A discussion about business ethics, character traits, integrity, and values

Many years ago, apparently….

In jolly old England, a relatively small island where available land is always rare, the cemeteries began filling up. To make room to bury more people, they dug up old coffins and reused the grave.

In this process, it was noticed that many of the coffins had scratch marks on the inside – meaning that some people – as many as one in 25 – had been buried alive. It was decided from then on to tie long strings to the wrist of every corpse, lead the string up through the coffin and to the surface, where the string was tied to a small bell suspended above the grave.

Some poor chap got the job of sitting in the graveyard all night to listen for bells. If a bell sounded, the body would be immediately retrieved. This is where the expressions "the graveyard shift," "saved by the bell," and, of course, "dead ringer" came from.