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Mourning loss as a remote team

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Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#191

Post by civilized »

dvtrn wrote: post #146
_bfhp wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some time the future generations will come to consider this contractor/employee dichotomy with the same disgust we have for child labor. Same with surrogacy and many other things.

Funny you say that, the entire reason I even opened my mouth was because I used to be on those contractor teams early in my career. Experienced it first hand. It sucked. I knew how much it sucked. I promised to be a better leader than the ones I had and saw.

It's a glaringly obvious caste system. I hardly see the difference between being punished for praising a contractor and being shunned for associating with an "untouchable".

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#192

Post by icecap12 »

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…

Your comment REALLY resonates with me. When I was fresh out of school, I joined an enterprise software team as a junior engineer. The team was mostly FTEs, but there were 2 or 3 contractors as well - one of whom was extremely talented. It was the talented one that everybody ganged up on. He was ridiculed (it was supposed to be in good fun but I think it went too far), and he was abused and given all the hard problems to solve. Here's the thing - this guy made up for all the rest of those shitty FTEs. He fixed all their problems, he did all the real work, developed the best features, and fixed all the hard bugs. The lead engineer was an absolute joke (I once caught him making changes to a live production database). The roles were all reversed.

Well, it didn't sit well with me then, and I became friends with that guy and the other contractors. We're still friends to this day. I'd say he got the last laugh because he started his own company and is doing well. But I promised myself that I would never treat any contractor like that ever. I'm a Director now, with a team of my own. Similarly, it has a few contractors, and every single one of those guys is treated like an FTE, with regular 1x1s, objectives, and personal development. As a leader, I invest the time in them like they're my own, because they are people too - regardless of the SSO number or the ".consultant" in their email address.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#193

Post by darkwater »

freedomben wrote: post #166
haswell wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think the biggest issue comes from thinking that since it's in the mind and not in the body, you can just cure it by yourself: be happy, not depressed! Which is obviously wrong and comes from ignorance.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#194

Post by broth »

I have been working fully remote for over two years now. I certainly feel quite disconnected from my team now. I remember the days of commuting, water cooler talk, and just being around people.

I’ve been with my employer for a long time now and have experienced a lot of coworkers passing away. Cancer, heart attacks, suicide, and undisclosed. The whole spectrum. Some of these coworkers I worked close with while others not so much. Either way it affects you and really puts things into perspective with how fleeting our lives are. Thinking about this gives me a lump in my throat.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#195

Post by willcipriano »

Angostura wrote: post #135
willcipriano wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fu…

I suspect that there are probably literally an infinity of thoughts and concepts that it is acceptable to talk about at work.

Everything except politics, religion, sexuality, drug use, firearms, philosophy and your ambitions in life (unless they are die working here).

You also don't want to bring up things like playing video games too much, or going out for drinks too often, unless people get the wrong impression about you. Getting too personal about issues you are facing in life also can be career limiting.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#196

Post by [deleted] »

jeandejean wrote: post #22

That's the very reason why I don't want full remote as a norm. I want to see my people and meet colleagues, for a good laugh or whatever but for human interactions that I value a lot. Very sad story here, twice as sad with that profound lack of human interaction...

[deleted]

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#199

Post by illender »

Ive been on fmla since first week of jan. i'm trading self harm for more time. the thoughts are killing me slowly until i lose the battle. i'm desperatly trying to bring myself to call EAP and get in a hospital but that scares me even more. I tried to resign my remote job and they refused to accept it and sent the cops. i don't know why i'm sharing this here. The entire company went on holiday and i volunteered for the week between xmas and new years to keep distracted.
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