pretty sad.

I think the thing that really affects me about this is that the fish was trapped. It depended on things and people outside of itself to survive. And that task of it's survival is so casually passed around here. It probably was negelected and died from dirty water and maybe it wasn't getting fed anymore. I don't know. But it makes me think of all the kids in the world. They depend on somebody else to make sure their needs are met. And for some they aren't, but there isn't much they can do about it unless they make it to being old enough to help themselves.