In the days after seven of their co-workers were gunned down by afellow employee, workers at Xerox Corp. in Hawaii did what their gut -and heart - told them to do. There wasn't any other way.
As officials at Edgewater Technology are certainly finding outthese days, following the deaths of seven of their workers, there areno manuals on what to do next. These are not situations that anyoneprepares for, and they can leave a company in limbo, especially asmall company like Edgewater. For Xerox, and likely for Edgewater,it's a time to make up the rules as events unfold.
What Xerox employees did first, as a group, was to pray. And atthat prayer session, two days after the tragedy in November 1999,they decided to go back to work the next day. They decided it was theone sure way they could pay tribute to their friends who had died.
At corporate headquarters, Xerox officals acted swiftly to makesure that the needs of surviving employees and the families of thedead were met. Counselors were brought in. Security was increased.Funeral arrangements were made, and paid for, by the company.
But the primary concern on the mind of Rich Thoman, then chiefexecutive of Xerox, was the future of the families that had lostsomeone.
According to Glenn Sexton, the Hawaii division vice president andgeneral manager, Thoman wanted to do "the right thing," and thatmeant assuring the families that they would not have to worry aboutthe future.
The company made payments to each family based on the deceased'sfuture earning potential, minus benefits, workers' compensation, andlife insurance. There were no strings attached to the payments,Sexton said.
Sexton would not disclose the amount paid to each family or thetotal, though he did confirm that the company had paid out more thana million dollars.
"The effort was to try and protect the quality of life for thefamilies," Sexton said.
To date, the company has not faced litigation from any of thevictims' families. However, Xerox is facing two lawsuits from peopleclaiming mental anguish, one from a contractor who found the bodiesand another from an employee who was spared by the gunman.
Edgewater is not likely to face suits from the families, accordingto a Boston personal injury lawyer. David White-Lief of the firm ofBreakstone, White-Lief, and Gluck said injuries at work, includingdeath, are covered under Massachusetts law by workers' compensation.
Other facets of the future aren't as clear, such as the company'sown prospects. As an Internet consulting company, Edgewater is in aprecarious position, in a slumping sector of the economy.
Like Edgewater, the Pettit & Martin law firm in San Francisco wasalso facing uncertain times when a man opened fire in its offices andkilled nine people in 1993. Two years later, the firm closed.
While some former members of the firm say that Pettit & Martin washeaded for financial trouble, like other law firms in the mid-1990s,other members say the shooting probably had something to do with itsdemise.
"It was kind of a rough time anyway," said Michele Marinaro, thenmanager of recruitment and development for the firm, which numberedmore than 200. "While a lot of the partners have said it wasn'ttotally the reason for the closing, it certainly didn't helpmatters."
Dru Ramey, executive director of the Bar Association of SanFrancisco, said the shootings were "the coup de grace" for the firm,adding that the event "completely shattered everyone there."
"I think this firm would have made it if this didn't happen,"Ramey said.
While Xerox has faced turbulent times of late, Sexton said thatthe Hawaii division has performed well since the shootings and thatthe company's customers seemed to rally behind them. He also said heknows of no employee who left the company because of the slayings.
Then there is the issue of actually going back to the office.Ramey said that for years the building that housed Pettit & Martinhad a stigma attached to it. "Nobody wanted to go in it," she said.
Xerox closed the floor of the warehouse building where theshootings occurred, and the company is in the process of moving to anew warehouse altogether.
At Ferguson Enterprises Inc. in Pelham, Ala., employees still cometo work each day at the scene of two killings by a co-worker inAugust 1999. One employee, who shared an office with one of thosekilled, still works inches from where his friend was murdered.
"To work in the office like that, I bet it's a little spooky,"said Chris Nicoletta, operations manager for the heating and airconditioning equipment supply company. "I work in the office rightnext to it. But we totally cleaned it out. We took out the desk. Werepainted the whole room.
"When we got done, it looked like nothing had happened."
SIDEBAR: A look back Mass shootings in the workplace have affecteddifferent companies in various ways. Some recovered; some closedtheir doors; others underwent major changes. Some examples: PLEASEREFER TO MICROFILM FOR CHART DATA. GLOBE STAFF GRAPHIC
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