a nice gesture (though the mere thought of such a spectacle occurring at my own funeral just absolutely mortifies me)
I do have to make a comment about the article though. The author said it was done in order to "surprise the family".. really?...surprise the family???. We are talking about a funeral here, are we not? I thought it was done in order to honor their fellow co-worker. I guess I've just never heard of surprising people at funerals before....but I guess I've lived a sheltered existence.
i'm hoping this was just amateurish writing on the author's part, because if that in fact was their true motive, then they were simply upholding a long-held Fed-Ex tradition of doing decent things for the wrong reasons.
Many years ago, we had a courier lost to a vehicle accident at my station. Mgmt encouraged us to show up at the funeral in FedEx uniform and vehicles. (remember - this employee was killed at work in a FedEx vehicle)..To a person, we all immediately vetoed that idea - opting instead to drive there in our personal cars wearing our personal funeral-appropriate attire, fearing such a spectacle could be disrespectful and even traumatic to members of the bereaved family. Even though those were still considered "the good old days", we still weren't about to use a tragic occasion to put the company brand out there...especially considering the circumstances.