I can’t die at my desk unnoticed. Oh well.

Teaching isn’t the easiest or the best paying job, but I have always wanted to teach and am happy that I chose this profession. In addition to the daily joys that it brings, I have found some of my best friends through teaching.  Colleagues, the parents of students and even former students, now all grown up, have become some of the most important people in my life. I had no idea that teaching would fill my life with so many extraordinary people.

And there’s the added bonus that if I were to ever die on the job, one of my two dozen students would undoubtedly notice my corpse before long.

They are observant that way.

Not so for Rebecca Wells, a 51-year-old Department of Internal Services worker who died in her cubicle on Friday, February 16 in Los Angeles County and went unnoticed until the following day.

There may be days when I wish the kids mistook me for dead and just left me alone for a few minutes, but this is taking that desire to an extreme.