Programmer's Death on Office Toilet Ruled Not Work-Related — He Never Turned On His PC

• Source: Dexerto
• Verdict: toss
• Why: Xing Zhi, 39, father of two, arrived at his Shenzhen office's parking garage at 8:56, clocked in, asked a security guard where the bathroom was, went in at 9:01, and never came back out. Found unconscious at 11:28, confirmed dead at 12:50. The Shenzhen Human Resources and Social Security Bureau rejected the work-related death claim because he hadn't reached his 11th-floor workstation or done any work. His workstation was eleven floors away. He was usually leaving at 9pm. The lawyer's argument — bathrooms are a reasonable extension of the work position, dying in one is a workplace death — is exactly right, and a 2024 Guangdong case agrees: a chef who collapsed in a workplace bathroom was ruled work-related. The lesson, delivered in the key of gallows humor: clock in before you shit. The version that actually matters: this is what the labor system looks like when the employer's paper trail outranks the human being.