Fast Company iPad edition promotion


Expert Perspective

Work/Life: Custom Tombstones For Those Too Busy to Deal

BY Tom Stern | 04-04-2008 | 2:49 AM
This article is written by a member of our expert contributor community.

 

  • On this day in 1841, United States President William Henry Harrison ended the shortest term of any American chief executive (32 days after his swearing-in) by dying of pneumonia.   Talk about not getting a shot at making good on that promotion.   A friend of mine quipped that perhaps the inscription on Harrison’s tombstone should have read, “maybe I shouldn’t have sworn so solemnly.” 
  • And it got me to thinking about how busy we all get, and how the fickle finger of fate may step in right when we’re about to close that million-dollar deal, cutting off not only our chances to make a million dollars, but making us miss another important PTA meeting; this time, finally, for a legitimate reason.  
  • Sure, if I had my way, I might ask that my epitaph in stone contain the usual platitudes: Loving Father, Adoring Husband; Beloved By All Who Knew Him; Gone But Not Forgotten.  But this week, I solicited a few trusted and game-for-a-laugh friends, and even my oldest daughter (she’s twelve, and, like many of that age weaned on slime-laden game shows on Nickelodeon, has no problem with morbid humor) to come up with painfully honest tombstone sayings that would sum me up if I should kick the bucket tomorrow.  I will not say which friend came up with which saying (they submitted their entries on a promise of anonymity), and my daughter, who also submitted anonymously, has nonetheless challenged readers to guess which one is hers.   Here, then, in no particular order, are some fitting headstone inscriptions for a man struggling with work/life balance:  
  1. “I Believe This is What They Call The Bottom Line.”
  2. “ The Final Core Competency.”
  3. “Because I Could Not Downsize For Death, He Kindly Downsized Me.”
  4. “At Last, Thinking Inside the Box.”
  5. “Quite the Paradigm Shift.”
  6. “Unlimited Night and Weekend Minutes.”
  7. “Now I Know How It Feels To Be Penciled In.”
  8. “I’m Going To Have to Reschedule That Lunch.”
  9. “You Want It When?”
  10. “Going…Going…GONE.” 
  • If anyone else has any epitaphs they might receive from a brutally honest friend (or themselves), feel free to send them in.