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Mourning loss as a remote team

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Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#101

Post by treis »

cookiecaper wrote: post #76
avgcorrection wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's more to being a leader than shipping a volume of features, you are also an important figure in the lives of your team and they need you in a time of crisis. deleted

It sounds distasteful only because the vast majority of bosses out there aren't worthy of the mantle. An individual's relationship with their immediate boss is one of those intimate things in life and it deserves sanctity. Help your people and don't be a dick and you'll be amazed at the bounty of unearned gratitude that comes back around -- and often not just once, but continuing for years. Being a good boss is "the…

>An individual's relationship with their immediate boss is one of those intimate things in life and it deserves sanctity.

I think there's a fundamental divide between people. Some see the workplace and the people in it as an integral part of their life. Others see it as a place they spend 40 hours a week that enables them to live their actual life. Neither are wrong and I think a lot depends on the type of company you work for. For me personally there's nothing intimate or sanctified about my relationship with my boss.

But I do agree with your general point. Being someone's boss can have a large impact on their life. I'd reach for terms like responsible, ethical, or kind.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#102

Post by refurb »

VariableStar wrote: post #74
vlunkr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this the norm? I don't see why they wouldn't at least announce it an email. It's a bit of a weird topic for a work email, but it's certainly better than doing absolutely nothing.

I do not know if it is the norm but I have also worked at an organization where one employee committed suicide. Leadership said nothing and everything was toned down. Some people spoke up and complained though. My interpretation is that the response was a combination of culture (although suicide is not "taboo" here it is not a preferred topic) and not wanting to bring undue attention to the organization.

What do you mean “said nothing” as in they stopped showing up and management pretended nothing happened?

Or the person died and they didn’t say it was a suicide.

Because if it’s the 2nd, that seems pretty normal. My right to know doesnt trump the family’s right to privacy.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#103

Post by nkrisc »

I had a coworker who passed from cancer some years ago. He never acknowledged it but he knew it was coming. When his time finally came his wife talked to the team leadership and invited all of us to the wake. I thought it was incredibly thoughtful of her to do so. We were all given a paid day off work and went to the wake and met people from his family and personal life. It seemed a little strange that even though many of us weren’t really part of his personal life, we were still part of at least some small part of his life nonetheless. I thought it was a really nice way of dealing with it.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#104

Post by joshuahutt »

We lost a coworker to COVID-19, early on during the pandemic. It was surreal to go from seeing his smiling face in the hall to reading the company-wide email about his passing. We had a virtual memorial service, and his friends, parents, and colleagues were all invited to share their stories about him. It was an emotional experience. For all the things I could complain about at that company, how they handled this situation was probably the most comforting and humane thing they could have been done.

It still makes me tear up to think about. He was so young and so cheerful. So full of life. Having faced loss like the article describes, I can't say that the nature of the loss makes much of a difference. Death affects everyone close to it, pretty universally. Questions about whether it was preventable or not, fair or unfair, etc., only serve to color our painful rumination.

Every so often, I'll remember him, and I'll repeat one of his catch-phrases to a friend who was on his team. Inconsequential as this might be, I like to keep the good memories of him alive.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#105

Post by NAHWheatCracker »

vlunkr wrote: post #58
dougmwne wrote: post #13

My partner sat in the same cube pod as someone who took their life. One day they were just gone and a crying family member came by to take away a box of things. There was no official acknowledgement of what happened, no service or memorializing, only hushed whispers. It was terrible. Thank you for your humane response to Pete's death, for creating room for the team to grieve and official acknowledgement that it was n…

Is this the norm? I don't see why they wouldn't at least announce it an email. It's a bit of a weird topic for a work email, but it's certainly better than doing absolutely nothing.

Not acknowledging a death is wild, but a lot of organizations normalize only discussing positive project-related accomplishments.

When the day-to-day doesn't address the simple human aspects of work, it becomes even harder to address the difficult aspects.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#106

Post by noirbot »

lostlogin wrote: post #50

> He was a contractor remember, so more hours means more money, and I could reconcile this without thinking twice. In a very depressing topic, this caught my eye. It’s a shame that it’s normalised for so many that extra work doesn’t mean extra pay. Salaried work seems a bit evil like.

See, I feel like it's almost the opposite - I like salaried because I work my 40 and then feel no guilt for slacking off after that unless it's an incident/emergency. If I had a contract that paid me for overtime/hourly, I'd have days where I didn't have anything going on in the evening and it would be harder to not just put in an extra couple hours of work for some extra money.

It feels like a similar debate to the "unlimited vacation" discussions. It really depends on what your natural proclivities are to determine which option of the options is "a bit evil" and which is "natural"

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#107

Post by tonyarkles »

devmunchies wrote: post #92
brassattax wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moment you realize HR is there to serve the company's interests, not the employee's, your expectation of them changes.

Are there any orgs that don’t serve the company?

I say this both being a non-unionized often-contractor, but in some other industries that would be the union. Ignoring all the politics sounds that, growing up I certainly got to witness my dad’s coworkers and union come together to help out their members personally when tragedy struck, as well as planning social events and fundraisers. Some parts of union can be really bad, but they’re not exclusively bad.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#108

Post by DiggyJohnson »

evancoop wrote: post #93
dougmwne wrote: post #13

My partner sat in the same cube pod as someone who took their life. One day they were just gone and a crying family member came by to take away a box of things. There was no official acknowledgement of what happened, no service or memorializing, only hushed whispers. It was terrible. Thank you for your humane response to Pete's death, for creating room for the team to grieve and official acknowledgement that it was n…

During my doctoral years, two students in my department took their own lives (separate events, to be clear). The events themselves were horribly tragic, but the lack of even a clear acknowledgement of the causes of death left a surreal sense of denial. Mental health is an enormously under-discussed issue in an increasingly digital society that hides suffering in so many of us. Work becomes an increasingly integral el…

Mental health isn’t underdiscussed, it’s just not discussed seriously enough.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#109

Post by willcipriano »

Angostura wrote: post #89
willcipriano wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, "my people" are at home. The transactional work relationships do nothing for me on a human or social level. It's like when a pretty waitress is nice to you, it means little since she is paid to be nice.

whereas I generally like people. You say: "The transactional work relationships do nothing for me on a human or social level" perhaps the mistake you are making is seeing any interaction with the people at work as purely transactional - or being absolutely determined to keep it that way. I have a family and kids and friends. But I absolutely have friends who I have made at work as well. I quite regularly go out for a…

Here's the problem. If I talk with my friends and misspeak or say something I don't mean, worst case is I lose the friendship. At work I lose my livelyhood. That means I have to have a constant cognitive overhead at all times at work, I am unable to explore ideas that don't fit into that narrow box. If your life fits entirely into the confines of polite society maybe you don't have this worry, but I can't bring my full self into these situations and that makes it feel transactional to me.

The narrow workplace acceptable box is full of activities and thoughts that I'm long bored of. That means workplace interactions will be boring by definition.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#110

Post by KuhlMensch »

devmunchies wrote: post #92
brassattax wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moment you realize HR is there to serve the company's interests, not the employee's, your expectation of them changes.

Are there any orgs that don’t serve the company?

In a HR org that is damaging to the company, they always side with the company; What is unique to HR, is that can often turn them AGAINST an individual worker.
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