Strange mystery about my late coworker

Reverend Conehead

Reverend Conehead

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I used to work in a sales job with this dude -- I'll call him Kenny. To be bluntly honest, I did not like him. I found him very two faced. He would be very friendly and personable to your face, then he would say bad stuff about you behind your back. He also used to steal my commissions. I had to be careful if he did the paperwork because he would take a sale I had written up and change the employee number to his and get the commission. I lost a lot of money to that before I caught on and complained to management. He also manipulated management to get him the most busy shifts and thus had the best opportunities to get the most commissions. I struggled along in slow shifts where barely anyone came through the door. In some shifts, I would stand around for 8 hours without a single person to help. This was during the economic turndown. There were few times of the day when people with money came through, and he had them all to himself. After he joined the company, my good-paying job basically became a poverty job. Then at an employee meeting, he belittled me for having less sales than him. When I pointed out that he had been hogging all the good shifts, leaving the slow, leftover shifts to others, he insulted me with stupid sales clichés like "make your own luck" and accused me of slacking. Honestly, he's lucky I didn't hit him. The world's greatest salesman could not have beaten him in my awful slow shifts versus his.

So in 2012 I quit that job and moved away to another state. As you could guess, I really didn't miss Kenny or even think of him. Then in 2014, I heard via Facebook that he had died. He had a heart condition that ended up taking his life at only 25 years-old. I did not shed a tear for him. I didn't celebrate either. I was just like, "Oh, well," and forgot about it. I will not be leaving flowers at his grave.

Now here's the weird part. I didn't realize that Facebook as a feature where you can follow someone that you're not friends with. We were not FB friends, of course, because I would never have approved a friend request from him. However, I recently found a feature where you can list all your FB followers. When I brought up the list, I found none other than Kenny on that list. Even though he's dead, his FB page is still active. What the .....??????? For the life of me, I cannot fathom why he would have followed me on FB. Maybe he thought I liked him. I don't know. I know he wasn't gay for me or something. He had a wife and a kid. I was never openly rude to him because I had to work with him, but if he thought we were friends, he was sadly mistaken. Of course I can't ask him why.

It's a mystery. I'm honestly shocked to find him on my followers list. Does anyone have any idea what may have been going on? It makes no sense to me whatsoever.
 
Dang Reverend, Kenny sucked! I can only speculate here, but I think he was a snake in the grass simply keeping an eye on past, present and possibly future victims of his deceptions.
 
Rev, that's a Facebook mystery even greater than Facebook as a mystery.

On the surface, Kenny was a selfish and shallow person but there may have been more depth to him than met the eye. I spent most of my career around salespeople and I've seen the Kenny's and tried to manage them and the strife they can cause and some are just snakes, they don't respect themselves or others. But I have also discovered some that suffered form a lack of self esteem and getting up or over on others was a way of evening the playing field to make them feel better about themselves. They actually envied those around them.

This Kenny might have been following you because he liked you but didn't know how to show it. He might have felt guilt, might even have felt responsible for you leaving.

The fact that he died at 25 with this heart condition probably wasn't a shock to him. His behavior, getting all he can while he can. could have been a product of the ticking clock he knew he had inside his chest and becoming someone he didn't like but felt he had to become that and like Walter White, once one heads down a path of broken behavior, with the best of intentions, they don't know how far they can go.

Then again, maybe he was just a jerk but following you doesn't seem like it. I would like to think he regretted what he'd done and was aware of it and by keeping track of you, and others he'd slighted, assured him he'd not done any permanent damage.

And haven't I been trying to tell you that damned Facebook is nothing but trouble?
 
CouchCoach said:
Rev, that's a Facebook mystery even greater than Facebook as a mystery.

On the surface, Kenny was a selfish and shallow person but there may have been more depth to him than met the eye. I spent most of my career around salespeople and I've seen the Kenny's and tried to manage them and the strife they can cause and some are just snakes, they don't respect themselves or others. But I have also discovered some that suffered form a lack of self esteem and getting up or over on others was a way of evening the playing field to make them feel better about themselves. They actually envied those around them.

This Kenny might have been following you because he liked you but didn't know how to show it. He might have felt guilt, might even have felt responsible for you leaving.

