Break a leg, crush a head

There's a strange compliment people pay in my line of work: they imagine out loud what would happen if you got hit by a bus. Those are literally the words they use: "What would we do if you were hit by a bus?" and "Are we prepared if so-and-so gets run over by a bus?" Sometimes it's a Mack Truck.

This question is posed out loud, at meetings, often with the crushee sitting right there at the table. And amazingly, under the circumstances, it's quite flattering. It's the same as a friend saying, "What would I ever do without you?" But in the work setting we can't exactly say it that way -- too personal, I suppose. Instead, we have to conjure an image of your gruesome and untimely death and then imagine how that would affect everyone else.

So, I was sitting in a meeting recently where a manager envisioned a member of our team getting crushed like a bug and wondering how we would cope blah blah blah, and I found myself wishing it were me under that mental bus. I've been the subject of the splatter scenario before, but it's been a while. Am I slipping? Do I need to be doing more work that puts me out there on the edge and in front of dangerous moving vehicles? What if I'm forever destined to NOT be the victim of imaginary runaway semis?

I know -- it's a terrible thought, and it haunts me.