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Mourning loss as a remote team

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Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#161

Post by GGfpc »

bckr wrote: post #158
ralmidani wrote: post #73

I interviewed with my current company (where we work mostly-remote) last year. One of my interviewers was a very sharp, experienced, and nice developer. After I learned they were going to make me an offer, I emailed my interviewers, and this developer emailed me back saying he was looking forward to working together. The week before I started, he passed away in a car accident. I was really looking forward to working…

> We don’t say we’re “a family” My favorite way of framing this discussion is use the term "village". A village is a close-knit group of people with aligned interests (economic and otherwise), activities, rituals, beliefs, and ties of friendship.

if I hear the expression "it takes a village" on more fucking time I will quit my job and become a baker

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#162

Post by bckr »

supernovae wrote: post #85
supertofu wrote: post #2

This was heartbreaking to read. What disturbs me most is the lack of any face-to-face time for this distributed team. I understand that not everyone likes to use a webcam, but to have gone 7 years without ever seeing your colleague's face seems, in my opinion, a symptom of a big managerial problem. Software engineers are usually humans, and teams composed of humans should make some effort to interact in a human way -…

Depression is something we never talk about and don’t treat as a health concern. My daughter attempted suicide and it wasn’t for any reasons I could relate to. That was a hard lesson for me. What i did learn is that depression is taboo, therapy isn’t talked about openly, insurance doesn’t cover therapy well and there aren’t enough therapists in existence that the burden of depression seems to heavy. It’s not because…

> That was a hard lesson for me

Let me tell you: you are a good parent merely for having this attitude.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#163

Post by bckr »

GGfpc wrote: post #161
bckr wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don’t say we’re “a family” My favorite way of framing this discussion is use the term "village". A village is a close-knit group of people with aligned interests (economic and otherwise), activities, rituals, beliefs, and ties of friendship.

if I hear the expression "it takes a village" on more fucking time I will quit my job and become a baker

Well, I didn't say "it takes a village". I merely used the word "village".

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#164

Post by pbourke »

idontknowifican wrote: post #69
NotAWorkNick wrote: post #14

Disclaimer: I'm about to disclose some personal information so will probably burn this nick shortly. I am slowly going blind (long, boring story; only relevance to the topic is during a discussion with the eye-guy consultant he mentioned that he had had a close personal friend of his kill himself the day after a night out and that he (the consultant) wished that he had been able to somehow sense that his friend was s…

)))

Tell me you’re a lisp programmer without telling me you’re a lisp programmer

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#165

Post by rvba »

dvtrn wrote: post #88

Pete would ask to work more hours. He claimed he could use the money. He was a contractor remember Amidst the loss here, this line stood out to me and brings to mind all the terrible ways contractors are taken advantage of, or at least, treated and compensated vastly different than their "staff"/"full-time" peers who are often doing the exact same work . For fun, google the phrase "permatemp". E.g. I had a past job a…

MBA way of doing business.

On a sidr note: at least they were paid for overtime.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#166

Post by freedomben »

haswell wrote: post #138
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I would argue that it’s both. It’s not seriously discussed because it’s under-discussed. I think most people understand the seriousness of cancer, or a heart attack, or other life threatening ailments. They accept that those things are often outside of one’s control, and so there is never any hesitation to take it seriously. When someone in a work setting is diagnosed with something serious, everyone pays attention.…

> Mental health issues are hard for some people to understand if they haven’t experienced their own challenges.

Bingo. This is the root of the problem IMHO. We're really good at recognizing and empathizing with a gaping physical wound, but if we can't see it/touch it/feel it/etc it's hard to grok.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#167

Post by [deleted] »

scarface74 wrote: post #119
supertofu wrote: post #2

This was heartbreaking to read. What disturbs me most is the lack of any face-to-face time for this distributed team. I understand that not everyone likes to use a webcam, but to have gone 7 years without ever seeing your colleague's face seems, in my opinion, a symptom of a big managerial problem. Software engineers are usually humans, and teams composed of humans should make some effort to interact in a human way -…

If a company cares about their employees getting to know each other - and they should - and they are distributed, they should budget for travel for them to meet in a central place - not withstanding a worldwide pandemic. No, cameras and “virtual happy hours” don’t cut it. I was hired remotely 6/2020 and the rest of my division is remote. I didn’t meet any of my coworkers until 9/2022. I didn’t meet most of my teammat…

[deleted]

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#168

Post by newaccount74 »

refurb wrote: post #102
VariableStar wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd like to think that if you spend 8 hours a day with someone everyday, and suddenly they are gone, it would be a decent thing to tell you what happened to them.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#169

Post by rmk »

I think human connection and doing things as a community has fallen by the wayside in the modern world. It will be particularly bad with fully remote work: most people do better cognitively and emotionally when they have contact with a variety of people and have the changes of scene that are part of a normal day.

It's also sad to see the complete disconnect at the workplace, where people are no longer building relationships thanks to remote work. I do not know about others, but I am loath to discuss personal life on slack or on zoom. I am much more likely to do it at lunch, in person, with colleagues, or in hallway conversations. Nothing at remote work in the past two years has replaced that.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#170

Post by BoorishBears »

maleldil wrote: post #117
evancoop wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do you think it wasn't acknowledged specifically because it was suicide, or was it an overall culture of not addressing the cause of death in general? Because the second one sounds fine to me.

How is it fine?

Causes of death are not fungible, dying in a freak accident and dying from suicide in a high pressure setting should not be treated the same.

Especially since we know that suicide can act like a contagion: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207262/#_sec_0078_ and the demands of the program they were in were almost certainly a factor

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