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Mourning loss as a remote team

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Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#261

Post by dhosek »

It's somewhat surprising to think that in the course of 30+ years of work life, I've only had two co-workers die. I wasn't especially close with either of them, but the contrast is noteworthy.

The first, was a suicide of a teammate who was in his 20s. The company's reaction was kind of shitty. They didn't point the other team members to things like the EAP. They didn't offer bereavement time to the team members. They even docked time from PTO allotments for those who missed a half-day of work to attend the funeral.

The second, was a teammate in his 30s who died from cancer. I've been remote with the team since the beginning and never met anyone in person. He'd been struggling with health issues for the few months he was with us (he'd come back from a 6-month medical leave of absence before joining our team). The level of empathy and support from management at all levels was superlative. They made sure that we were aware of all the support that was available, let us know we were able to take off time if we needed it to process his death (including a member of the team who's a contractor), etc. Suffice it to say that I'm very happy with my current employer and know that they have my back if I need support.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#262

Post by fiznool »

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…

This is probably an unpopular opinion but as a contractor, I’m not expecting to be fully integrated into a company, nor lauded for my efforts. As a contractor, I understand that I am plugging a gap at short notice, on a temporary basis. I anticipate coming in, being useful and getting paid well to do so. I then expect to leave and find something else. The flexibility, autonomy and well-remunerated nature of contracting is what appeals to me - integrating with co-workers and compliments on my work are a distant second.

As an aside, if you are being compensated less than permanent employees as a contractor, then your rate is not high enough. The ‘fully loaded’ cost of a permanent employee is higher than their stated salary, due to tax, insurance, pension contributions etc - all of these need to be deducted from the contractor’s billable rate to provide an accurate comparison between the two.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#263

Post by sacrosancty »

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.…

Depression and suicidal thoughts have a lot of public awareness and sympathy, at least in my country which has had public health campaigns about it. There are still many mental health problems that are stigmatized because they come with behaviors and feelings that are rightly stigamitized in normal people who have the power to not do them. Things like anxiety, anger, violence, inappropriate sexual feelings, and self-pity.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#264

Post by sinsterizme »

treis wrote: post #101
cookiecaper wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yo…

I’m of the former opinion and it boggles the mind a bit thinking that some people view the place they spend the majority of their waking hours as ancillary to their “real life.” Maybe my real life is just boring though :p

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#265

Post by CrispinS »

illender wrote: post #199

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 t…

I can relate, and I was in a similar situation not too long ago. I remember dreading weekends because there was nothing to stop me from curling up in a ball and crying the whole day.

And honestly, if you've taken advantage of FMLA, you're actually doing better at taking steps to help yourself than I was!

Medication really helped me. I've been on bupropion for about two years, and it's made for a drastic improvement. I'm actually able to see things for how they actually are, and not let every minor stumbling block or criticism make me think I'm a complete and utter failure.

If recommend finding a mental health clinic nearby and scheduling an appointment to talk about depression. The appointment will probably take half an hour, and at the end the doctor will give you a prescription. This is extremely routine -- you're not suffering from anything a million people haven't gone through already.

If you're scared on being institutionalized or something, just... Selectively tell the truth. I mean, I can't say this is the best idea, but it's what I did when the psychiatrist asked me if I had suicidal thoughts.

I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that your brain is just another body part. If your knee hurts, you go to a doctor and get it looked at. If your vision is blurry, you go to an optometrist and get glasses. If your brain is giving incorrect responses to stimuli, you go to a psychiatrist and get medication. It's fine and it's normal.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#266

Post by fsckboy »

I really liked that his wife figured out how to submit a support ticket to send the death notice to his company, seems fitting in the age of remote work and in no way diminishing. As a tech geek, the tools of the trade are as comfortable as a favorite sweater, there's nothing wrong with a support ticket.

Reminds me of something slightly humorous I encountered back in the 90's, based on my particular career path. I had used unix extensively in the time before tilde meant "login/home directory". Then I moved to windows and was doing C++ dev, where tilde means destructor. Reading Slashdot one day, there was an announcement that somebody had died, with a link to page about him, and it used an URL with a tilde and his name for his homepage, they way universities often did. Not knowing the convention, I thought "oh cool, somebody set up a memorial page and they used the destructor syntax in tribute!"

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#268

Post by hoten »

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

It takes a village to support a successful bakery.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#269

Post by waylandsmithers »

busterarm wrote: post #10
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 -…

You'd be surprised how normal this is, historically, among remote-first companies (pre-pandemic). A decade or so ago, I worked at a remote-only company with 1600 employees and we never cammed up. We had a large number of employees with serious medical conditions or other personal issues that prevented them from holding down normal jobs and really appreciated not having to go on video.

Not that long ago conference or regular phone calls with no video at all were the norm and we seemed to get along fine

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#270

Post by eric-hu »

civilized wrote: post #243
eric-hu wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a long term, full time contractor from about 2015 until 2019. It worked out better for me since I was working as a nomad abroad. Around 2019, my client wanted me on as an employee. I never found out the precise motivations, but I suspect it had to do with the contractor laws getting tightened down for rideshare drivers. I suspect that I could have remained a contractor by the letter of the law, but that still m…

For all we know, some attorney general was ginning up to collectively punish businesses that use contractors because recent press had made such businesses politically attractive targets. And your client was just trying to stay out of the crosshairs. You can be compliant with the spirit of the law and still be targeted by some ideologue using the law as a cudgel.

Yes that’s exactly the way I’d characterize the public sentiment towards “businesses with many contractors” at that time.
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