The fact that he died at 25 with this heart condition probably wasn't a shock to him. His behavior, getting all he can while he can. could have been a product of the ticking clock he knew he had inside his chest and becoming someone he didn't like but felt he had to become that and like Walter White, once one heads down a path of broken behavior, with the best of intentions, they don't know how far they can go.

Then again, maybe he was just a jerk but following you doesn't seem like it. I would like to think he regretted what he'd done and was aware of it and by keeping track of you, and others he'd slighted, assured him he'd not done any permanent damage.

And haven't I been trying to tell you that damned Facebook is nothing but trouble?
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Interesting take. You may very well be right. I can add that he did not have an abrasive personality. He was not the classic "insult you every day" jerk. He was very personable and friendly, but that made his crooked and underhanded behavior even more perplexing. You could have conversations with him and he would be perfectly friendly and nice. Then the next morning you would come in to learn he had stolen all your commissions. It was bizarre. What you've written is probably right. It might make it easier to not hate him. I used to hate the guy and was frankly glad to get away from him. I've never understood the two-faced thing. With me, what you see is what you get.
 
Reverend Conehead said:
Interesting take. You may very well be right. I can add that he did not have an abrasive personality. He was not the classic "insult you every day" jerk. He was very personable and friendly, but that made his crooked and underhanded behavior even more perplexing. You could have conversations with him and he would be perfectly friendly and nice. Then the next morning you would come in to learn he had stolen all your commissions. It was bizarre. What you've written is probably right. It might make it easier to not hate him. I used to hate the guy and was frankly glad to get away from him. I've never understood the two-faced thing. With me, what you see is what you get.
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Humans are complex creatures which is why I prefer a Thermos bottle, I put cold or hot in, it stays that way.

This seems to be an unresolved issue from the past and while you didn't seek it, I will hand out some advice I've struggled following. "Leave those things that do not make you happy behind". Forgive Kenny and allow yourself a break from the negative thoughts. Try not to personalize things that people do and assume that's just them and has nothing to do with you and let go any regrets about what you coulda, shoulda, shoulda done back then.

And consider the positive of this. Don't you feel better about yourself because you are not like Kenny was. You were the one wronged yet you are the one that gets to forgive.
 
CouchCoach said:
Humans are complex creatures which is why I prefer a Thermos bottle, I put cold or hot in, it stays that way.

This seems to be an unresolved issue from the past and while you didn't seek it, I will hand out some advice I've struggled following. "Leave those things that do not make you happy behind". Forgive Kenny and allow yourself a break from the negative thoughts. Try not to personalize things that people do and assume that's just them and has nothing to do with you and let go any regrets about what you coulda, shoulda, shoulda done back then.

And consider the positive of this. Don't you feel better about yourself because you are not like Kenny was. You were the one wronged yet you are the one that gets to forgive.
Click to expand...

That's absolutely right. This is helping me to forgive him. Even his death didn't make me forgive him. I felt very betrayed by his underhandedness when I was struggling and he took commissions from me. But now I see him as human. You're right. Gonna let it go.
 
I don’t do much on Facebook but following something or someone means you keep tabs on what someone posts. Even though it’s called “Facebook Friend,” it doesn’t really have anything to do with friendship, does it?
 
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Reverend Conehead said:
That's absolutely right. This is helping me to forgive him. Even his death didn't make me forgive him. I felt very betrayed by his underhandedness when I was struggling and he took commissions from me. But now I see him as human. You're right. Gonna let it go.
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It's amazing how much better you feel when you forgive and move on. It frees up all the time spent on dwelling on negative emotions.
 
Runwildboys said:
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:laugh: Well played good sir.


Back to topic, I wouldn't worry about it too much OP. As mentioned above, humans are strange creatures. It could be anybody's guess as to why he was following you. Facebook is a strange, strange land as it is. Maybe he just wanted to keep tabs on your life to compare his life to yours. Sometimes people only feel better when they can feel better than.
 
DeathMonkey said:
It's amazing how much better you feel when you forgive and move on. It frees up all the time spent on dwelling on negative emotions.
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Better the forgiver than the forgiven. Just look at William Munny, wasn't forgiven and had to go off and kill a bunch of folks. If one of them had forgiven him, he might not have kilt them daider than a fish haid. That's how they talked back then. I could talk some good Deadwood too but they won't let me.
 
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